Appreciating Christ’s Priesthood During The Hidden Life

Dear brothers and sisters,

Have you ever paused to ask: Why are the Gospels almost completely silent about the first thirty years of Jesus’ life? Why would the Holy Spirit inspire only a handful of verses to cover nearly nine-tenths of Christ’s earthly existence?

The answer lies not in what was omitted, but in what was lived. According to St Irenaeus of Lyon, Jesus passed through every stage of life—infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood—not just to experience them, but to redeem them.

Through what Irenaeus calls recapitulation (ἀνακεφαλαίωσις), Christ gathers up all of human life in Himself, and in doing so, makes it holy.

1. God in the Ordinary: The Life Without Applause

Imagine Nazareth. A dusty village, unknown and unimpressive. No miracles. No crowds. No sermons.

And yet, it was there that the eternal Word of God spent most of His earthly life—growing up in a modest home with Mary and Joseph, learning to walk, to speak, to pray. He helped Joseph shape wood with his hands. He likely scraped his knees, shared meals with neighbors, laughed with village friends.

He prayed. He worked. He waited.

There is no fanfare, no headlines—just ordinary time. But this, too, is the mystery of the Incarnation:

God became flesh not only to die for us—but to live among us in all our unspectacular routines.

And perhaps the Gospels are silent here because this part of Jesus’ life is meant to be recognized, not read about.

Because it is our life.

Your early mornings, your household chores, your walks to work, your family meals—these are Nazareth moments. Jesus has lived them, and in doing so, He has made the cradle, the kitchen, and the workshop into holy ground.

2. Jesus Grew in Awareness: The Journey into Sonship

But what was happening within Jesus during all those years of hidden life?

Here we’re guided by Karl Rahner, SJ, who reminds us that Jesus’ human consciousness developed historically. Though fully divine from the beginning, Jesus, in His humanity, took on our slow, unfolding way of knowing. He did not pretend to be human—He became human, fully.

So when the twelve-year-old Jesus stayed behind in the Temple and said, “Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house?”—that was not a finished statement, but a beginning. It marked a growing realization of His identity as the Beloved Son.

That same growth in awareness—“My life is not mine, but the Father’s”—is our own calling too. We, too, learn through Scripture, prayer, and the sometimes hidden school of daily life, to discover our identity as sons and daughters of God.

3. Your Life is Already an Offering: A Hidden Priesthood

What, then, do we make of our own hidden lives?

Christ’s priesthood didn’t begin at the Last Supper or on the Cross. It began in Nazareth—in the quiet surrender of ordinary days.

Those silent years were a priesthood in disguise: not adorned with incense and vestments, but with faithfulness, obedience, and love.

That means your daily life can become liturgy, your kitchen table an altar, your weariness a sacred offering.

As Pope Francis writes in his latest encyclical Dilexit Nos (DN 178):

“Even in the most simple and ordinary things, we can 'steal' the Lord’s heart… the headache, the toothache, the heavy cold; the loss of a ring or the effort to rise early for prayer—if accepted lovingly, all these are most pleasing to God’s goodness.”

In Jesus, the ordinary is not erased; it is exalted.

Perhaps the Gospels are silent about those thirty years not to hide them,

but to invite us to find ourselves in them.

So don’t wait for the grand stage to begin living your mission.

Start now. In the hidden. In the quiet. In the ordinary.

Because Christ has already made it holy. Amen. Fr JM Manzano SJ