After the extraordinary portents surrounding Jesus' birth, he sinks into obscurity for about 30 years- about ninety percent of his earthly life- before he begins his public ministry. That is, apart from the pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem when he was about twelve, as recorded by Luke.
These hidden years, these ordinary years, have had stories stamped on them of fantastical incidents- all found outside the canonical gospels. All dismissed as unlikely. Curiosity about this hidden life is natural, but it will have to stand as it is, a message to us that the ordinary, the routine, the repetitive, the unexciting, the workaday; all this is a fertile field for God. Luke records that it was in this period that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, finding favour with God and neighbour.
This new year will start with high hopes, heightened perhaps by the restrictions of recent times. Hopes of a resumption of a more .'normal' routine may have influenced our wishes for 2022. But it will be, as it always is, that in the ordinary, the routine, the unexciting, the repeated task, the workaday, that we grow in wisdom, in the favour of God and neighbour. Doing little things with great love, as Mother Teresa had it. Well, these little things account for ninety percent of life. Probably more. .
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