Infant Jesus of Prague

Description

The Infant Jesus of Prague or Child Jesus of Prague (Czech: Pražské Jezulátko; Catalan: Nen Jesús de Praga: Spanish: Niño Jesús de Praga) is a 16th-century Roman Catholic wax-coated wooden statue of child Jesus holding a globus cruciger, located in the Discalced Carmelite Church of Our Lady Victorious in Malá Strana, Prague, Czech Republic. Pious legends claim that the statue once belonged to Saint Teresa of Ávila. In 1628 it was donated to the Carmelite friars by Princess Polyxena of Lobkowicz.

The image is routinely clothed by the Carmelite nuns in luxurious fabrics with imperial regalia and a golden crown while his left hand holds a globus cruciger and the right hand raised in a benedicting posture. It is venerated during the Christmas season and the first Sunday of May commemorating its coronation and public procession.

Pope Leo XIII approved the devotion to the image in 1896 and instituted a sodality in its favour. On 30 March 1913, Pope Pius X further organised the Confraternity of the Infant Jesus of Prague, while Pope Pius XI granted its first canonical coronation on 27 September 1924. Pope Benedict XVI crowned the image for the second time during his Apostolic visit to the Czech Republic on 26 September 2009.

In April 1639, the Swedish army began a siege of the city of Prague. The frightened citizens hurried to the shrine of the Infant Jesus of Prague as services were held day and night at the Church of Our Lady Victorious in the Little Quarter. When the army decided instead to pull out, the grateful residents ascribed this to the miraculous Holy Infant. The tradition of the Infant Jesus procession and the coronation continues to this day. This ceremony is the closing highlight of the annual Feast of the Infant Jesus in Prague.

The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus is the principal feast of the miraculous Infant.

Many saints have had a particular devotion to the Infant Jesus, such as St. Athanasius, St. Jerome, Bernard of Clairvaux, Francis of Assisi, and Anthony of Padua. The 1984 miniseries Teresa de Jesús, shows Saint Teresa of Avila with a statue in a number of scenes. As novice mistress, Therese of the Child Jesus placed the statue in the novitiate at Lisieux, because she knew the many blessings the Divine Child brought to the Carmelite novices in Prague when it was placed in their midst.

Today, numerous Catholic pilgrims pay homage to the Infant of Prague every year. It is one of the major pilgrimage centres in Central Europe, with the Prague church housing the Infant Jesus statue offering regular Mass in Czech, Spanish, Italian and German languages.

Devotion to the Child of Prague and belief in its power to influence the weather is still strong in many parts of Ireland. A wedding gift of a statue of the Child of Prague is particularly auspicious. It is also common to see the Child Of Prague displayed in the window of houses in some of the older parts of Dublin and the practice of putting it out in the hedge or burying it in the garden as a solicitation for good weather is widespread in areas as far apart as Cork, Dublin, Sligo and the county of Leitrim.