In the House at Nazareth

Tags: Jesus Christ, Holy Family, St Joseph, Ordinary life, Our Lady

And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man (Lk 2:51-52).

The fact that Jesus grew up and lived just like us shows us that human existence, people's ordinary everyday activity, has a divine meaning. No matter how much we may have reflected on all this, we should always be surprised when we think of the thirty years of obscurity which made up the greater part of Jesus’ life among us. He lived in obscurity, but, for us, that period is full of light. It illuminates our days and fills them with meaning, for we are ordinary Christians who lead an ordinary life, just like millions of other people all over the world.

That was the way Jesus lived for thirty years, as the son of the carpenter. There followed three years of public life, spent among the crowds. People were surprised: Who is this? they asked. Where has he learned these things? For he was just like them: he had shared the life of ordinary people. He was the carpenter, the son of Mary. And he was God; he was achieving the redemption of mankind and drawing all things to himself.
Christ is Passing By, 14

Saint Josemaría Escrivá felt compelled by God's call to imitate the hidden life of Jesus in a special way, the ordinary life so similar to the daily occupations of most people. In his teachings he promoted this ideal.

I dream – and the dream has come true – of multitudes of God’s children, sanctifying themselves as ordinary citizens, sharing the ambitions and endeavors of their colleagues and friends. I want to shout aloud to them this divine truth: if you are there in the middle of ordinary life, it doesn’t mean Christ has forgotten about you or hasn’t called you. He has invited you to stay among the activities and concerns of the world. He wants you to know that your human vocation, your profession, your talents, are not outside his divine plans. He has sanctified them and made them a most pleasing offering to his Father.
Christ is Passing By, 20

Another theme that was never absent in his reflection on the years at Nazareth was that of St. Joseph. His devotion to the holy patriarch would grow impetuously right up to the end of his life. Here are a few excerpts from his homily on St. Joseph in Christ is Passing By:

But if Joseph learned from Jesus to live in a divine way, I would be bold enough to say that, humanly speaking, there was much he taught God’s Son. There is something I do not quite like in that title of foster father which is sometimes given to Joseph, because it might make us think of the relationship between Joseph and Jesus as something cold and external. Certainly our faith tells us that he was not his father according to the flesh, but this is not the only kind of fatherhood...

Joseph loved Jesus as a father loves his son and showed his love by giving him the best he had. Joseph, caring for the child as he had been commanded, made Jesus a craftsman, transmitting his own professional skill to him. So the neighbors of Nazareth will call Jesus both faber and fabri filius: the craftsman and the son of the craftsman. Jesus worked in Joseph’s workshop and by Joseph’s side. What must Joseph have been, how grace must have worked through him, that he should be able to fulfill this task of the human upbringing of the Son of God!

For Jesus must have resembled Joseph: in his way of working, in the features of his character, in his way of speaking. Jesus’ realism, his eye for detail, the way he sat at table and broke bread, his preference for using everyday situations to give doctrine – all this reflects his childhood and the influence of Joseph.»
Christ is Passing By, 55