Stopping by St. Wenceslaus - A Visit to the National Shrine of the Infant Jesus of Prague Oklahoma
Dear Henry, We are still working on our move to Tulsa, and, despite my insistence upon living simply, I am flabbergasted by the amount of "stuff" that has needed to be packed. Recently though, I decided to take a day off from the move and headed to Prague, Oklahoma to check out the National Shrine of the Infant Jesus of Prague at St. Wenceslaus. While images of and devotions to the infant Jesus have existed almost as long as Christianity itself, the statue of the Infant Jesus of Prague was created only a mere 500 years ago. The legend is that a Spanish friar, inspired by an image in a dream, created the wood and wax sculpture of the infant Jesus, with one hand holding a cross-bearing orb (the globus cruciger) and the other raised in a gesture of peace. The statue is generally dressed in royal finery, but the unadorned statue of the Infant Jesus is robed only wearing a simple gown. The statue also, according to legend, once belonged to St. Teresa of Avila. It was ...