The Miraculous Infant of Prague

The worst thing about my condition was the insomnia, the inability to get a good night’s sleep. I would go to bed early in the evening, exhausted by the torments of the day, and would promptly fall asleep, but by three o’clock in the morning I was fully awake again. Chronic sleeplessness is a punishment the healthy will never understand, as debilitating as the worst physical malady, as crushing as cancer. Try as I might, there was nothing I could do to sleep again. In vain I sought solace in prayer. In vain I asked the Lord to let me rest. Instead of finding peace, new doubts assailed me. I felt deeply estranged from God given my many sins and even questioned God’s existence. Despair is not a strong enough word to describe the unimaginable desolation of my spirit, my insufferable sense of a deep and abiding loss. I was in a great big hole, immense and ugly. I could not while away the hours by praying the Rosary although I tried – oh how I tried! – but I must confess it inspired a great tedium rather than a scintilla of peace in me. Sometimes in the darkness of my nights, I wondered whether prayer served any purpose whatsoever.

Nor did my condition improve with the dawning of the morning. Indeed, I began the day in fear of what would happen, always expecting some new torment, I went through the motions – Mass at seven, reading of the Scriptures at eleven, contemplation of the Blessed Sacrament in the afternoon – but nothing could shake my deep anxiety. I prayed and prayed, but the Lord didn’t answer me. It was as if a giant black spider had taken possession of my heart and I could do nothing to escape it. The mental and spiritual suffering was so intense that it manifested itself physically, and I felt a huge boulder crushing my chest as I breathed and my legs were slowed by a dreadful lethargy.

I couldn’t understand why I was chosen by God for such a burden, for such a profound melancholia. After all, I was in perfect health, my fellow priests treated me with kindness, no one in my life had died, and I wanted for nothing materially. And yet one day I woke up and felt a great dread, as if my whole life was in play. I was afraid of a permanent perdition, an abiding separation from my God. Over time, the feelings of despair only increased, coupled with what we priests call scrupulosity. If I saw a beautiful woman, I would cross myself, hoping I would not fall into the sin of concupiscence. If I sometimes wondered whether the consecrated bread and wine were truly Christ’s body and blood, I thought myself to be the worst of sinners, no better than an atheist. And when I railed at my great suffering, I thought I was refusing to accept the Cross the Christ had given me for His good reasons. In a word, I considered myself a wicked person, deserving the punishment I endured, unworthy in God’s sight.

Things got so bad that I contemplated suicide, the worst of sins since it is the only sin that  can never be forgiven. How could I be thinking of such a monstrous end, me, a Carmelite monk, no less? And yet I felt I needed to escape in any manner possible and self-destruction seemed to be the only option. How long could I endure the sleepless nights, the stubborn unrest, entire weeks and months without a day of peace?  I had attempted everything – vigorous physical exercise, meditation on the Cross of Christ, even self-flagellation – and my troubles did not abate. Consolation didn’t arrive, no matter how hard I prayed. Where I sought the light, I found only a pitch-black darkness. One day, in my bottomless anguish, I held a knife above my wrist, ready to commit the unpardonable, when I heard the mellifluous voice of a child.

“Don’t despair. I’m not finished with you yet.”

I looked at the statue of the Holy Infant and began to weep.

***

The figure of the Miraculous Infant was in a niche over the altar of the church attached to the monastery where I lived. It was a tiny statue, nineteen inches tall, made of wood covered by wax, depicting the Divine Child dressed in royal garments and wearing a king’s crown. In His left hand He held an orb surmounted by a cross signifying His rule over the globe, and with the right He issued a blessing to all men. The Infant Jesus was depicted wearing a white tunic with a ruff about the neck, and sumptuous embroidered cloaks which were changed during the different liturgical seasons of the year – green during ordinary time, red or gold during Christmas, purple for Lent, royal blue for the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Legend has it that a child appeared to a monk in an abandoned Spanish monastery and instructed the man to sculpt Him as he saw Him. Based on my own experience, I don’t doubt the story or that the child was the Infant Jesus Himself. Eventually, the figure of the Child Jesus ended up in the hands of a princess of the Royal House of Spain, Maria Maximiliana Manriquez, who brought the image to Prague upon her marriage to a nobleman of Bohemian birth. It is rumored that Princess Maximiliana’s mother had received the statuette from the monk who had been commissioned to complete it by the Lord Himself.  In 1587, Maria Maximiliana bequeathed the statue to her daughter Polyxenia when she in turn was married. A lifetime later, Princess Polyxenia, after she buried her husband in 1628, gifted the statue of the Child Jesus to the Carmelites, saying, “I give you what I prize most highly in the world; honor and respect the Child Jesus and you shall never be in want.” How I wish I had understood her words when I first heard them! The Infant of Prague wasn’t meant to simply protect the monks from financial destitution, but more importantly, from poverty of soul.

