Cult of the Child Jesus
The cult of the Child Jesus, not entirely unknown in the early Middle Ages, originated in the 12th and 13th centuries, when Christian spirituality began a passionate study of the human life of Jesus, especially as considered in its two extreme phases: infancy and the Passion. This was due to the influence of the liturgy, the Crusades, numerous pilgrimages, the pious meditations and devotional practices of great saints such as St. Bernard and St. Francis (the Nativity at Greccio, 1223), the growing cult of the Eucharist (many believed the Child Jesus to be hidden under the Eucharistic species), and the cult of the Madonna (almost always represented with the Child Jesus in her arms).
Many writers propagated devotion to the Child Jesus, such as St. Aelred of Rievaulx, in the *Tractatus de Jesu duennii*: PL 195, 361-500; St. Bernard, in the *Homilies*: PL 183, 360-536; and St. Bonaventure, in *De 5 Festivitatibus pueri Iesu*; *Lignum Vitae* (Opera omnia, VIII, Quaracchi 1882-1902, pp. 68-86). Devotional treatises taught pious souls to assist the Madonna in swaddling, rocking, and washing the Child Jesus, and to play with the divine Child: thus, for example, Ubertino da Casale, in *Arbor Vitae crucifixae D.N.I.X.*, Venice 1485, and G. Gerson. Visions of the little Jesus also became numerous: to St. Elizabeth of Schönau, to St. Clare, to the Blessed Angela da Foligno, and above all to the Venerable Margaret Ebner, who enjoyed a special friendship with the holy Child.
Plastic representations showed the faithful how He lay in the Madonna’s bed after childbirth (from around 1300) or in the manger (from the 15th century) or in the cradle (which devotees would sometimes rock) or even how an angel taught Him to walk. Statues of the Child Jesus were also brought from Bethlehem, where they had been placed on the site of the Lord’s nativity. It was customary, at least in some regions of Belgium and Germany, to place small terracotta or clay statues of the Child Jesus in the foundations of houses; the Child Jesus was also the most popular subject of countless painted or woodcut images, and was often the theme of New Year’s greeting images. Very ancient statues of the Child Jesus from this period are still venerated today in the cathedral of Apt (Provence, 14th century), in Filzmoos (Austria, before 1500), and in that of Cebu, in the Philippine Islands (brought from Spain, first half of the 14th century).
In the 16th century, that devotion to the Child Jesus which has more directly persisted to our own day began. In Spain, St. Teresa taught her nuns to make statuettes of the Child Jesus; and in Italy, the Venerable Orsola Benincasa venerated some of them. In Lucca, a local industry for such statuettes arose at this time. The Child Jesus of the Aracoeli and that of Altenhohena in Bavaria also seem to date from this period. In the first half of the 17th century, the great flowering of the cult of the Child Jesus began, promoted by the French school (under the influence of Cardinal de Bérulle, who particularly favored the consideration of the Divine Word humbled in the form of a child), and above all by Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament (of Beaune), who founded the Family of the Child Jesus and introduced the Crown of Jesus (12 Hail Marys and 3 Our Fathers) and the monthly feast on the 25th of each month. The Child Jesus of Prague came from Spain around 1628. St. Alphonsus was an apostle of devotion to the Child Jesus and of the Bethlehemite Way (v.). Numerous are the religious congregations that take their name from the Child Jesus.