(1 Samuel 3 Luke 2: 41-51)  

When you take scripture and read it with age and vocation in mind, some passages especially stand out. 

Samuel 

This story is told in the first book of Samuel, chapter three. 

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. Samuel was young. His mother Hannah had dedicated him to the Lord from an early age, and he lived in the temple and served under Eli the priest at a time when he was very useful to the old man, who was going blind. 

One night the Lord called, "Samuel! Samuel!" and he said, "Here I am!" and ran to Eli, and said, "Here I am for you called me." But he said, "I did not call; lie down again." Since he hadn't called him, Eli must have thought it was the boy's imagination, so he sent him back to sleep. That happened three times until finally Eli realized that there was something more at work and told Samuel what to do when next he heard the voice.  

Despite his young age, God spoke to Samuel and called him. Samuel himself never thought it might be God, and neither at first did it occur to Eli. If it did he dismissed the thought in the wisdom of his years. But God insisted. If we don't read between the lines, Eli's reaction after the third call, of telling the boy what to do, seems natural and without particular merit. But, on reflection, it could not have been easy for him.  

For Eli, Samuel had taken the place of his own sons who had gone astray and respected him no longer and were not faithful to Yahweh. Samuel must have been dear to him, for years before he had seen the boy's mother pray for a child, and had promised her that her prayer would be answered, and Samuel was that child. You can imagine his attachment to the boy, the care with which he educated him, and the consolation the young boy's service and righteousness was to him. But now God had intervened and Eli had to let go of this consolation and tell Samuel, basically, I am no longer your master and teacher; listen to the Lord, do what he tells you to do. That took a lot of letting go. He did not say, when you have listened to the Lord, report back to me to see if you should do what he says.  

Eli acquires even greater stature in our eyes as the story goes on: he asks Samuel, What was it that he said to you? Samuel tells him and it was not pleasant news for Eli, it was the prophecy of God's punishment on his sons. Eli does not reject God's message because it comes through the mouth of a boy, his pupil. He says, it is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.  

Simeon and Anna 

On the other end of the age spectrum we have two people who appear in the New Testament (Luke 2:25-38) but are really of the Old.  

God had promised Simeon that he would not die until he saw the savior, and Anna was an eighty-four-year-old prophetess. They appear briefly on the gospel scene inspired by the Holy Spirit to do the one thing God had prepared each one for, before again receding from our sight. They came, beheld the Child, gave their witness and then, just as completely, disappeared from the scene. It is not too much to suppose that life ended for both soon afterwards.  

Mysterious, God's call and his use of his creatures.  

the boy Jesus 

And then there was the case of a twelve-year-old boy that confused even Mary his mother. What we usually call the "finding in the temple." (Luke 2: 41-51)  

They thought he had gotten lost by accident. Nothing so simple, however. Joseph was silent throughout. If, when the boy saw them he had run over with relief to hug them and perhaps sobbed his fright away in her arms, Mary might not have said anything either, beyond trying to console him. But they did not find him in near despair, disoriented, searching for them in tears. Instead, he was more collected than an adult, there in the temple, sitting among the doctors, listening and asking them questions; no sign of worry, fear; everything seemed to indicate that this is where he wanted to be, that it had not happened by chance. 

Mary had not expected this. An accident would have been bad, but this? It apparently seemed cruel to her. Son, why have you treated us so? Your father and I have been looking for you anxiously. Three days of worried and harried searching, not knowing where he was nor where to look for him. It is such a natural and easy scene to relive, it has happened to all of us under some form at one time or another.  

If the boy's actions were difficult to understand, his words were even more so, for his reaction was not to ask pardon. "How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" Why were you upset? On anyone else's tongue it might have been an uppity, scathing, rebellious rebuke of an adolescent throwing down the gauntlet, enough to sever all ties and save him a trip home. That was not his intention, nor was it taken that way.  

He was pointing to something they had forgotten. It is consoling when God's plans take us or our parents by surprise to realize that it happened to Mary and Joseph too.  

No doubt Mary knew that at some stage Jesus would have to set out from home on his mission, and that the parting would be difficult. But she had not expected it now. In a sense they had forgotten that he was given to them, but that he was always God's, and his timetable was God's.  

Or maybe they hadn't forgotten but had simply not come face to face with the practical consequences. Now they knew. The Father could ask anything of him and that was what he would do. Their place was not to question, he expected them to understand.  

That gave Mary a lot to think about. As St. Luke puts it, she kept all these things in her heart. She often turned them over in her heart, and we see how fruitful her reflection was and how well she learned her lesson when Jesus takes up his public life; she is there in the background and at the moment of the cross she is there to suffer with him. But she never intrudes. She takes her lead from him always. She had learnt the lesson: he must do his Father's business, and she must let him do it.