Sep 5 Sat
Did the Child Jesus know everything, since He was God?
Jesus did not do anything spectacular in Nazareth. Any clay birds He made at play did not fly, as the apocryphal gospel claimed. Nor did He make a spring gush forth in front of his house to spare his mother from having to bring water from the village spring.
He did what his parents told him, especially Joseph, because Joseph was the one who exercised authority in that household. Meanwhile, Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men. This is how St. Luke summarizes Jesus' life in Nazareth.
In his human nature, Jesus grew as one of us. It was not that God carried out some of Jesus' actions while others were done by a man. All of his actions belong to the Son of God incarnate.
And at the same time, his human acts were authentically human. They were acts of an intelligent, happy Child without sin or any disordered tendency. But this Child's soul also uninterruptedly enjoyed the beatific vision; that is, He enjoyed the direct vision of the Trinity which we will have in a partial and limited way in heaven.
Like all children, Jesus would have wondered about many things that he did not know, and would have asked many questions. What is this for? Why do you cut this wood? What is that neighbor called? Later in his public ministry, we still see him asking questions. What is your name? How long have you suffered from that illness? How much bread do you have? Other times he was surprised.
He was not pretending. He really was amazed or curious because these reactions are part of being human. Although Jesus possessed divine knowledge with completely perfect understanding, He wanted nonetheless to live a fully human existence.
His divinity was not some kind of device to avoid having to struggle with life. The Son of God did not take on the ‘appearance’ of man. He truly was a man with a human body and a rational soul, and the two were intimately united.
Jesus was acquiring knowledge from the things and people that surrounded him: Mary and Joseph, his teachers, his neighbors, and the life experience that every human being acquires over the years.
In Nazareth's synagogue, He learned the Sacred Scriptures, together with the classical Jewish commentaries that were a normal part of synagogue teaching. Jesus read the Old Testament and understood that it spoke of the Messiah, that is to say, of Himself.
Jesus learned a lot from Joseph. Among other things, the trade by which he earned a living and with which Jesus himself later supported the household when Saint Joseph, that holy patriarch, left this world.
Jesus used his faculties to learn (his human intelligence and memory) since his senses and human understanding were not there to make it seem that He was like everyone else. As man, He really and truly was like everyone else.
This intelligence was not dormant, deprived of its proper activity. It was not just a decoration. Jesus used his intelligence and his senses like every boy.