The Son of Man II. The Hidden Years

Irish Jesuit Province

The Son of Man II. The Hidden YearsAuthor(s): Hugh KellySource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 79, No. 932 (Feb., 1951), pp. 67-71, 95Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20516318 .

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THE SON OF MAN?U

THE HIDDEN YEARS By HUGH KELLY, S.J.

THE events of Christ's infancy and of His public life are known in considerable detail; but the greater part of His life, the period between these two stages, His boyhood and early manhood, is

wrapped in almost complete obscurity. Of the time between infancy and the age of twelve we know nothing save that He lived at Nazareth.

The eighteen years which elapsed from the finding in the temple until His entry into His public life are summed up by the Evangelists in

a few sentences, which tell us that He was subject to His parents; that He was a carpenter; that He advanced in wisdom, age and grace.

It is not the least of the mysteries of this career that eighteen years of a life so precious to the world should have been spent in total

obscurity, in a remote village, in the humble toil of a carpenter. How

could these years, which He spent standing at the bench, handling hammer, saw and axe, have prepared Him for His work as teacher?

We do not understand the full significance of these hidden years; but

we understand enough to prevent us from saying "

WTiy this loss? "

When He began to teach, and to display such a profound know

ledge of the things of God, those who knew something of His early life were puzzled and scandalized. They asked in surprise and

impatience: "

Is not this the carpenter and the son of the carpenter? "

His family and conditions were well known. His foster father, St. Joseph, was a carpenter, and the boy, when He was of age for

work, learned His trade from him. At first, no doubt, He would

show the want of skill which marks all beginners; and His hand and

eye would need training. But He would learn quickly; and in a short

time He would be of decided use to St. Joseph. After a few years He was a finished tradesman. As St. Joseph grew older He would

take on more and more of the work; and in time He became known

as the carpenter and the son of the carpenter. He may well have

been the only one in the small village community. The workshop was probably a shed near the house, in which He

ived with His mother. It would be a small place, the chief furniture

of which would be a bench made of a few rough planks. The usual

tough tools would be lying on the bench or hung on the wall; the

67



IRISH MONTHLY

floor would be strewn with shavings or covered with sawdust; bits

of work in different stages of completion, and blocks of wood, the

material for other works, would be lying in the corners. That is the

kind of a place we should have seen had we looked in at the door.

An ordinary carpenter's workshop was the setting of His life for

nearly twenty years. Two centuries after His death certain things He made, wooden

yokes and ploughs, were venerated as the works of His hands. He

was a tradesman in a simple primitive community and His work was

to provide for the needs of such a community. He would be called

on to make tables, chairs, stools, doors, window-frames, rafters, handles for farm implements, for sickle, winnowing fan or axe. He

would be asked to do jobs, to mend a wine press or a manger. He

was not an artist or a fine craftsman. His instruments were rough and by our standard primitive. The wood on which He worked

would be common and coarse. He was in His work and circum

stances a typical village carpenter. He did not play at being a tradesman; He was not a dilettante.

Carpentry was His work, His profession; He took it seriously- We

may be certain that His work was well done?as good as the

instruments and material permitted. In the morning He went to His

workshop and from it during the day came the noise of hammer and saw and chisel. Anyone who opened the door, such as His mother

when she came to call Him to His simple mid-day meal, would have seen Him bent over the bench with a look of serious concentration on His face; would have noted the deft, controlled actions of His

hands as He used one tool after another. He would work steadily

through the burden and heat of the day. He knew what it was to

be tired and hungry and thirsty. In the shed it would be hot and

stifling in the heats of summer, and it would be cold in winter. His hands would be roughened from handling the tools and the blocks . of wood.

