The Christ Child: December 2012

They are hungry.

Bouasse Lebel, Paris

Pl. 1473

Jesus Loves the Innocent

The pure simplicity of the soul is my joy and delight.

Bouasse Lebel 826

ASCENDS, O MY PRAYER, TO HEAVEN...

Bouasse Lebel 3036

THE GOOD SHEPHERD LEADS HIS FLOCK

AND CARRIES THE LAMB TOO WEAK TO WALK.

Eternally the Son of God and Son of Man, Christ is unchanging and can be received into the heart as clearly in his infancy and his childhood as in the years of his adult ministry. Here we see God's little friends, the doves, the little flock of devout souls, coming to Him in perfect confidence with their petitions in their beaks: patience, love, fervor...

With one hand, Jesus points to his Heart and with the other He reaches out to receive each petition that is brought to Him; the one He holds for all to see is "fiat" - God's will be done. This icon of grace is trinitarian: His eyes are raised to the Father from whom he is never separated, and, from the locus of His saving work on the cross, the grace of the Holy Spirit radiates out eternally to all the world.

Engravings that presented the Son of God as a child or a youth were among the most beautiful 19th century holy cards. Although some were a depiction of His childhood years, most were intended to be seen as a visual metaphor for His eternal purity, sweetness and tenderness. They draw the heart to the Savior in a way that is at once simple and profound. Often they include the dove as the symbol for the soul.
Jesus' innocence and sweetness are eternal and unchanging, and the artists of the 19th Century holy cards depicted the Christ Child as naturally on the Cross as in the crib.

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