During my first two years at the monastery of Virgin Mary the Victorious, I paid small heed to the statuette of the child King, and during prayer I concentrated on the crucifix instead, since I had always identified more with the suffering Christ than with the resplendent Infant dressed in lustrous vestments and holding the planet in His hands. And yet I had decided to accomplish my macabre deed – my act of self-immolation –  in the oratory as an act of extreme defiance against the risen Christ, saying, “Here, look at what I’ll do. Since you will give me no rest and no respite from my pain, I’ll find respite on my very own.” But as my fellow Carmelite Teresa of Avila says, “God gives when, how and to whom He wills.” The Christ-Child had His own plans for me, plans to give me a future and a hope as the Scripture says, joy and not disaster. So, when I heard His words in the small chapel, encouraging me to persist, I was suddenly in tears and felt a hot shame thinking that I had even thought about ending a life bequeathed to me by God. Although I was wildly undeserving of an intervention, like Saul on the road to Damascus, the Lord lavished me with His grace and opened the gates of His Mercy to me with His simple words. Truth be told, my doubts and fears did not disappear overnight, my dark night of the soul was just beginning, but now I had a North star showing me there was a way out of the darkness, a means to flee the depths. More than that, I was to learn that the darkness itself was a conduit to God’s love. In the darkness you can find Jesus if only you’re patient and make sure your eyes are open. Never doubt that God shall provide the lamp.

So, I began to pray relentlessly to the Infant, burdening Him with my cares, sharing my inmost fears with Him, seeking the rest I sorely needed. The result was a period of great peace, at least inward peace, since the winds of war were blowing hard, and we feared the Protestants at the direction of King Adolphus of Sweden would soon invade Bohemia. I decided to leave the monastery and flee to Germany with all my fellow priests, but in the tumult that ensued I was unable to take the statue of the Infant Jesus with me. Oh, how I would learn to rue that day! How I would miss that little statue! Soon I heard the news that the Protestant armies had taken over Prague and plundered the church where the Infant Jesus was ensconced. I received the information with what can only be called grief, as if I had lost a brother or a mother or a limb. I know it may seem irrational – there were countless statues of the Infant Jesus in the churches of Germany and Bohemia– but I felt I had lost something of an irretrievable value, the statue that had suddenly come to life and told me not to be afraid. I fell into a deep funk, a feeling of unmooring, an amputation of the soul. After having found safe harbor, I was once again in the tumultuous seas. After having seen the North Star, it was out of reach again. There was once again in me a great aridity of spirit and I scarcely prayed. I was despondent at the thought that despair could so easily defeat me, but the truth is that it could.

During the next six years of exile, I managed to muddle through many days of helpless blindness, unable to see the Lord or feel His presence. I didn’t think of suicide again but raged against the darkness that surrounded me. I acted irritably against my fellow priests, furious that they had so blithely accepted the destruction of our monastery in Prague and all its precious objects, first and foremost the image of the Divine Child which I cherished above all. I didn’t think that after witnessing the apparition of the Christ Child I could lapse back into despair, but the insomnia returned as well as the ordeal of restless days and nights. Once again, I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t hope. Once again, I said with Job, “Sighing has become my daily food; my groans pour out like water. What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.”

***

Then I was given a thorn in the flesh, a message of Satan to torment me, a stubborn temptation upending everything. Like Saint Paul I prayed that the thorn might disappear but my prayers went unheard just like those of the apostle to the Gentiles. Ivana Benes was a lovely, nubile woman whom I had met in the Confessional. She always confessed the same sin, an inclination to concupiscence, and I couldn’t get through her confessions without profusely sweating. My feelings toward Ivana confirmed my certainty that I was a sinful, wretched man and I was destined for an irreparable disaster and an unspeakable agony. Now, it was I who didn’t want to sleep, for it was while I slept that my visions of Ivana were the most foul and sinful.

Ivana was engaged to a German nobleman but she strayed – oh how she strayed! – taking on lovers left and right. And she had the habit of explaining her sins to me in exquisite detail, causing in me a great disquiet. I wanted the Confessions to end as quickly as possible for I was greatly discomfited by her descriptions of how she had bedded one man and then another. I had the sense that she had some idea of my black feelings for her and derived enjoyment in driving me to shame. The Confessions became longer and longer as she recounted to me the full extension of her terrifying vice. After giving her absolution, I immediately sought out a priest to engage in Confession myself for I was certain that by delighting in her Confessions I was committing the worst of sins. What could be a worse offense than giving in to thoughts of lust in a holy place meant for the forgiveness of sins by God?

All this made my nervous condition even worse. In the past I had a vague sense of a general weakness of the flesh, but it had never manifested itself in forbidden passion for a particular woman. Now Ivana became the focus of all my thoughts, and I looked forward to our meetings with a feverish intensity. But the joyful anticipation did not come unaccompanied by a guilt as thick as mud. I had the conviction that I was sinning in the presence of my precious Divine Child, for I had a painting of Him in the room at the monastery where I listened to Confessions. I felt that I was making a mockery of my devotion to the Christ Child by indulging in transgressions right in front of Him. And yet I did not desist. I should have told Ivana early on that I should not be listening to her Confessions, but the truth is that I could not resist looking forward to them with bated breath.

I often wondered why Ivana would come to Confession almost monthly only to repeat the same sins again and again. But of course, that was true of many other penitents who seemed to think of the Confessional as a river where they could habitually wash all their sins away and come back the next month to wash some more. And yet I had the sense that despite her apparent nonchalance – dare one say catlike mischievousness – Ivana truly felt remorse over her manifold transgressions. And that is how everything came to a head. While she was telling me of an interlude with her betrothed’s best friend, she suddenly began weeping and threw herself against my chest and landed in my arms. I felt a frisson of desire and a sense of impending peril at the same time. Her tears ran down my face and I did not know what to do. Paralyzed by fear, I made a great effort to prevent the situation from getting worse. Truth be told, I had the sense that Ivana was expecting some sort of response from me, and it was not a response that would have pleased the Divine Child. I was sure the intimacy which we shared in the Confessional was leading her to impure thoughts, which I had to keep at bay at the peril of my very soul.

But then I looked at the portrait of the Infant Jesus and knew I must do everything to counter the rank propensities of my flesh. As I had told many of the faithful repeatedly during my years as a priest, temptation is not a sin if you do not consent. So, I gently pushed Ivana away from me and asked her if she wanted to say a prayer to the Infant Jesus. She nodded as she wiped the tears from her eyes, and I suddenly realized everything would be in the hands of God.

“I would want nothing more,” she said. “I have gone so far from Him.”

“Oh, Divine Infant,” I prayed. “Come to our aid in facing the perils to our bodies and our souls. Protect us from all sin and prepare us to join you in Heavenly rest. Give us your peace. We promise you that from today forward we shall avoid any acts that may offend Your Holy Spirit.”

The following month, Ivana returned to the Confessional and admitted only trifles. For the first time in years, she didn’t refer to any sins of the flesh for she was now living in chastity. As for me, I felt a certain satisfaction knowing that I had run the gauntlet, met the challenge, pleased the Holy Infant. My existential anguish did not disappear, but it largely dissipated knowing that I had bested the evil one in my weakest moment and followed my Jesus to the end.

