FEAST OF THE SANTO NIÑO (MOST HOLY NAME OF JESUS)
Hail to the Child
Jesus!
The devotion to the Child Jesus is not new. It goes back to
the very origins of Christianity. There are somewhat legendary depictions of
the Child Jesus in the Apocryphal Gospels (cf. Infancy Gospel of Thomas, that
presents a super-hero Child Jesus). It is
said that the Child Jesus appeared to Saint Jerome, and also to Saint
Catherine of Alexandria.
The entire world is aware of the closeness between Saint
Anthony of Padua and the Child Jesus. But it was in the 16th century that the
devotion to the childhood of Christ received a great impetus mainly through the
Carmelite spirituality that favored and promoted it. In all her travels, Saint
Teresa of Avila took with her a statue of the Child Jesus, and she placed a new
one in each new Carmel. It was thus that the Child Jesus was considered the
true founder of each new monastery.
The Child Jesus appeared to Teresa on a staircase in the
monastery of the Incarnation, and told her: "You, you are Teresa of Jesus,
and I am Jesus of Teresa."
But why this devotion to the Child Jesus? Because the
childhood of Our Lord has something to teach us, it is filled with lessons, and
the first lesson is certainly the path of spiritual childhood. Baron de Renty
describes the spirit of childhood as "a state in which life is lived day
by day, in a perfect death to oneself, in complete abandonment to the will of
the Father."
The Child Jesus is, first, in the manger, an infinitely
feeble and dependent being. He is Almighty, but He is reduced to helplessness,
to swaddling clothes he cannot even move. Then he is forced to flee from Herod.
"Exinanivit," says St. Paul: He reduced Himself, taking upon Himself
our condition of captivity. Swaddled, he cannot move, as up on the Cross - or
the Host. (cf. Bérullian portrayals of the Child Jesus). The state of childhood
is primarily a state of confidence and abandonment.
