'How Lovely Is Your Dwelling Place...'

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Have you ever wondered what our Lord had been doing during the eighteen years that was unaccounted for in the Gospel? Of course, we could come up with many presuppositions. I have in my imaginings the young Holy Teen visiting His grandparents - Anne and Joachim, the parents of the His Mother Mary. That's what I would have done, play the doting grandchild to my gran and gram, and endear myself all the more with their tender loving care. Ha ha. By the way, Anne and Joachim are not in the Bible. What little we know of them are apocryphal. Yet recognizing their importance in Salvation History, we commemorate a feast for them - the 26th of July. How lovely must be their dwelling place... Another venue where an awkward Teen could be found is in the company of His friends. In the gospel today, our Lord came to Bethany, the home of His friends Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. From the actuations of the 'friends' - Martha nudging our Lord that had He come earlier, Lazarus would not have died, and, our Lord Jesus, in grief, performed a most mighty miracle of raising the dead Lazarus back to life. The bond of friendship must have been sealed in the awkward years of adolescence. How blessed are the siblings Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, to have our Lord for a gangmate. Reaffirms the maxim - 'Tell me who your friends are, and I'd tell you who you are.' How lovely must be their dwelling place...