At his General Audience 4 July, the Holy Father continued his series on the action of the Holy Spirit.

1. An example of the wisdom and grace of the teenage Jesus is found in the episode of Jesus' debate with the doctors in the Temple which Luke inserts between two texts on Jesus' growth "before God and the people". The Holy Spirit is not mentioned by name in this passage either, but His activity seems to shine through what occurred during that event. The evangelist in fact says, "all who heard Him were astounded at His understanding and answers" (Lk 2:47). They are astonished by a form of wisdom which is perceived as coming from on high (cf. Jgs 3, 15, 17; Jn 3:34), that is, from the Holy Spirit.

2. The question asked of Jesus by His parents, who after having sought Him for three days found Him in the Temple in the midst of the doctors, is also significant. Mary complained affectionately to Him: "Son why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety." Jesus answered with another serene question: "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" (Lk 2:48-49). In that "did you not know" one can perhaps see a reference to what Simeon had foretold to Mary during the presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple and which explains that preview of the future separation, of that first blow of the sword to the mother's heart. It can be said that the words of the holy old man Simeon, inspired by the Holy Spirit, echoed once again at that moment among that group gathered in the Temple, the place where they had been pronounced 12 years earlier.

But Jesus' response was also a manifestation of His awareness that He was "the Son of God" (cf. Lk 1:35) and thus of His duty to be "in His Father's house", the Temple, to "take care of His Father's business" (according to another possible translation of the Gospel phrase). Thus Jesus publicly declared, perhaps for the first time, His Messiahship and His divine identity. That happened by strength of the knowledge and wisdom which, under the Holy Spirit's influence, was poured out in his soul, united to the Word of God. At that moment He spoke as one filled with the Holy Spirit.''

3. Luke calls attention to the fact that Mary and Joseph "did not understand what He said to them" (Lk 2:50). Their astonishment at what they had seen and felt were part of that condition of "being in the dark", in which condition His parents remained. But we must take into account even more that they, Mary included, were standing before the mystery of the Incarnation and the Redemption; although they were involved in it, that did not mean that they understood it. They too were within the light and shadow of faith. Mary was the first on faith's pilgrimage (cf. Encyc. Redemptoris Mater, nn.12-19), she was the most enlightened, but also the one most subject to the test of accepting the mystery. It was her task to remain faithful to the divine plan, which she adored and meditated on in the silence of her heart. In fact Luke adds, "His Mother kept all these things in her heart" (Lk 2:18-19).

Here we hear the echo of Mary's words uttered in confidence: we can call them her "revelations" to Luke and to the Early Church from which we receive the "Gospel of Jesus' Infancy and Childhood" which Mary had kept in her memory and sought to understand, but above all believed and meditated on in her heart. For Mary, sharing in the Mystery did not consist only in accepting it and passively holding on to it. She exerted a personal effort: "She meditated", a word in the original Greek (symballein) literally means to put together, to compare. Mary tried to make connections between the events and the words in order to grasp their meaning as well as she could.

4. These meditations, this interior study, took place under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Mary was the first to benefit from the light which one day her Jesus would promise to the disciples: "The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name—He will teach you everything and remind you of all I have taught you" (Jn 14:26). The Holy Spirit who makes the Church and believers understand the meaning and the worth of Christ's words, was already working in Mary who as Mother of the Word Incarnate was the "Sedes Sapientiae", the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, the bearer and the first mediatrix of the Gospel concerning Jesus' origins.

5. Even during the successive years in Nazareth, Mary stored up all that regarded the person and destiny of her son and reflected on it silently in her heart. Perhaps she could not confide in anyone, perhaps only at some particular moment was it granted her to grasp the meaning of certain words, of certain glances given by her son. The Holy Spirit never stopped "reminding her", in the intimate depths of her soul, of the things she saw and experienced. Mary's memory was enlightened by the light which came from above. That light is at the origin of Luke's narrative which seems to want to help us understand by insisting on the fact that Mary kept these things and meditated on them: under the influence of the Holy Spirit's action, she was able to discover the higher meaning of the words and the events, through a reflection which she engaged in in order to " put everything together."

6. Thus Mary appears to us to be the model of those who, allowing themselves to be led by the Holy Spirit, accept and keep in their hearts—like the good seed (cf. Mt 13:23)—the words of revelation making every effort to understand them as much as possible in order to penetrate the depths of Christ's mystery.