The Hidden Life of Jesus at Nazareth

Continuing with Fouard's Life of Christ:

III. The Hidden Life of Jesus at Nazareth

Luke ii. 51-52

" Jesus went down to Nazareth with His parents; there He was subject to them, and He increased in wisdom, in age, and in grace before God and before man." Saint Luke here reiterates of the Youth of the Saviour what he had formally said of His Childhood.  He grew in accordance with the laws of that Humanity wherewith He had clothed Himself, and this external life had nothing to the outward view that what was natural and ordinary: only it was an irreproachable life and an unpretentious one.  Those who saw Jesus in the days of His hidden life, beheld before their eyes only a poor labourer toiling in his workshop.

The youth of Jesus. J-J Tissot.

Joseph was a carpenter; Jesus was one like him.  His countrymen recognized Him as such when He preached in the synagogue of Nazareth.

"Is not this fellow, here, the carpenter, Mary's son?"1 they cried out.

It was a custom among the Jews for every child, whatever his rank or fortune might be, to learn some mechanical art.  It was a then doubly necessary for Jesus to work with His hands, for the Holy Family was poor, and their only means of livelihood were drawn from this handicraft of Joseph.

Everything leads us to suppose that the latter died during the hidden life of the Saviour; indeed his name appears no more in the Gospel, neither at the bridle banquet in Cana, nor at the departure for Capharnaum, nor amid any of those other circumstances in which the relations of the Christ are mentioned.  Besides this, would Jesus have left Mary to Saint John if her husband had been still alive?  Joseph died in Nazareth, therefore, in the arms of Mary, and with the kiss of peace upon his lips from the Lord Himself.  Jesus was left alone to be the support of His Mother; and so He busied Himself in the carpenter's workshop at Nazareth, handling the saw and the plane.  In its infancy, the Church was wont to recall, for the reverent remembrance of the faithful, those ploughs and yokes which His divine hands once fashioned from the rough wood.

It may be that Jesus did not always dwell alone in that quiet home.  According to a tradition mentioned by Eusebius, a sister of the Holy Virgin, like her called Mary, had married a brother of Joseph, named Alpheus or Cleophas.  He too must have died during Jesus's sojourn in Nazareth, for the gospel observes the same silence concerning him that it does as to Joseph.  But for the two sisters, it would seem that they kept together; and the numerous children of Mary, wife of Cleophas, are those brothers and sisters of Jesus of whom the townspeople spoke in these terms: "Are not His brethren named James, Joseph, Simon, and Jude?  And are not His sisters all here amongst us?"5 It is the usage in Sacred Scripture, and is, in fact, a general custom in that Greek language, to call even distant kinsfolk brethren.  That term, therefore, only refers to these four cousins of Jesus.  As for the daughters of Mary and Alpheus, who lived in the household of the Saviour, we know neither their names nor their number.  However these words: "Are they not all here among us?" leave it to be supposed that there were at least three.

Two of their brothers are better known; we shall encounter them shortly among the Apostles.  James, son of Alpheus, is that "brother of the Lord" whom St. Paul wanted to see, together with Peter, and whom he hailed as one of the pillars of the Church.  His steady virtue got for him the surname of The Just.  "Consecrated to God from the womb of his mother, he drank nor wine, nor strong liquor, and abstained from animal food.  Never had the razor been passed over his locks, never did he use fine oil to anoint his limbs." Jude, the brother of James, had not, like him, this austerity of the Nazarite; but it was as a tribute to his generosity that he was given the name of Lebbeus (Thaddeus), "the Man of Heart," by which he is distinguished in the Gospel.

These characteristics were not, however, unfolded until later on, beneath the breath of the Holy Spirit.  At Nazareth the kindred of the Saviour had no higher thoughts than such as were common to their contemporaries; all their desires limited to the enjoyment of the good things of this earth.  At the outset of the Ministry of Jesus, they understood so little what was His divine Mission that they set out upon a day to bring Him back by force to their home, and to constrain Him to take some nourishment: "He is becoming mad,"9 they said.  Used as they were to see in Jesus one of their own household, the cousins of the Saviour were apparently the last to believe in Him; and if, seeing the marvels worked by their "Brother," they did finally follow Him, it was in the hope of finding the wealth and on as they coveted.

The following fact related by Saint John hardly leaves any doubt about this point.

It was just as the Feast of the Tabernacles was drawing near, in the last year of Jesus; He had not more than six months to live.  His brethren came to Him:

"Come out from Galilee," they cried, "and go into Judea, so that your disciples may see the works which you do; for no man does such things in secret when he wishes to show himself publicly.  Since you are doing these things, manifest yourself to the world."

"Even His brethren," adds saint John, sadly, "did not believe in Him." And still it was in their society that Jesus of Nazareth lived.  These labourers, more engrossed in earthly cravings than careful for the things of Heaven, shared in His tasks, gathered around the same family table, sat by the same fireside, were witnesses of His days and nights.  And thus Jesus, by partaking of them, has hallowed those daily trials of our daily life, which Heaven mingles with the joys of home and family, and which make for the probation and salvation of so many souls.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam