Day: December 29, 2024

December 29, 2024
Saint Mark Catholic Church
Argyle, Texas

1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28
Psalm 84:2-3, 5-6, 9-10
Colossians 3:12-21
Luke 2:41-52

The Church offers us in today’s liturgy of the Solemnity of the Holy Family the Gospel story that recounts the event that we reflect upon when praying the fifth joyful mystery of the Rosary: Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple. The 12-year-old Jesus who stays behind in the Temple in Jerusalem unbeknown to Joseph and Mary who, surprised and anxious, discover Him three days later conversing with the teachers in the Temple. Jesus answers His mother who asks for an explanation that He must “be in his Father’s house,” that is God’s house. The Gospel relates that Mary and Joseph do not understand the meaning of Jesus’ response and then adds that Jesus returned with them in obedience and “advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God.”