Psalm Offering 8, Opus 3
Psalm Offering 8 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.
Each year his parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom. After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking 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. He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus advanced [in] wisdom and age and favor before God and man.