***

I returned to Prague in 1637, after the Swedish Protestants were ousted from Bohemia. The first thing I did was to search for the statuette of the Divine Child in the church of Virgin Mary the Victorious. As soon as I realized what the Swedes had done to the oratory where the figure had been on display, I felt as if I was about to faint. Where once there had been an altar and a crucifix, there was now only a pile of rubble, a mountain of dirt and debris four meters high. And all the religious icons had disappeared including the figures of the Virgin Mother, those of Saint Paul and Saint Peter, the depiction of Saint Joseph tending to his Son, and most distressingly, the little Christ Child that I so cherished. I soon collapsed into tears and began to stagger without purpose. At first, I was just silently crying, letting the tears run down my face, but then it was as if a dam had broken and I sobbed uncontrollably and muttered disconnected phrases. The two seminarians with me, Alois and Valentin, were alarmed and tried to comfort me, telling me it was possible to commission a sculpture identical to the one that had been lost, but that was no consolation. I wanted to see the image of the Holy Infant Jesus that had – at least temporarily – rid me of my despair and metastasizing pain and no other statue could take its place.

I immediately directed Alois and Valentin to get some shovels and begin digging in the mound of filth where the altar had once been. They objected, telling me it was impossible to find the little statue in the despoiled church after so many years, that its wooden skeleton had probably rotted away and the wax that covered it had surely decayed. I was peremptory in my response, since finding the statue was literally a matter of life and death for me. In my mind it had something to do with the salvation of my soul.

“You are going to dig until your arms hurt from so much digging,” I told the seminarians. “You are going to search until you reach the bottom of the pile of dirt and rotten wood. The Holy Infant Jesus is miraculous and perhaps has survived the elements despite the passage of the years.”

Once they brought the shovels, I participated in the search for the Christ Child in the rubbish with a furious desperation. After several hours of digging, we found Saint Joseph’s decapitated head. But Alois and Valentin were quick to point out that the image of Saint Joseph was made of plaster and wouldn’t rot while the image of the Divine Child was sculpted in wood and wax. Surely everyone was wasting their time, they said, everybody was involved in a fool’s errand. But I was determined to keep on digging even after the sun had set. And then it happened. Alois stumbled upon the Infant’s golden crown in the refuse, and not too far from it, we discovered the head and body of the Christ Child. His royal garments were in tatters and He was missing both hands as well as the orb which He once held, but otherwise the image was intact. As soon as I held the statue in my arms, I knelt and said a prayer.

“I shall never abandon you again, my Lord,” I said. “You shall soon again be the object of veneration among the masses and the focus of my relentless prayers. You have been forgotten for far too long and I won’t let it happen once again.”

The following morning, I cleaned the statue of the Infant Jesus with a bucket of water and a wet sponge. His body was soiled by dirt, and His blond hair was knotted in grime. Then I replaced His filthy royal vestments with impeccable imperial regalia befitting His status as a monarch. Having cleansed Him thus, I placed Him in a chapel at the monastery which had survived the Swedish onslaught. But contrary to my expectations, the discovery of the Christ Child buried in the ruins did not rid me of my stubborn melancholia. I felt a deep-seated guilt about having abandoned Him in a moment of fear when I departed from Bohemia without Him. I felt that I had engaged in a personal betrayal of my precious Infant. So, the sleepless nights did not abate, my relentless depression deepened, the doubts about my worthiness before God were as troubling as ever.

The Holy Infant did not abandon me to my despair, however. While I was praying to Him for solace in the chapel where I had placed Him, I saw Him come to life. He gently smiled at me as He imparted His divine message. “Have mercy on Me,” He said, “and I will have mercy on you. Give Me hands, and I will give you peace. The more you honor Me, the more I will bless you.” From that very moment, replacing the Infant’s hands became my sole obsession and the object of all my efforts. I desperately wanted the mutilated Christ Child to give me peace as He had promised. And – at least initially – it seemed like a simple bargain. All I had to do was find a sculptor to give Him a new set of hands, and the Holy Infant would impart His sanctifying grace upon me and finally dissolve the hideous fear and despair which had dogged me for so many years. But fulfilling the Divine Child’s entreaties proved to be more difficult than I had thought. When I broached the subject with the Prior and asked him for the money to repair the statue, he pooh-poohed the idea, telling me the monastery faced more pressing expenses at the time. I didn’t have money either and soon lapsed back into despair. Here the Good Lord was asking me for a simple task, and I was unable to accomplish it. I asked myself whether I was doomed to live with my black depression forever as despair once again controlled my soul like a vise.

