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He said to them, … “Did you not know that
I had to be in my Father's house [NAB, NIB;
‘about my Father's business,’ KJV, Rheims]?”
But they did not understand what he said to them. (Gospel)
The Open Family
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As I was driving to Des Moines, Iowa, to give a workshop,
the voice on NPR let me know that I was heading for what
was, at that moment, the most famous town on earth—the
place where Bobbi and Kenny McCaughey had just become the
parents of seven children. The four boys and three girls,
though in delicate condition because of their prematurity,
were all well formed and their prospects good. The public
response was vigorous and various. Some imagined the
scenario of 35,000 diaper changes before toilet training
took effect. Others focused on clinical dimensions:
“For the average consumer it will obscure the
downside [of multiple pregnancy],” observed one
physician. What came through loud and clear was Bobbi's
pro-life choice when the plurality of her pregnancy had
been discovered. Presented with the option to
“reduce the number of fetuses” in order to
avoid the real risk of losing all, she chose to gamble on
God. Led by her faith that all life is a gift from God,
she chose to carry all seven to term.
In one sense, this sevenfold wonder simply dramatized what
is a fact of normal life: any family, even a single mother
with one child, participates in a mystery involving them
intimately with the Creator and imposes more
responsibilities than any of us can fully comprehend and
adequately carry out alone.
 Luke, in the seventh scene of his introduction to the
public life of Jesus, presents an abundant reminder of
these dimensions of family and parenting. The account of
Jesus lost and found in the Temple is as Holy Family of
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph much a story of the parents as of
the child. Mary and Joseph are returning from Jerusalem,
having completed the annual pilgrimage to the Holy City
for the celebration of Passover. Assuming that
twelve-year-old Jesus is safe somewhere in the caravan of
relatives and friends (no smothering over-protectiveness
here), they are surprised, after a day's journey, to
discover that the child is not among them. Finally, after
three days of searching for him “with great
anxiety,” Jesus confronts them with a statement that
would carry little consolation for any parent: “Why
did you search for me? Did you not know I had to be
en tois tou patros mou?” I quote
those last words in Luke's Greek because it is one of
those places where the Third Evangelist seems deliberately
to be using ambiguous language. A literal rendering would
be “in the [things] of my Father,” which
commentators have mainly taken to mean “about the
affairs of my father” (referring to action) or
“in the house of my father” (referring to a
place). The mysterious openness of the phrase leaves one
thing crystal clear, Jesus' life involves an obedience to
more than earthly parents. Mary has just referred to
Joseph as Jesus' father, but Jesus uses the word
pater of the Creator. Yet, Luke hastens to show
that doing the will of his heavenly Father entailed
obedience to Mary and Joseph: “He went down with
them, and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to
them.”
As exceptional as these things may be—the birth of
septuplets and the unique family relationships of Jesus—both
the Des Moines story and the Lucan episode remind us that
being family is an intimate involvement with the divine—more
challenging than we expect, more promising than we could
hope for. And we always need outside help.
Dennis Hamm, SJ
 
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