To such belong the kingdom

Nowhere in any part of the world do we find so colorful a display of images representing the Holy Child we Filipinos lovingly call the Sto. Niño. Devotion to the Sto. Niño sweeps all sectors of our society. The image is set in a new house, an office, a bank, in a children’s school, in shops, boutiques, beauty salons, against the windshield of a passenger jeep or a bus, inside a shanty, lining the sidewalks where vendors sell all kinds of wares, in the patio of the church, in the boudoirs of rich matrons, in company with precious antique. The images are in royal robes with golden boots and red or dark green velvet mantle, a crown made of fancy diadems. The Sto. Niño usually holds the world in its left hand and the scepter in its right.

The feast of the Sto. Niño is not without a religious history which dates back to the coming of the Spanish missionaries. The present image in Mactan, Cebu is five centuries old and is considered miraculous. But the devotion stemmed from the famous Infant Jesus of Prague. Down the centuries since the birth of the Infant God in a poor manger in Bethlehem, there is still the puzzle to the world why… why did the Son of God come to us as a sweet lovable babe, naked and like any other baby dependent for His human life on the milk of Mary His mother? Why did He not come in grandeur with the sound of trumpets blaring in the heavens while he made His descent to earth in power and majesty. Is that our idea of the Redeemer? Is that what we have imaged in the words of Isaiah: “… for a son is given us; upon His shoulder dominion rests.” Is that why we dress our Sto. Niños in royal robes? Is that why having the most heavily weighted gold-karat Sto. Niño is a status symbol so that an obsessed person had to steal the centuries-old image of Tondo church? The child Jesus is a prince of heaven all right; but the son given is child. How can a helpless baby have dominion?

Strange paradox; but the dominion God wants all of us to have is the powerless power of a little child. Jesus in today’s gospel reacted to His disciples because they hindered children being brought by parents to Him. Why was he indignant? Surely not because He Himself wanted to cuddle children. Jesus was not filling up an emotional need. There is much more to it than what is human. Jesus’ reaction suggests that some important principle is at stake; perhaps the children’s parents understood better that the disciples.

There is a complete perspective of what it entails to be of the Kingdom, to belong to God, to be sons of the Eternal Father. Only children could call God “Abba”, i.e., “Father” with childlike confidence, safe under His protection and conscious of His boundless love. Devotees of the Sto. Niño who would imitate the Holy Child can ask for anything, for favors both material and spiritual, but everything will have to be subject to the mysterious law which bids us become as little children in heart and soul whatever our chronological age. That way we become disarming to God Who as a child of twelve in the presence of the learned doctors of the Law was the perfect expression of spiritual childhood – majestic in its candor, seeing in its purity of heart, humble in its nothingness, simple in its single-eye perspectives and vision. That is the reason why the eyes of a baby are pools of heaven, the heaven Jesus sees in the child making Him exclaim: “I assure you that whoever does not accept the reign of God like a little child shall not take part in it.” And Scriptures recount that He embraced them and blessed them, placing His hands on them. Devotees of the Sto. Niño, here is the treasure-message which, lived fully, will enshrine the Sto. Niño not only in our homes but in our hearts.

Sunday Feast of the Sto. Niño. Mk. 10:13-16