THROUGH UNTRUE
When Rajah Humabon and Queen Juana of Cebu embraced Christianity, Spanish missionaries gave them a 17th century image of the Child Jesus. The Santo Niño has since become a cherished devotion among Filipinos. Many find solace, inspiration, and a sense of cultural identity in this revered icon, but the practice of this devotion has occasionally verged on ritualism and superstition.
For example, syncretistic dances, music, and symbols associated with the image blur the line between pagan ceremonies and authentic Christian worship. Additionally, the mass production and commercialization of the image and its related paraphernalia foster a consumerist attitude toward prayer and adoration.
Devotees who romanticize the Santo Niño and dress the image with various costumes manifest a faith that has failed to outgrow its infantile stage. Such a faith is usually superficial, ritualistic, and sentimental, focused on the benefits that devotees hope to receive rather than on a genuine commitment to obey God’s laws. Self-interest masquerading as spirituality turns God into a means to achieve wealth, success, health, career advancement, and personal happiness.
You may have observed that most images of the Santo Niño are adorned with a crown, a cape, and a scepter. These images do not depict a child exuding simplicity and humility but rather a miniature Christ the King with all the trappings of power and royalty.
A Santo Niño that resembles a little king mirrors the imperiousness of impulsive, demanding, and remorseless children. Such children scream in anger when someone deprives them of what they think is theirs. They cannot tolerate delaying their gratification, and crave care and attention without feeling the need to reciprocate. Their sense of entitlement is bottomless. Overindulgent and negligent parents turn these children into rabid narcissists afflicted with malignant self-love. They do as they please without regard for the pain they inflict on others.
It makes more sense to portray the Santo Niño not as a little Christ the King, or an overly-decorated “anito” endowed with magical powers and paraded during Ati-atihan festivals, but as an ordinary child dressed in nothing but His frail humanity. This will highlight the virtues that make children the most qualified to enter heaven, as Jesus describes them in today’s Gospel reading (Mark 10:13-16). Unfortunately, these are the qualities we often lose when we grow up, like obedience, a sense of wonder, honesty, and authenticity.
As a child, Jesus must have experienced everything with a sense of wonder and reverence. He must have played and laughed. He must have also seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt what the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins describes as “the dearest freshness deep down things.” He listened and paid attention like one who has not yet learned to limit his gaze to what is practical, functional, or useful.
The image of Jesus as an ordinary child manifests Him as truly human, vulnerable to sickness, sorrow, trials, problems, and other unwanted but necessary components of human life. Jesus must have learned the hard way why joy cannot be appreciated without pain, why people commit unspeakable crimes against one another despite their basic goodness, and why forgiveness is more powerful than vengeance.
Let us pray that our devotion to the Santo Niño may help us retrieve the grandeur and dignity of being human and recognize the image of the divine Child imprinted in our souls—too real for tears, hatred, and violence to eradicate.