From Susan J Stabile’s blog, a reflection on what I would also have called “the finding of Jesus in the Temple”:
In the typical translation, Jesus response to his parents’ when they tell him they have been looking for him with great anxiety is “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
Louis Savary, in his book The New Spiritual Exercises, offers a different translation. Savary reports that among the Aramaic- speaking people in Palestine, the phrase Jesus used would more accurately have been understood as “I heard my Father call my name, and how could I not respond.”
“I heard my father call my name” … I do wonder if Margaret Craven was aware of this when she called her novel of an Anglican priest’s life and death among the First Peoples of remote British Columbia “I Heard the Owl Call My Name”?
Today’s Gospel is the familiar passage in Luke that we often refer to as Finding Jesus in the Temple. Twelve-year old Jesus and his family have been in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. When the group from Nazareth begins to return home, Jesus is not among them. When Mary and Joseph retrace their steps, the ultimately find him in the temple with the teachers.
In the typical translation, Jesus response to his parents’ when they tell him they have been looking for him with great anxiety is “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
Louis Savary, in his book The New Spiritual Exercises, offers a different translation. Savary reports that among the Aramaic- speaking people in Palestine, the phrase Jesus used would more accurately have been understood as “I heard my Father call my name, and how could I not respond.” Savary goes on…
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Séamus Sweeney 