Lost and Saved

 

Do your parents use an app on their phones or one their dashboard to help them when they travel? We rely on these devices to help us get to some place and back home again.

Before we had mobile phones, we used paper maps. Before paper maps people found their way by asking for directions or navigating by the stars. When we travel, we don’t always get to where we want to be. Sometimes we get lost. Have you ever been lost?

One afternoon, when my wife and I lived in California, we were looking for a restaurant and followed the directions on my phone. We drove out into the country on a paved road, then a gravel road and eventually onto a dirt road before we realized that we were driving through a cow pasture! We were lost!!!

In our Gospel today (Lk 2:40-52), Joseph and Mary were concerned as they were travelling home from Jerusalem. They weren’t lost, but their son, Jesus was lost.

When we or someone we know gets lost, we worry and become afraid. Joseph and Mary were worried sick that they might never again see their son. So, when they found Jesus, and told him how worried they were, he asked, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you not know that I would be here?”

Jesus obeyed them and ended up going home with his parents. It’s a good lesson for us to be obedient to our parents for they love us very much. Our Heavenly Father also loves us and sent His Son to find us because we get lost when we leave Him. So, today, thank God for sending His Son who loves us and saves us, and thank God for giving you loving parents.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and earth is named: Bless all children, and give their fathers and mothers the spirit of wisdom and love, so that the homes in which they grow up may be to them an image of Your Kingdom, and the care of their parents a likeness of Your love. We pray in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.