Instead of returning home with his family, he stayed in Jerusalem, in the Temple, causing great distress to Mary and Joseph who were unable to find him. For this little "escapade", Jesus probably had to beg forgiveness of his parents. The Gospel doesn't say this, but I believe that we can presume it.
"Now, about your Guardian articles, Father Fraser..."
Clearly Pope Francis has forgiven Our Lord for "going about His Father's business", and in this Year of Mercy it is only right that a truly humble Pope should point out God's sins and try to forgive them. No previous Pope has even dared to try.
Another famous sin that only Pope Francis can forgive was the drowning of the Gerasene (or Gadarene) Swine. You will recall that there was a man possessed by demons - probably he led a fulfilling lifestyle as an alternative comedian on Radio 4, with a huge Twitter following - and his demons were driven out into the pigs, and thence into the sea.
Jesus cureth the alternative comedian.
For a long time after, Farmer Giles wondered what had happened to his pigs, but did he receive any apology - let alone compensation - from Jesus? I think not. It is time for Pope Francis, on behalf of the entire Catholic Church, to forgive Jesus's thoughtless actions.
On another occasion Jesus drove people out of the Temple with a whip of knotted cords - whenever anyone says "What would Jesus do?" this is certainly an answer I like to give. The Bible says the people were selling pigeons and changing money, but it is likely that they were also doing even more heinous things.
"Luckily he hasn't seen that we're also selling copies of the Tablet!"
Jesus was obliged to apologise for losing his temper in this way. In the immortal words of Pope Francis: The Gospel doesn't say this, but I believe that we can presume it.
Having, in his short reign, attacked the entire Catholic Church, from the Curia downwards, Pope Francis is naturally anxious to reconstruct God in his own image, and we look forward to reading more stories of the Holy Father mercifully forgiving God's sins over the next few months.
I thought the same thing when I read the Holy Father's homily.
ReplyDeleteNever thought about the possessed pigs before though...
Oh, well...
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
God probably needs forgiving for healing Jarius' daughter because she might have been an organ donor. Since Jesus healed her, her organs were then no longer available to be sold to the local doctors for the highest bid thereby denying the "good that her organs would do for others". Jarius' daughter, being healed - that is alive again - selfishly kept her organs.
ReplyDeleteChrist has two natures, He is perfectly God and perfectly Man. At twelve however, He as a human being was still subject to His parents. As with Pilate, He submitted to their authority over Him having first asserted His divinity.
ReplyDeleteThe bar mitzah for a boy is usually held at age 13 but anyway is something that only appears much later than biblical times. However could not the fact that he was allowed to preach in the temple indicate that the Jews at that time regarded him as an adult and therefore no longer subject to his parents?
DeleteI think that we make a mistake when we try to make a tempro- spatial analysis of events that happened in Our Lord's early life: events then, were economically and culturally specific to the time in which they occurred and therefore totally different to our way of thinking.
ReplyDeleteOne example of this is the Money Lenders being driven from the temple with a knotted cord. To understand what happened needs translating into our own economic terms. Think of Christ as the Labour PM who on seeing Quantitative Easing is not working, has a quick Whip round for the Bankers.
Hope this helps.