Nevertheless, I was not so easily defeated. The very day I heard the refusal from the Prior, I spent the afternoon and early evening in the chapel where the handless statue was ensconced and fervently prayed that I might somehow find the money needed for the repairs. I thought my prayers had been heard a week later when I attended to a rich man in the throes of death and told him the story about the Divine Infant’s mutilated hands. He immediately handed me a hundred florins to pay for the new pair of hands, but my satisfaction was short-lived. As soon as I told the Prior about the gift, he told me it would be a waste of money to spend it on fixing the old statue when the hundred florins were sufficient to pay for a new one. I fiercely objected, reminded him of the Infant’s divine message, but it was all to no avail. He decided to use the money to pay a sculptor for a new image of the Infant Jesus, thinking that should be enough to satisfy the Good Lord’s wishes. But the Prior’s expectations were confounded. Soon after the completion of the new statue, it fell from the niche where it had been placed and was smashed to smithereens upon falling on the floor. I redoubled my efforts to find the desperately needed money, taking the unexpected accident as irrefutable proof that the Child Jesus wanted the repair of the old statue and not another.

***

I soon decided to seek the money from the wealthy men of Prague, but the people’s devotion to the Infant Jesus had waned during all the years of war and absence. I was surprised, nay astonished, by the fact they had forgotten Him so easily, no longer remembered all the miracles He had performed. The Protestant occupation of Prague had hit them hard, and they had largely lost their devotion to the Divine Child. Even the beneficiaries of the Holy Infant’s most outlandish miracles had somehow lost their gratitude. I visited one man whose daughter had miraculously been healed by the Divine Infant during the first outbreak of the bubonic plague in Prague and expected he at least would help, But he literally shut the door in my face as soon as I told him that I needed a few florins to repair the statue of the Infant Jesus. And so it went all afternoon. I knocked upon door after door and was met only by derision. I prayed to the Holy Infant and asked Him for succor, explained to Him that the task of repairing His statue was beyond my means. The Miraculous Infant of Prague had given me a simple mission and I was unable to accomplish even that. Then, completely defeated and unhelmed, I wept in copious despair recognizing that my failure to meet the Divine Infant’s plea meant that I would never have peace. I went to the chapel and gravely made my request: “Dear Child, look at my tears; I am at your feet—have mercy on me!”

The reason the repair was so expensive is not only that the Infant’s hands had to be replaced but also the golden orb which He once held in His hands.  That realization led me to an unruly thought: if gold was what was needed to satisfy the Holy Child’s desires, then I needed to find some gold. There were two golden candelabra in the chapel and I knew if I sold them I would have enough not only to fix the hands of the little statue, but also to commission the sculpture of the golden orb. I resolved to steal the candelabra and find someone who would willingly purchase them at a reduced price. I knew that to the ordinary man I would be engaging in a great theft, but I overcame my qualms by telling myself the candelabra belonged to Jesus anyway and it would not be sinful to take them in order to satisfy the Infant Lord’s desires.

So, one day I went out into the streets of Prague to find a buyer for my candelabra. I knew Rudolf Janu was a disreputable character in the business of buying stolen goods. When I proposed the sale of the candelabra to him, he smiled widely and looked at me with a mischievous expression on his face.

“Father Cyril,” he said sardonically. “Who would have thought you’d be the one to loot the church!”

“Don’t worry about it,” I responded. “I need the money for a very good purpose.”

“Sure, sure,” Rudolf answered. “Who is going to criticize the good priest for having a paramour? I too am given to sins of the flesh.”

“”I need the money to repair a statue of the Holy Infant at the Church of Our Lady Victorious.”

“Yes, Father Cyril, whatever you say. I don’t expect you to admit that you’ve broken your vows. And it’s not surprising, is it? If you have a woman in your life, you want to buy her pretty things. Little ornaments, Spanish fans, bracelets full of gems. I’ll pay you two-hundred florins for the two candelabra.”

“They’re worth much more.”

“That may be true, but it’s the best I can offer. You won’t be able to sell these candelabra anywhere else. It’s obvious that you have stolen them. And with two-hundred florins, you should have more than enough to regale your lover with beautiful things.”

“Well, you drive a pretty hard bargain, but two-hundred florins should be enough to replace the two hands of my Divine Infant.”

