Day 8: Trust in the Infant

The eighth day of the Infant of Prague Novena turns to the disposition that has carried the devotion for nearly four centuries: trust. The brief invocation that closes every novena prayer (Divine Infant Jesus, I trust in You) names the central Catholic disposition that the entire devotion is forming in the soul. Today we deepen this trust and let it become the operative Catholic disposition of our prayer.

Today's invocation

O Most gracious Infant Jesus, I have recourse to You... (the full opening prayer)

Today's meditation

The Catholic theology of trust in the Christ Child is grounded in the same Catholic conviction that runs through the Sacred Heart devotion (Sacred Heart Day 4), the Divine Mercy devotion (Divine Mercy Day 1), the Surrender Novena of Don Dolindo, and the Little Way of Saint Therese of Lisieux. The conviction is that the Lord truly loves the Catholic soul, that His mercy is more abundant than our sin, and that the soul's principal task is to trust His love.

The Infant of Prague devotion makes this trust particularly accessible. The small Lord in the form of a child cannot be approached with fear in the way the awesome Lord of the Apocalypse can be approached. The royal robes and the crown indicate the kingship; but the small child's face, the open hand of blessing, the approachable form, all communicate a Catholic invitation to trust without reservation.

The brief invocation Divine Infant Jesus, I trust in You is the verbal expression of this disposition. The Catholic faithful who have prayed it for years often testify that the simple sentence has become the foundation of their daily Catholic life. They pray it in the morning on rising; they pray it in the moment of difficulty during the day; they pray it before sleep. The cumulative effect over a Catholic lifetime is the gradual formation of the soul in the disposition of trust that the Infant of Prague exists to develop.

Today's intention

Today, in addition to your principal intention, name to the Infant of Prague the conditions you have been placing on your trust. Divine Infant Jesus, I have been trusting You on the condition that You give me what I have asked. Help me today to release the condition. I trust You whether or not the matter resolves as I wish.

The novena's eighth day is the deepest moment of trust. By now, after seven days of prayer, the soul has begun to recognize that the Lord has been working in ways the soul did not anticipate. The Catholic gift of these eight days is not principally the answer to the prayer (which may or may not be visible at the close of the novena) but the deepening of trust that the prayer has worked.

Reflection

The Catholic spiritual writers have long observed that trust is the principal disposition of the soul that approaches the Lord. The Lord cannot give His grace where the soul has not trusted Him. The Catholic patient with cancer, the Catholic parent with the rebellious teenager, the Catholic spouse in the difficult marriage, the Catholic worker in the precarious job, all need the same Catholic disposition: trust in the Lord who has come to us in the small form of the Christ Child.

The Infant of Prague Novena's eighth day is the appropriate moment to make a deliberate Catholic act of trust, naming the matter under prayer and consenting that the Lord may answer in any way He chooses. Divine Infant Jesus, I trust in You. Whatever You decide, I trust You. The act of trust, made deliberately at this point in the novena, is itself the spiritual fruit the novena was always intended to produce.

Closing prayers

Conclude with the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be.

Divine Infant Jesus, I trust in You.