“My, How You Have Grown!”

By Rev. Freddy Fritz

From the January 2020 Trumpet

“My, how you have grown!” I can still hear uncles and aunts saying these words to me when I saw them after a long period of time. The question I would like to ask you is this: “Will anyone be able to say these words of us a year from now, ‘My, how you have grown!’ ” I don’t of course mean growing in size but, rather, growing in spiritual maturity. I would like to invite each one of us to make a commitment to grow spiritually in the coming year. In Luke’s Gospel, we read the following words, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52). These words are given to us by Luke just after Jesus had been found by his parents in the Temple. When Jesus was about twelve years old, his parents took him to Jerusalem, as they did every year, for the Feast of the Passover. When the feast was ended, Joseph and Mary started their journey back to Nazareth. After the first day’s journey, they discovered that Jesus was not in the group traveling Nazareth. So, back to Jerusalem went the concerned parents. They found Jesus in the temple on the third day. He was dialoguing with the teachers, and they were all amazed at Jesus’ understanding. After expressing her concern to Jesus, Mary and Joseph took Jesus back to Nazareth. And it is then that Luke tells that “Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.”

Last updated Wednesday, January 8, 2020

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