Since this year has started out so much better for me than last year, I look for any occasion to rejoice in God's grace and love. I'm not talking about partying as in drinking or tail-gating, but praising God for all the blessings He gives, both great and small. The ordinary miracles in our lives, like the sun rising every morning, azure skies, friends...all of these are worth celebrating. In the convent, we praised God with prayers known as the Office of the Hours seven times a day. I have my own routine now, after being out for seven and a half years. I got to thinking of the blessings that each patron saint of mine obtains for me. And so I will start with the Infant Jesus of Prague.
It is not so much the actual statue but the devotion that drew me closer to Him while I was just 17. The original statue is miraculous, but despite all the jeweled robes I do not find it attractive. The real inspiration was the visions and inner locutions of a certain Carmelite monk who rescued the statue (gifted to them by a princess) after the monastery was raided and sacked. I can't remember his name, but you can easily look it up. He was very devoted to the Infant Jesus who assumed our nature to make us adopted children of God. Many times it is said with great gratitude that 'the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.' The poor monk, on recovering the statue from a pile of rubble, saw that the hands of the statue were broken off. He appealed to his superior to get the statue repaired but there were too many other repairs that needed to be made. So he prayed to the Infant Jesus and heard an inner voice reply "The more you honor Me, the more I will honor you." So the monk prayed to the Infant to provide the money since there was no earthly recourse. Mysterious donations of large sums of money began to appear by the statue in the chapel, and finally a sculptor was commissioned to restore the hands of the Infant. After that, miracles of healing, conversions, and solutions to impossible problems began occurring so much that the Catholic Church sanctioned the Infant Jesus of Prague as a patron of the Carmelite Order. And His powers are not limited to them alone.
Such persistence, even doggedness, to promote devotion by one monk for the Infant of Prague gained the monastery a great many blessings, both spiritual and temporal. From the monastery, the devotion spread throughout the order and so throughout the world. When He said 'the more you honor Me, the more I will honor you,' He meant it. Despite a lot of bad memories from the convent, that was one thing they never were able to deprive me of, this devotion which gained for me increasingly greater confidence in God's Almighty power. And everyday I pray a prayer, chaplet, written, or heart whispering, to the Infant to continue to provide for me and my family financially and economically. And I have learned that the amount of devotion showed reflects very much in the blessings bestowed. Whether it is money with which to pay the bills or Divine Intervention that keeps a roof over our heads and our cars running, the Infant Jesus of Prague always comes through. You have only to ask, and it will be given unto you.
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