The Holy Childhood
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We are apt to think that, as a child, Jesus must have been different from other children. When we remember that He was the Son of God, it seems to us that there must have been divine revealing even in His infancy. The apocryphal Gospels make the story of Christ's boyhood a "blaze of miracles." But in their efforts to show His divine character, they give us a most undivine portraiture. The Child Jesus, as they depict Him—is cruel, vindictive, smiting down other children that resist His desires. His bearing is harsh and ungentle. He is mischievous and domineering.
Altogether different, however, is the portraiture of the childhood of Jesus given in the Gospels. He grew up among other children, with nothing in Him to set Him apart from them. He was not precocious—but learned His lessons by hard study, as they did. He was humble and simple in His manner, obedient to His parents, gentle to all about Him, sweet and beautiful in His disposition. He was the Son of God—but the divine glory in Him was revealed in a perfectly natural human childhood.
We may think of the influences amid which this Holy Child grew up. His home life was pure and gentle, with an atmosphere of love and prayer. Nazareth was like a garden in its beauty. The village, nestling within a circlet of hills, has been described as "like a handful of pearls in a goblet of emeralds."
We know that in one sense, the Child Jesus was different from other children—He was sinless. This means that He lived a life of communion with God from His earliest years. But this did not make Him unnatural or unwholesome in His life—it only made Him the sweeter. Love always ruled in Him. He was gentle and thoughtful, never unkind, severe, censorious. His sinlessness did not make Him a prodigy among His playmates. The divine in Him was revealed in the graces which everywhere are recognized as the fruits of the Holy Spirit.
Artists seek to put the most marvellous beauty into the face of the Child Jesus. No doubt He was beautiful. The heart makes theface, and the perfect love and grace that dwelt in Him must have made His countenance altogether lovely!
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