Week Four, Exercise Two: Jesus Goes to The Temple at Age 12

This exercise should be experienced between January 11 and 14.

Ask for the grace to know Jesus more fully.

Consider how Jesus grew up. He worked with Joseph as a carpenter and learned from Mary and Joseph about their Jewish faith. In understanding Jesus, it is important to make a distinction between knowledge (scientia) and wisdom (sapentia). He was not born with perfect knowledge of all of the scientific and historical truths of the world. For example, he would not have had knowledge of Einstein's work on relativity theory (E=mc2). However, as the son of God, he would have had wisdom way beyond his chronological years. That is, he would have fully understood that God is love and that he too was constituted by love.

Even so, he grew in this wisdom as Luke 2:52 tells us: "And Jesus advanced [in] wisdom and age and favor before God and man."


Prayerfully read Luke 2:41-52. What occurs to you? Can you imagine yourself in the scene? Imagine being awed by the knowledge of this wise 12 year old. What is it that he is saying. Can you feel his love for God as he speaks? Does it evoke love from you?

If Jesus is totally aware of his eternal origin from God, what does that say of our origins? What does that say our destiny?

What wisdom does God seek to give us?

What questions do you have for Jesus? Did he feel the same wonder and the same insecurities that each of us has felt as a 12 year old?

Pray as you have prayed this whole retreat. Close in a way that reverences our Messiah who grew up and felt what we felt at the age of twelve.