Youcat commented through CCC - Question n. 86 - Part II.

YOUCAT Question n. 86 - Part II. Why did Jesus wait thirty years to begin his public life?

(Youcat answer - repeated) Jesus wanted to share a normal life with us and thus sanctify our everyday routine.       

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 533) The hidden life at Nazareth allows everyone to enter into fellowship with Jesus by the most ordinary events of daily life: The home of Nazareth is the school where we begin to understand the life of Jesus - the school of the Gospel. First, then, a lesson of silence. May esteem for silence, that admirable and indispensable condition of mind, revive in us… A lesson on family life. May Nazareth teach us what family life is, its communion of love, its austere and simple beauty, and its sacred and inviolable character... A lesson of work. Nazareth, home of the "Carpenter's Son", in you I would choose to understand and proclaim the severe and redeeming law of human work…. To conclude, I want to greet all the workers of the world, holding up to them their great pattern their brother who is God (Paul VI at Nazareth, 5 January 1964: LH, Feast of the Holy Family, OR).     

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Jesus was a child who received love and affection from his parents and was brought up by them. Thus he increased “in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man” (Lk 2:52); he belonged to a Jewish village community and took part in its religious rituals; he learned a trade and had to prove his ability as a craftsman. The fact that God in Jesus willed to be born into a human family and to grow up in it has made the family a place where God is present and a prototype of a helping community.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 534) The finding of Jesus in the temple is the only event that breaks the silence of the Gospels about the hidden years of Jesus (Cf. Lk 2:41-52). Here Jesus lets us catch a glimpse of the mystery of his total consecration to a mission that flows from his divine sonship: "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's work?" (Lk 2:49 alt). Mary and Joseph did not understand these words, but they accepted them in faith. Mary "kept all these things in her heart" during the years Jesus remained hidden in the silence of an ordinary life.      

(The next question is: Why did Jesus allow John to baptize him, although he was without sin?)