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At the age of eight years... 

Jesus went for the first time with His parents to Jerusalem for the Pasch, and every succeeding year He did the same. In those first visits, Jesus had already excited attention in Jerusalem, among the friends with whom He and His parents stayed, also among the priests and doctors. 

They spoke of the pious, intelligent Child, of Joseph’s extraordinary Son, just as amongst us one might, at the annual pilgrimages, notice in particular this or that modest, holy-looking person, this or that clever peasant child, and recognize him again the next year. 

So Jesus had already some acquaintances in the city when, in His twelfth year, with their friends and their sons, He accompanied His parents to Jerusalem. 

His parents were accustomed to walk with the people from their own part of the country, and they knew that Jesus, who now made the journey for the fifth time, always went with the other youths from Nazareth.

~bron~