His work would bring Him into contact with others; with those who hired Him to do some job; or with those who bought some

finished article. These people might be rough or unreasonable; they

might be hard to please or niggardly in their payments. " My Father

always works and I work," He said later on, referring to a different kind of activity; but the words have their application for the life at

Nazareth. It was a time of constant, ordered toil. As a lad, He

68



THE HIDDEN YEARS

began to learn His trade from St Joseph; with the years He grew in skill. He passes from boyhood to manhood; He arrives at full

maturity; all these years are filled with toil. The output of these

skilful, unresting hands, during these long years, must have been

very great; the things He made or mended must have been plentiful in the village and district So He reached His thirtieth year. It

seemed as if He had found His permanent place in life, as if He

were to be all His life, like St Joseph, the village carpenter. Such is the fact of this strange life, always so full of mystery.

These ten years of manhood?what could He not have done as

teacher and healer in that time? They seem to be thrown away on

obscure commonplace toil. The visions of glory and achievement

opened by the angel's words at His conception and birth seem to

be forgotten. And yet in such a life these years must have their

meaning; they must be worthy of Him Who "

did all things well ". "

I am the light of the world; he that followeth Me walketh not

in darkness." His life is all light and example. He came to teach

men how to live. His lesson was not meant merely for the priests or scribes, or for those engaged in the service of the temple. He came

to teach men of all classes and occupations. The vast majority of

men in the world will always earn their bread by the labour of their

hands. From every point of view, natural, moral, spiritual, work

counts for much in a man's life. It is his destiny; it may be his

punishment; it may be his reward. It is a yoke and a burden, yet it carries abundant blessings with it Through natural indolence men

will chafe and grumble at it; but it is a potent means of moral

perfection; it is a school of virtues which can be learned nowhere else.

It is one of the chief means that man has of achieving his object in

life, the praise and service of his Creator.

The place and purpose of work in human life was a difficult lesson

which could not be taught merely by word or precept. The Teacher

must Himself live the lesson: must teach it by example. And so the

labour of man's hands will ever have a new dignity, a new moral

and spiritual value, since in Nazareth long ago a Man plied hammer and saw at a carpenter's bench. "So is the Kingdom of God as

if a man should cast seed into the earth and should sleep and rise

aight and day and the seed spring and grow up while he knoweth

ot" (Mark IV, 26, 27). A divine seed had been inserted into human

Mt, of which the busy world knew nothing; and from the beginning 69



IRISH MONTHLY

it began to grow in secret Before He spoke or wrought a miracle,

the divine leaven was active, elevating, spiritualizing every phase of

human life, especially the work of man's hands. In this perspective we can understand something of the purpose of the hidden uneventful

years at Nazareth; we can understand that they had an important

part in His teaching. To St. Luke, who tells us most about the hidden years, we owe our

information about the growth of Christ; he tells us that the child

grew in wisdom, age and grace before God and man. The physical

growth was at once evident and was to be expected. Christ was a

true man and possessed a true human nature, which was conceived

in the womb of His virgin mother and followed the normal laws of

human development. His body grew in size and strength; like other

infants, He learned how to use His limbs, how to walk, how to talk.

Great saints and doctors have contemplated with reverence and

tenderness this aspect of the Divine Infancy and have dwelt on the

paradoxes it presents; the Eternal is an Infant of days; the All

powerful is in swaddling bands; the All-wise learns how to speak; the Creator learns how to use hammer and saw; the All-holy learns

how to lisp His Father's name. Nowhere else, except in the Passion, is the emptying out, the humiliation, involved in the Incarnation so

striking. The Child grew in years and strength. He passed through all the

stages of human growth, infancy, boyhood, youth, manhood, hallow

ing them as He passed through them; realizing in each of them its

full perfection. When considering His physical growth, spiritual writers refer to His likeness to His mother. From her He got entirely His human nature; He was manifestly

" the Son of Mary ", and all

who met Him in the streets of Nazareth as He walked with His

mother must have been at once struck by the remarkable likeness.

