On the recent feast of the Infant of Prague (January 14th), I attended the funeral of a dear friend’s youngest child. Before the Mass, I visited the parish statue of the Divine Infant and prayed for the beloved dead, as well as for all the living children in our hearts and homes. It seemed an ideal feast day on which to entrust the soul of a child to the inexhaustible compassion of Christ, but it was a painful service as well, and I was grateful to have the image of the Infant King before me throughout Mass as a reminder of His tenderness and love.
When I first began to know and love the Infant of Prague, He was primarily an intercessor for financial stability. My mother gave me her old statue of the Infant with a coin taped to His back – a reminder that He was the guardian of the financial life of the family. I added my own coin to hers and He has looked out for our little family for years. But after my children were born, I began to look at the Infant as a particular guardian of them as well.
Patron of Children
The Infant of Prague is a patron of children and childhood as well as financial security and desperate situations. For a lot of people today, children and desperate situations are practically synonymous. Everything from infertility and miscarriage to childhood cancer and mental illness are all around us. Sometimes they seem to be skyrocketing. Both physically and mentally, most people agree that kids today are less healthy than their parents and grandparents were at the same age. Now, I know there are a lot of different factors to look at here, and depending on who you talk to the statistics will change, but when I hear that the children’s psychological ward at my local hospital is full for the season and the family down the street is sick for the 3rd time in three months, I can’t help but worry. My children’s generation is said to be the first in recent history to have a lower life expectancy than their parents. That is a disturbing thought.
So, naturally, I turn to the Infant of Prague. Miraculous, wonder-working Infant who loves children and says to His followers, “Unless you … become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). There are a few lovely, little prayers to the Divine Infant that are perfect for parents, grandparents, and godparents who are concerned about the children entrusted to them.
Prayers to the Infant of Prague
St. Thérèse of Lisieux had a particular devotion to the Infant of Prague. In fact, she had the Carmelite convent’s statue of the Infant under her care after her profession. St. Thérèse’s simple prayer is a simple, tender one:
Prayer of St. Thérèse Before the Statue of the
Infant of Prague
“O Eternal Father, Your only Son, the dear Child Jesus, is mine,
since You have given Him to me. I offer You the infinite
merits of His Divine Childhood, and I beg You in His Name
to open the gates of Heaven to a countless host of little ones
who will forever follow this Divine Lamb.”
Prayer to the Infant for Fathers
Christ has continued to show a particular love of children and childhood, both in His public ministry and in His tender care for children throughout the history of the Church. In particular, the Child Christ continues to lead even the most obstinate of us to the Father. There is always a loving reverence in Christ for both His Father in heaven, and his chosen, foster father on earth.
Christ knows the value of fathers in childhood. The eyes of the child are always on his father – leaning on him and learning from him. So the Infant of Prague, patron of children, is reaching out to them through fathers:
Dearest Infant King, You who became a Child to lead all men
to Your Eternal Father, smile down upon our earthly fathers.
Give them wisdom and strength to lead their families –
As St. Joseph led You and Your Immaculate Mother safely
through the trials of daily life.
Teach our fathers patience and childlike joy, O Infant Christ.
Guide them in their paternity and lead them to Your Beloved
Father in Heaven.
A Prayer for the Sick
The Infant of Prague is a continual help in desperate cases – especially in cases of sick children. His heart is always open to those who lovingly ask for His mercy. Sickness, whether physical, mental, or spiritual, is a painful burden. Let us entrust it to Christ, who loves us all with an inexhaustible love:
O Merciful Infant Jesus! I know of Your miraculous deeds for the sick. I know that You cured many diseases during Your blessed life on earth, and that so many of the venerators of Your miraculous image ascribe to You their recovery and deliverance. Though I am not worthy to receive Your healing, O Lord, only say the word and my child shall be healed.
Extend Your most holy hands, O heavenly Physician, and by Your power take away _____’s infirmity, so that his recovery may be due to You alone. If, however, Dear Jesus, You have determined otherwise, at least, I pray, restore my child’s soul to perfect health. Fill him/her with heavenly consolation and wrap him/her in Your most tender arms. Amen.
16 thoughts on “Patron of Children – Prayers to the Infant of Prague”
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I was taught that we do not pray to the saints but ask them to pray for us to Jesus our Lord God being as they are very close to him and will hear our pleas through their more worthy prayers.
And yet that’s not what actually happens.
Several years ago I was at a funeral for a relative, who died of a drug overdose. The priest said that we should pray for him. Then he said we should pray to him. Nothing about Jesus was mentioned.
Paul tells us that Jesus is our sole mediator with God. Why do we need to go through an intermediary to Jesus? Where does it say that in the Bible???
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LV:
After reviewing your caustic comments to me, I’d like to offer some additional thoughts for consideration.
