I would simply like to ask your thoughts on reciting the chaplet to the Infant Jesus of Prague

Question

Dear Father Angelo,

I would simply like to ask your thoughts on reciting the chaplet to the Infant Jesus of Prague.

Starting from the assumption that prayer serves not God but us to organize our thoughts and desires, seeking ever greater conformity to Jesus’ teachings, do you think this prayer, although shorter than the rosary, could be a “substitute” for the rosary itself?

I ask your opinion because the Infant Jesus of Prague is important to me because he called me to a beautiful conversion. I meditate on the mysteries of His childhood, thanking the Infant Jesus for these mysteries and asking for Mary’s intercession. I might say it’s similar to the rosary, but since it’s shorter than the rosary, I fear my prayer might be lacking something.

Thanking you in advance for your response, I assure you of my remembrance in prayer and ask for a blessing, especially for my loved ones, that they may rediscover the beauty of following Jesus and allowing themselves to be loved by Him…

Best regards,

M.

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Priest’s Response

Dear M.,

1. The Chaplet of the Baby Jesus is shorter than the Holy Rosary. It consists of three Our Fathers, each followed by four Hail Marys.

The first four are in honor of the baby Jesus, the second in honor of Our Lady, and the third in honor of Saint Joseph.

In total, there are 12 Hail Marys, corresponding to the 12 years of Jesus’ childhood.

2. It is a very beautiful and effective prayer because it brings us back to the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, in which we contemplate God becoming a child.

Of this event, Saint Paul writes: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9).

The baby Jesus is God who becomes poor to make us rich.

It brings us true wealth, the wealth we are called to increase in this present life and which, in the words of Saint Paul, constitutes our “good capital for the future, to secure life” (1 Tim 6:19): sanctifying grace, participation in the life of God.

This, according to Saint Catherine of Siena, is our true wealth, which no one can take from us unless we allow it. Everything else can be taken from us: our health, material possessions, honor, the activities we engage in, our physical life… Grace, however, the good capital for the future life, we carry with us.

3. Secondly, the chaplet of the Child Jesus refers us to the events of redemption, which Christ accomplished even in his infancy, in his hidden life.

From the first instant of his conception, Christ adored the Father, the Holy Trinity, with his humanity, for all of us.

Not only that, but he loved him for all of us, he begged him in atonement for our sins, he asked him for every grace.

The Holy Curé of Ars said he wanted to tell God his love at every moment. Since he could not do this, he instructed his heart to tell him with every beat.

Jesus, however, did not need to instruct his heart to express his love and gratitude to the Father on our behalf. He did so continuously, because from the first moment of his existence, in the highest part of his spirit, he always saw and loved the Father for us.

And he did the same thing throughout the thirty-three years of his life.

But the chaplet focuses on the interior life and merits of Christ in his childhood.

Every act of love of the Child Jesus had infinite and eternal merit and was so powerful that it reached every person in every moment of their life.

By virtue of his perfect knowledge, Jesus saw everyone and loved everyone in an immensely stronger and more effective way than a mother could with the child she holds in her arms.

Jesus, even as a Child, is the One who gives to every person “life and breath and all things” (Acts 17:25).

4. Third, the chaplet of the Child Jesus recalls all the events of his childhood, which are summarized in the joyful mysteries of the Holy Rosary.

I could say that it represents them and re-presents them in the mind and life of those who pray with this practice.

These are salvific events of purification, liberation, and sanctification.

The four Hail Marys in honor of the Blessed Virgin recall the purification that this great King singularly and miraculously brought about in the house where he lived for nine months, even physically. Not only did he purify her from original sin, but he made her completely beautiful and holy.

He wishes to do the same for us when we recall this event.

5. The four Hail Marys in honor of Saint Joseph can recall the liberation from the many evils that he sought to accomplish through the mediation of Saint Joseph during his hidden life: liberation from the anguish in which the Holy Family was initially forced to live, then liberation from Herod, who wanted to kill the child, and finally liberation from Archelaus, crueler than his father Herod, by taking Jesus to Galilee in Nazareth’s home.

6. The four Hail Marys in honor of the Child Jesus recall the sanctification he accomplished as a child: first in Mary and Joseph, who together with Him grew daily in holiness and grace.

Then in the shepherds, in the holy Magi, in the elderly Simeon and Anna (the old woman in the temple at the time of the Presentation), and finally also in the doctors of the law when at the age of twelve he revealed to them the mysteries of salvation.

Even for the doctors of the law, Jesus’ word was an effective word, it was spirit and life, it was a word that purified (“you are clean because of the word you have heard” Jn 15:3), that communicated eternal life, that is, God’s entry into the hearts of those who listened to it.

Who knows how those doctors went home that day enlightened, purified, inwardly warmed, enriched, sanctified. No day had been more fruitful in their lives than that.

And this is what Jesus continues to do when we enter into communion with Him, contemplated in the events of his childhood, which he mercifully places at our disposal to make us contemporaries and beneficiaries of them.

7. Here are the reflections that came to mind.

As I urge you to continue with this beautiful devotion, which undoubtedly prepares the way for the more complete prayer of the Holy Rosary, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to introduce our visitors to the contemplation of the Child Jesus, so that they too may be purified, liberated, and sanctified by Him daily.

Thank you for your prayers for me. I assure you of my own for your loved ones as well.

I bless you with the strength that comes from the Child Jesus, so that He may purify, liberate, and sanctify you.

Father Angelo

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