This is my last Prague posting. On my last day, after visiting Prague Castle and wandering around Mala Strana, I made a pilgrimage to the Church of Our Lady Victorious to see the Infant Jesus of Prague.
This story begins many years before, however; seven years ago, in the summer of 2005 to be exact. My friend Ursula and I were driving from Chapel Hill to Phoenix, Arizona. Ursula was moving back home from NC to CA, and we were meeting her brother in Albuquerque, NM, and then traveling on to Phoenix together where I had planned to catch a flight home, leaving them to finish the drive back to CA.
We left Chapel Hill one night about 6 PM and drove straight to Memphis. We checked into the Holiday Inn downtown about 7 AM, with Ursula's cat Maroney stuffed into a backpack. We slept for a couple of hours, then got up and visited Graceland, watched the ducks at the Peabody go up the elevator for the night, had ribs, then visited the Peabody roof to see the ducks' nighttime enclosure. We then slept from about 7 PM to 2 AM, got up, and hit the road. We crossed the Mighty Mississippi and traveled through Little Rock, Arkansas, before dawn. Around dawn we entered Oklahoma. We stopped at McDonald's for breakfast, and then decided to hit a Cherokee casino to play the slots since I used to have to visit the Cherokee Reservation in NC for work, but had never been to the casino. Sometime mid-morning between the State Line and Oklahoma City, we passed near the town of Prague Oklahoma, and saw signs for the Infant Jesus of Prague. At this time Prague Oklahoma held no significance for me, but we decided that we simply had to find out what the Infant Baby Jesus of Prague was.
I have since learned that Prague Oklahoma was home to the great American athlete Jim Thorpe. Jim Thorpe attended the Carlisle Indian School at Carlisle Barracks, PA, where I grew up. I took ballet lessons in the old gymnasium there, called Thorpe Hall, and we used to walk by the Pop Warner House every day in the summer on our way to Letort Creek to go rafting. I have also learned that Prague Oklahoma received its name from the large number of Czech immigrants who settled the region, many of them hailing from Prague, Czechoslovakia.
We got off the Interstate and drove about 10 miles into the little town of Prague. We found the church, and thanks to some historical information posted outside learned that the Infant Jesus of Prague was a statue of the Baby Jesus donated to the Catholic Church of Prague Oklahoma, from their sister city of Prague, Czechoslovakia, in commemoration of the Infant Jesus found in the Czech Church. The Infant, we discovered, was a doll, dressed in real clothing. We took some pictures, and had a great time talking about our hilarious adventure, from Elvis to ducks to ribs to casinos to wax dolls of the Baby Jesus.
Here is a photo of the Infant Jesus in Oklahoma.
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| The Infant Jesus of Prague Oklahoma |
http://www.shrineofinfantjesus.com/
When I got to Prague, Czech Republic, and heard people talking about the Infant Jesus, there was no way I could miss taking a trip to the church to see it for myself. I thought about Ursula and wished she was with me. Ursula is a great one to go on a quest with. A really fun laid back travel companion.
The church is rather unassuming from the outside, but I knew when I saw about 400 Japanese tourists getting their photographs made on the front steps that I must have reached this world-famous pilgrimage site.
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