That afternoon, with the money in hand, I returned to the monastery. The Prior was waiting for me with a furious expression on his face.

“Tell me the truth, Cyril of the Mother of God,” he demanded. “Are you the one who has taken the golden candelabra?”

“How did you know?” I asked.

“I can’t think of anyone else who would want to steal them. Don’t you realize what you’ve done is a great sin, unbecoming a man who has consecrated his life to God?”

“It was done for the greater good,” I responded. “We need the money to repair the Holy Infant’s hands.”

“Why are you so obsessed with fixing the two hands of a statue?”

“The Infant Jesus Himself appeared to me and told me I would not have peace until I did so.”

“You’re being delusional, Cyril. Why would the Divine Child speak to you? And why would he make a big deal about a single statue? There are hundreds of images of the Infant Jesus throughout Bohemia and all of Europe.”

“Well, that’s what He ordered me to do. It’s not for us mere mortals to question the designs of Almighty God. Ours is an exigent God.”.

“Why would the Infant Jesus give you such a favor and speak to you in person? You’re no saint, just an ordinary priest. And I might add you’re a man with a stubborn nervous condition. Don’t you think you’re imagining the locutions?”

“There is nothing the Lord delights in as much as communicating Himself to a worm. Why He cares so much about a single statue is not for me to say.”

“Well, I have a good mind to have you defrocked. You have engaged in a grave misconduct, a violation of the most basic of Church rules.”

I felt myself despairing, swooning, fainting. To rid me of my status as a priest would be the worst possible punishment. Nothing gave me more joy than celebrating the Mass and consecrating the Eucharist, counseling the faithful on their way to Jesus.

“Please don’t say that,” I pleaded with the Prior. “I’ll try and see if I can demand the return of the golden candelabra.”

“It’s gone beyond that, Cyril. I’m thinking your nervous condition won’t allow you to perform your duties as a priest. I’ll let you know my decision within a month.”

And I immediately went to the chapel and wept copiously before the image of the mutilated Infant.

“O why, O why,” I cried, “why are you making me suffer so?”

***

The truth is that I suffered much during this period of my life. If I was severed from the Church through a defrocking, I would be subject to the stripping away of all rights to perform my duties as a priest. My first instinct was to respond to the Holy Infant with indignant anger. Why would He require me to fulfill a mandate that would only lead me to suffering and disaster? Rather than feeling closer to Jesus as a result of the Infant’s locutions, I felt an intense trial of spiritual aridity, of doubts regarding His existence, of despair at the injustices of life. During the ensuing days, I thought about what the Prior had said long and hard, his accusation that I was simply mentally ill. Perhaps he was correct in saying my visions of the Infant Jesus were the product of a frayed and troubled mind. After all, it was true that there was no logical explanation as to why the Infant Jesus would want the repair of a simple statue with such intensity. I knew the Prior was right in saying there were hundreds of other statues like it. Was the Holy Child’s insistence that I repair His statue nothing more than a test of my faith? Was He asking me to give up everything – to abandon everything I held most dear! – in order to make manifest my love for Him?

But then, in a moment of grace, as panic seemed to engulf me, the good Lord gave me the answer. It wasn’t a divine locution, just a certainty within my troubled mind. The Infant Jesus had been sculpted by a Spanish monk to whom the Divine Child had appeared in person. Unlike all the other statues of the Holy Infant, the one created by the Spanish monk reflected the true image of the Christ-Child. All the other sculptures were mere approximations, depictions of how the artists had imagined the Infant, and so they missed the mark. Only the statue of the mutilated Infant represented the Divine Child as He really looked. And He wanted to make a gift of it to the people of Bohemia, in times of war, in times of plague, as well as to the people of the world who desperately needed His presence. I was then reminded that even though we may live in darkness, the Lord is always a lantern for us in our suffering. And I redoubled my prayers, asking Him to allow me to face disaster with resignation and trust in God rather than merely asking Him to alleviate my pain. I knew the Holy Infant expected nothing less.