First of all, the CCC has altered the 10 Commandments. Exodus 20 actually lists the prohibition on graven images as the 2nd, not the 1st. Broke up the 10th into the 9th and 10th.
The first Temple was destroyed in 586BC. Maybe the graven images had something to do with its demise.
You have no evidence to suggest that the 2nd Temple contained graven images. The 2nd Temple lacked the Ark and other ritual objects. Further, the Jews revolted when statues were placed in the Temple in the 2nd century BC and AD 66 CE.
The “new economy of images” sounds like the Church’s justification for deviating from God’s commandment 700 years after Christ ascended to heaven. Nowhere in the words of Jesus did He say to do so.
Finally, having a problem with Church doctrine does not equate having a problem with Jesus and God. If so, you would then say that about Paul when he challenged Peter, calling him a hypocrite, in Galatians 2: 11-16.
LV:
Did Jesus say that He should be remembered, or worshipped, in this manner? Did the apostles, who were Jews that recognized Jesus as the Messiah, erect statues?
I noticed that CCC 2131 and 2132 have no scriptural footnotes to support their statement.
So why does the edict from the Second Council of Nicaea carry more weight than a commandment of God?
Robert, if you’re going to put forth half-baked arguments in support of a heresy that was conclusively refuted roughly 1200 years ago by by the Church you claim to belong to, at least have the courtesy not to do so in blatant bad faith.
CCC 2131-32 are the second half of a four-paragraph section dealing with the “graven image” question. The preceding two paragraphs both include copious scriptural footnotes, and there is no way you could not have known that if you looked them up yourself.
To briefly summarize: The Jews were forbidden from creating images of God, because He appeared to them WITHOUT any visible form (Deut 4:15-16). Even then, though, God not only permitted, but commanded the creation of other graven images, including Moses’ bronze serpent (Num 21:4-9), the cherubim flanking the Ark of the Covenant (Ex 25:10-22), and the cherubim in the Jewish Temple (1 Kings 6:23-36).
(Note in particular the Temple. While the details laid out in 1 Kings concern the First Temple which was destroyed at the time of the Babylonian Exile, there are no indications in Scripture that the rebuilt Second Temple deviated from those designs–and that Temple, in the pre-Diaspora era of the New Testament, is where the Apostles went to pray every day. (Acts 2:46) You ask about the Apostles erecting statues? They were already there.)
And then comes Jesus, “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15)–and the justifications in Deuteronomy no longer apply. As the Catechism puts it: “By becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new ‘economy’ of images.”
Such was confirmed and explicated by the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, following the pattern and example set by the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) and exercising the authority that the Church has always enjoyed in this regard.
And if you have a problem with that, you not only have a problem with the Church, you have a problem with Jesus, and you have a problem with the Father Who sent Him (Luke 10:16).
Robert, recently I was contemplating Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth. I could see only the top of the painting in which with Mary was standing. There was another person in the painting, and I knew it must be Elizabeth, but I could not see the lower 75% of the painting. I assumed Elizabeth must have been down on one knee, or perhaps Elizabeth was sitting.
Eventually I adjusted my view and noticed Elizabeth’s face. Elizabeth’s face was of a very old woman and she was hunched over – she was not sitting nor down on one knee. I thought to myself, “Oh, that’s right! Elizabeth was barren and had no child!”
I was flooded with more memories such as the angel of the Lord appearing to Zechariah, the story of Sarah being barren and giving birth to Isaac, and I remembered Hannah the mother of Samuel.
All these stories came forth due to the artwork that gave glory to God. I suggest you do the same with your writing.
Victor:
That was the point of my comment.
Jesus is no longer a helpless infant, but our mediator with God. And He is coming back to earth.
He will destroy “every sovereignty, authority, and power” according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.
LV,
Yes, I think that I would have to because of the 1st Commandment.
“You shall not make for yourself an idol or a likeness of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; 5 you shall not bow down before them or serve them.”
Ah, so this is just iconoclasm.
As you claim to be a Catholic, I suggest you acquaint yourself with the declarations of the Second Council of Nicaea.
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Why do my fellow Catholics pray to a statue of the infant Jesus when He is now seated at the right-hand of God, and according to the Bible, will return as a mighty warrior to save Israel at the Battle of Armageddon?
Would you make the same argument against the crucifix? After all, Jesus isn’t on the cross anymore, either.
Robert, it might seem a trivial point, but we don’t pray to statues. The statue reminds us of the person to whom we address our prayers. In some cases, statues teach us something of the person they represent. For example, the Infant of Prague statue has chubby hands and cheeks, illustrating that the child Jesus was physically just like the cute, innocent children in our world today. The statue holds the world in one hand and holds his other hand in a gesture of blessing. This gives the praying Christian the assurance that the infant Christ holds us in his hands, and blesses us.
Perhaps I’ve taken your comment too literally, but I think it’s worth clarifying that Catholics pray to God and to saints, not to material objects.