FEAST OF THE SANTO NIÑO (MOST HOLY NAME OF JESUS)

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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.


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