Here we are on the 17th day and second to last day of the Christmas Season. Epiphany has come and gone. Many Christmas trees have either been placed outside (if they are real) or dismantled and stored for next year (if they are artificial). The multi-color outdoor lights and displays that decorated homes are now turned off. I remember Ruthie telling me about her Uncle Bill Burg, who had an artificial Christmas tree all decorated which he would pick up in its entirety at the end of the Christmas Season and place it in a closet, awaiting the next Christmas.
My son Luke, who loves the lights, colors, and sounds of Christmas, despondently said, as he took down the Christmas tree, “Now all we got left is a long, cold winter.” With Winter in Minnesota lasting often through the middle of April these days of Climate Change, January and February are just months that drag along slowly, going from weather that is sub-zero for weeks, to ice storms, and blizzards. I remember canceling weekend Masses in the middle of April last year because of a late winter blizzard.
Of course, Christmas had to end for Jesus too. The song I present for this 17th day of the Christmas Season is based on Luke’s account of Jesus staying behind in Jerusalem following a major religious festival that he and his parents had attended.
“Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor. (Luke 2:41-52. NRSV)
This song is a musical representation of the 12 year old Jesus in the Temple. The anxiousness of Mary and Joseph in seeking out their lost son is reflected in the quickness of the 3 over 2 motif in melody A. The calm, quiet of melody B is indicative of the adolescent Jesus asking questions from and also teaching the scribes in the Temple. Melody A returns as the Holy Family returns from the Temple to their home in Nazareth.
I composed this as a present for Blanche and Ivo Schutrop. Blanche and Ivo were longtime parishioners of St. Hubert. Blanche served as a volunteer sacristan, tutor for the school, and trained communion to the homebound volunteers and organized and matched those volunteers to those who were homebound. Blanche never got beyond an 8th grade education, but was probably the finest pastoral care minister I have ever known. She was the heart of St. Hubert. She and Ivo were married many years. I often remember them on a hot summer night, sitting in the screened in front porch of their simple home across the drive from the old church listening to the Minnesota Twins game on the radio and drinking a couple bottles of beer.
