One’s own experience of family is extremely important in one’s faith development. God calls us to a larger understanding of family than just our family of origin.

Mary and Joseph assumed Jesus was somewhere in the caravan. The idea of a caravan, a cluster of people traveling together a great distance to a shared destination, is an apt image for family life, especially the extended family experience that was prevalent in Jesus’ time.

"Beloved, we are God's children now." That is such a beautiful idea I can't help repeating it from John's letter. To be a child is to inherit the attributes of the parent.

I remember when one of our daughters got lost at an amusement park. She was 4 or 5 years old, and I remember how terrified my wife and I were.

"Jesus advanced in wisdom,” the last line of today’s gospel tells us, and it’s a good thing, because worrying his parents the way he did was not very wise.

I grew up watching an old black-and-white RCA television wishing I had been born into a family like on the Donna Reed Show where dad was a doctor and mom solved all the problems.

As children of God, let us ask our heavenly Father to receive these prayers for the human family.

After three days they found him the temple. For Luke, the Jerusalem Temple stands for the bridge between Judaism and Christianity.

Not for nothing was it written: Your father and I have been looking for you anxiously. The search for Jesus must be neither careless nor indifferent, nor must it be only a transitory affair. Those who seek in this manner will never find him.