During the month during which the Friar was considering his decision as to my status as a priest, I thought long and hard about the meaning of human suffering. I had lived my entire life suffering intensely as a result of my nervous condition and since I received the order to repair the statuette from the Holy Infant my internal anguish was coupled with a profound exterior trial. The Prior’s words threatened to destroy all that was meaningful in my life as there was nothing else that could compare to the joy, I felt by serving my God and my people as a priest. Suffering is something all men must endure and yet it is an ineffable mystery which presents a moral choice. Either we accept it as part of the beneficent will of God or we lapse into an utter and complete moral despair. Certainly, the Good Lord was inviting me to suffer through His words, but I had to resist the temptation to give up on God. Otherwise, everything in life was absurd, meaningless, grotesque. I had to believe that by letting me suffer, the Lord was promoting a more intense communion with Him, that the suffering in the end provided a pathway toward God. But it was hard – so hard! – to face the fact that nothing was within my control, that I had to accept the will of God no matter how demanding or absurd or demented it may seem to ordinary mortal minds. And so, I had to recognize that all suffering ultimately fulfills God’s salvific purposes: every illness, every setback, every failure, even every sin could be transformed into an opportunity to develop our relationship with God. If the Holy Infant caused me to forfeit my priesthood, causing me an irreparable harm, nevertheless I must accept it as the will of God and accept it in blind faith. Didn’t Saint Paul say, “walk by faith, not by sight?” Didn’t the Christ Himself ask His Father to let Him avoid the chalice of suffering?

And so, the day came when I was summoned to the Prior’s quarters. He looked at me with pity but also certitude.

“Please sit down,” he said.

“What have you decided?” I responded.

“Listen, I’ve given this matter a lot of thought. I’m afraid your nervous condition is making it impossible for you to function as a priest. I’m sure that your supposed communications with the Christ-Child are a sign of a crippling mental infirmity rather than a special grace given to you by God.”

“When the Holy Infant said, ‘have mercy on me and I shall have mercy on you,’ He wasn’t just addressing me. The good Lord often imparts His messages to humble individuals in order that they may be communicated to all. Don’t you think the Holy Infant’s words might be addressed to you as well? Isn’t it in your power to have mercy on the Christ-Child and replace His little hands and His golden orb? Are you not in need of the Mercy of God? If you think you’re not, then you’re the only one in all humanity without that need./”

“I’ve made my decision, Cyril.”

“Is there nothing I can say?”

“I’m sorry, Cyril. The only way I could change my mind is if I heard an order from the Holy Infant myself. And I don’t expect it any time soon. You can leave the monastery as soon as you find decent living quarters.”

***

When I left the monastery, I wasn’t prepared for the reaction of the other residents of Prague. They treated me with a general opprobrium, as if I was the most despicable of sinners, knowing that I had suffered through the extreme penalty of defrocking for having stolen property from the church and believing Rudolf Janu’s claims that I had done so to satisfy the whims of an illicit lover. Truth be told, however, by this time I had largely made my peace with God and recognized all suffering as a means for the Lord to impart His sanctifying grace upon me. If I was to suffer from a daily public humiliation, perhaps it was for me to learn to live in humility, chief of all the virtues just like pride was the worst of vices. If I could no longer live in the monastery, perhaps it was to learn that God was all around us, not confined to any particular place. In my exile from the Church, I learned that the Christ was ubiquitous and I could find Him everywhere so long as my eyes were open. All I needed to do was to surrender my fragile mind  to God completely and without reservation

Still, there was the devastating sting of shame, which bothered me overmuch. The woman who rented the flat to me warned me not to bring any women to my living quarters, believing the foul falsehood that I loved to engage in debauching women. Mothers advised their children to keep away from me, thinking I was the worst possible example of how a Catholic, let alone a priest, should live. Stay away from that man at all costs, they warned their children as if I were capable of the darkest vices. No one believed my claims of converse with the Infant Jesus even though they had become vox populi. Instead, they believed that they were outlandish fictions meant to hide my deep-seated perfidy and lust. In short, I was a complete pariah, living the most desolate of solitudes, as families who once welcomed me to their homes with reverence and mirth now wanted nothing to do with me. But I plodded on, certain that my shame was in no way comparable to the intense ostracism to which my good Lord had been subjected on His via dolorosa. I was henceforth to devote my life entirely to the Holy Infant. A life lived all in for Christ is a life fully abandoned to Jesus, which at the end of the day, no matter what the trials, no matter what the tests, is a life full of a blind hope and an unfettered bliss. But that doesn’t mean the Christian’s life is free from suffering, quite the opposite. "If anyone would come after me,” said Jesus, “let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." The road offered by the Christ is difficult and arduous, sometimes seemingly suffocating, but it is the only means to true felicity.

