Jesus’ Hidden Years

It’s written in the Bible that "And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man" (Luke 2:52). That’s all we know and I often wonder what Jesus must have done in His so called “Hidden Years”.

Of this part of Christ's life all we read one more statement from the Holy Scripture: "And He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them (Luke 2:51). In these two sentences is contained the history of eighteen years of the life of Jesus Christ, the God-Man.

Jesus' first three decades of life were mostly hidden. The unknown years of Jesus (also called his silent years, lost years, or missing years). The phrases "lost years of Jesus" is usually encountered in esoteric literature. This is a remarkable puzzle because we have no record of what Jesus did then. There has been a lot of speculation, of course, but there is nothing specific.

Jesus remained hidden except that, as an artisan, he belonged to a middle-class family. The hidden life of Jesus is for us a perfect model of humility. He lived in poverty and lowliness: the Mother He chose was a poor woman; His foster-father was a carpenter; the town in which He spent the greatest part of His life was an obscure place despised by the Jews: "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:46).

For long years of obscurity in Nazareth, He was just "a carpenter's son". The hidden life of Jesus Christ is for us a perfect model of obedience: "And He was subject to them." The God of all created things, almighty and infinite, was subject to two poor and unknown mortals. He obeyed them in all things, promptly, constantly, cheerfully and with great love.

Let us model our obedience on this perfect pattern. If Christ the Son of God, God Himself, was content to be humble, poor, and unknown, to do common tasks day by day for the greater part of His earthly life, is there any reason why we should be ever trying to exalt ourselves, to attract admiration, ever to feed our vanity?

Excerpts from:
http://www.catholicbook.com/AgredaCD/MyCatholicFaith/mcfc032.htm