With the physical growth went a growth in wisdom. Theologians

distinguish in the Christ a triple kind of knowledge; the Beatific

Vision He possessed as the Son of God; infused knowledge which was His as the Redeemer and the second Adam; and a human ex

perimental knowledge. In the first two kinds of knowledge there was no increase with the years. But in the human acquired know

ledge there was a real advance and not merely a manifestation

proportioned to his age. He had human senses which reported to

Him the sights and sounds, movements and properties of the visible 70



THE HIDDEN YEARS

world; He had a human intellect which produced a human intellectual

knowledge from that data. He learned by experience; He was

observant of all that came within the range of His senses. His

character, as revealed in His manner of speaking, shows Him to be

a man Who bent an observant eye on the world of man and of

nature. Speaking of His Passion, St Paul tells us that "

He learned

obedience by the things He suffered "

(Hebrews V, 8). We may say that all His human life was a time of suffering and a time of learning.

By His experience He learned or at least He developed all the virtues

which shine out in His words and deeds?pity, mercy, sympathy,

patience and love. Living among men, He knew what was in the

heart of man: He knew its wickedness, its need of God. By His

human experience He learned how to be the perfect High Priest, the perfect Head of weak humanity.

The supernatural glories which surrounded the conception, birth

and infancy of Christ seem to be very remote from this life of humble

toil and obscurity. But the one recorded incident of His boyhood lifts the veil discreetly and reveals something of the divine secret.

When He was twelve years of age His parents brought Him to

Jerusalem to assist with them at the Feast of the Passover. At that

age a Jewish child was held to be competent to take part in the

public religious life of his people. When the celebration was finished

the great crowd of pilgrims dispersed, and in the confusion of de

parture and scattering of such a great multitude it was not until they had travelled a short day's journey from the city that His parents noticed that He was not in their company. They travelled back again to the city and after three days of agonizing search found Him in

the temple. He had joined a circle of boys around a Rabbi who was expounding the law. His answers to questions put by the teacher

showed such wisdom that all were amazed and He was put sitting among the Rabbis.

" Son, why hast Thou done so to us? Behold

Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing." This was the

instinctive cry of a mother's heart; not so much a complaint as a

desire to know what could have been the motive for an action so

?alike anything He had ever done before. His answer to this question of His mother is the first word of His that the gospels give us; and

?hey are full of mystery. " How is it that you sought Me? Did you

saot know that I must be about My Father's business? "

(continued on page 95)

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RATE-PAYERS

of hands?yes, indeed, a fine soft pair of hands. Come here to me,

boy.**

Jackie, his face red, went and stood in front of her. She took his

hand, and with rough, strong fingers pressed a coin into his palm.

"Buy sweets for yourself," she cried, and strode away before he

could thank her.

"Don't be long with the spuds, sir," she called over her shoulder. "

What did she give you? "

the father asked when she had gone. "

Half a crown,** said Jackie, looking at the money with a dazed

expression. His father let go the horse's head and took off his hat "

Glory be to God," he said, "

but women are a quare tribe. Would

you ever be up to them? "

He stood silently for a moment, then suddenly replacing the hat,

jumped into a sitting position on the front corner of the cart. "

Get up on the butt,*' he said, "

till we get these off our hands.

The sooner we're finished the sooner well have our breakfast."

Jackie clambered to the top of the sacks and they trundled out of

the market-place.

THE HIDDEN YEARS

(continued from page 71)

These are disconcerting words; they have a note of authority which is strange on the lips of a boy of twelve and who is addressing his

mother. We do not know what was that business of His Father which entailed such anguish to Mary and Joseph. What did He achieve by this isolated display of wisdom among the scribes and

Pharisees? But the general meaning of His words is clear; by them He asserts a unique relationship and sonship with His Heavenly Father; He also conveyed that His Father's will and interest are the

supreme, the only purpose of His life. Later on He will expound in

detail what are the claims of God, what part He has in human life. But all that He said afterwards is contained in the question He put His mother. His Father's interest and business was the supreme purpose of life to which all human loyalties must yield.

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The Son of Man II. The Hidden Years