I’ll never forget when I once told a relative about a group of cloistered nuns—the Poor Clares—in Cleveland, Ohio, who spend their entire lives adoring Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament. That relative thought it was a wasted life. Surely, they could be doing something better with their time, this person thought.
My relative’s words echoed a similar complaint made to Jesus by His close friend Martha. Upset that her sister Mary was not helping her, Martha said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me” (Lk. 10:40). But Jesus reminded her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her” (Lk. 10:41–42).
This brings me to the life of Christ. Many Christians overlook one of the most important truths of Jesus’ life: He spent the majority of His life hidden from the world—thirty years, to be precise.
St. John the Evangelist declares: “But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (Jn. 21:25).
Hence, Scripture tells us only part of the story of Jesus’ life. And while Scripture records the most important parts—His teachings, the Beatitudes, and, above all, His Passion, Death, and Resurrection—there is still much to learn from Jesus’ hidden life.
What was He doing for the majority of His life before He began His public ministry at the age of thirty? We see glimpses from the time He was “lost” in the Temple (see Luke 2:41–52). But in all truth, He was not lost. He was with His Father. He was “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions” (Lk. 2:46).
Nazareth was Jesus’ cloister, where He “grew in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man” (Lk. 2:52). He learned from St. Joseph how to be a carpenter, and through His Mother Mary, He came to understand the feminine heart more and more. He learned how to pray from His parents, but at the same time, He showed them how to pray. He grew in all the virtues in His human nature, especially humility, meekness, and obedience.
I can only imagine what St. Joseph and Our Lady saw when they got up in the middle of the night. They would have seen their Son conversing directly with the Father. What a sight to behold!
In my own attempts to understand the significance of Jesus’ hidden life, I providentially discovered a spiritual gem by the great French spiritual writer Fr. Henri-Marie Boudon called The Path to Humility: How the Hidden Life of Jesus Is the Model of Holiness, which is published by Sophia Institute Press. Fr. Boudon’s writings were so impactful that they greatly influenced the likes of St. Louis de Montfort. Fr. Boudon also wrote an incredible work on the holy angels called, Devotion to the Holy Angels.
Fr. Boudon opened my eyes immensely to how much Heaven prizes the hidden and humble life. For instance, he declared:
Let us consider also that this dear Infant, who as man is descended from the blood of so many kings, conceals all His glory by choosing to be born of the wife of a poor carpenter. He, who is innocence itself, wills, in the order of His Providence, that in His temporal genealogy should be enumerated women who were sinners, to teach us to make light of family nobility; not to value ourselves upon it, or bring it into notice; not to be ashamed of our relatives if they are poor or humble, or have fallen into disgrace. (17)
Everything Christ reveals by His words and actions—even what is not intentionally written in Scripture, such as most of His thirty years in Nazareth—has an important lesson for all of us to imitate. One of Christ’s salient teachings is that our prayer lives ought to be secret and hidden. Hence, Jesus reminded His followers: “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt. 6:6).
At the same time, this does not mean we should never pray in public. We ought to witness to our faith in public by praying grace before meals and, above all, by attending the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The scribes and Pharisees wanted their holiness to be seen by the world. Jesus is revealing to us that we ought to pray to Him in the tabernacle of our hearts.
The saints, and especially Our Lady, sought to imitate Christ’s hidden life. Did not Mary and so many other blessed souls, like Bernadette and Thérèse, hide themselves behind the walls of their homes and convents, respectively? They wanted the “one thing” that is God alone.
Many today have overlooked and even distorted Jesus’ words and hidden life. As a result, activism, social justice, and making a name for oneself have become the marching orders for many Christians. But this could not be further from the truth—or from the example of their leader, Jesus!
Not surprisingly, since Jesus is our humble God, He is perhaps even more hidden now in the Holy Eucharist than He was during His time on earth. How many Catholics, and especially secular people, drive by a Catholic church and act as if it is not a big deal? Few people pay Him a visit at the tabernacle, where He dwells forgotten and alone, just longing for a visit.
But those souls who leave everything behind to follow Jesus, especially our cloistered sisters, realize that Jesus in the Holy Eucharist is the greatest treasure of all. There, in the Sacred Host, Jesus continues to efface Himself until the end of time.
And therefore, being with Jesus is not a wasted life. It is truly the greatest thing we can do in this life: adore God, for that is what we will be doing for all eternity.
The hidden life of Jesus may be the most overlooked life by His own followers, but it is truly the most glorious life of Our Lord.
There He dwells.
There He reveals to us His humility.
There He waits for us.
Editor’s Note: For more on how to grow in humility through devotion to the hidden life of Christ, check out Fr. Henri-Marie Boudin’s book, The Path to Humility: How the Hidden Life of Jesus Is the Model of Holiness, available from Sophia Institute Press.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