Around that time, the bubonic plague made its way to Bohemia once again and not a single family was spared. Faced with such a challenge, many citizens of Prague turned to the Christ and devotion to the Holy Infant was renewed. In fact, I remember having seen a large group of Flagellants bearing images of the Christ-Child, maybe more than five hundred of them, on the roads of Prague.  They were all stripped to the waist, wearing only loincloths, and whipping themselves in the back with nail-embedded scourges while they chanted hymns and prayers, marching two abreast as they pleaded for relief from the great plague.  Each of the Flagellants wore a cap with a red cross in front and a few were dragging wooden crosses.  I noticed that the Flagellants’ backs were bruised and bloodied and at times they lay on the ground, prostrate, their bodies taking the shape of a cross.  The church bells were ringing and huge crowds of people were on either side of the road, all seeking the succor of the Divine Infant.

As the plague worsened, more and more crowds amassed at the Church of Mary of the Victories, hoping to get close to the mutilated Infant to plead their case before Him. At that moment I recognized something I had not understood before. When the Christ-Child begged humans to have mercy on Him – and I believe His request was made not just to me but to all humanity – He was not just asking for the repair of His broken arms. He was asking that men and women have mercy on Him by showering Him with their love and affection and manifesting their complete obedience to His gentle commands. I remember what a wise man once said. “When all is going well, we forget God. It is only when we suffer that we seek recourse to the Heavenly Consoler.” Suddenly the forgotten Infant of Prague was remembered by one and all as they faced the great scourge of the bubonic plague. And I joined in their prayers, asking for protection of so many citizens of Bohemia who had once been my friends but had decided to forsake me based on little more than vicious and outrageous lies.

When the Black Death was at its height, I received a summons from the Friar, who hadn’t spoken to me since he decided to defrock me. I found the aching man alone in bed, his neck covered by the dreaded buboes, the painful swollen lymph nodes characteristic of the disease. His physical suffering was so intense that he could barely move and spoke in a muffled voice. Despite the fact he had ruined my life, I was moved to pity and gave him my blessing.

“As you can see,” he whispered, “I am in the grip of the bubonic plague. I wanted to know if you could pray for me.”

“Aren’t you forgetting that I’m no longer a priest? It was you who rid me of my priestly perquisites. But I’ll gladly beg the Holy Infant to have mercy on you.”

“Can you repeat,” asked the Prior, “the words the Divine Child said to you?”

“It was a simple message. ‘Have mercy on me and I will have mercy on you. Give me my arms and I will give you peace. I will bless you as much as you will venerate me.’”

“Do you think those words apply to me?” asked the Prior. “If I venerate the Christ-Child, will He have pity on me and rid me of this dread disease?”

“I think those words were directed at all humanity. So yes, it’s true. If you honor Him, He will shower you with His grace. As far as whether you will be healed from the ravages of the Black  Death, that I do not know. He may offer you His mercy in a different way.”

“I wanted to ask for your forgiveness,” pronounced the Friar. “I was like the doubting Thomas and failed to recognize you were especially blessed by God. And I ruined your reputation, allowed the vilest rumors to be spread against you.”

“You were forgiven long ago for soiling my good name. Now do all you can to encourage the veneration of the blessed Infant.  In these times, it is more important than ever for the masses to seek refuge in the arms of the Divine Child, broken as they are.”

“I promise you that I’ll have them fixed. And we’ll set aside a chapel in the church just for Him.”

In due course, the statue of the Miraculous Infant was repaired; the Prior was healed; and the epidemic disappeared from Bohemia. I was to spend the rest of my days – the next forty years – as a monk dedicated to caring for the Miraculous Infant of Prague, keeping Him impeccably clean, changing His lavish royal vestments at each liturgical season and seeing Him even in recurring days of darkness and pain with the eyes of faith.