To ensure a fine day for the wedding, there are three slightly different customs involving the Child of Prague, a religious statue which is often displayed in more traditional Irish Roman Catholic homes. The first is to place the statue outside under a bush the night before and if the statue is found headless next day, the sun will shine. Some believe that, 'it'll not bring you right luck till the head falls off it,' but the decapitation must happen by accident. (What may help, of course, is that the heads on these statues are notoriously prone to falling off!).
Another version is to put the statue in the hallway of the bride's home with a unit of paper currency underneath it. The third custom is to place the statue to one side of the church door(s) on the wedding morning. In older days in Ireland, the child of Prague was traditionally kept indoors, with a penny underneath him to ensure that there would always be money in the house.....
Devotion to the child began in 1556 when Maria Manriquez de Lara brought the image of the infant Jesus, a family heirloom, to Czechoslovakia from Spain on her marriage to Vrasitlav of Pernstyn. It is housed now in the church of Our Lady of Victory in Prague and is an object of veneration in many other countries besides Ireland.
Devotion to the child began in 1556 when Maria Manriquez de Lara brought the image of the infant Jesus, a family heirloom, to Czechoslovakia from Spain on her marriage to Vrasitlav of Pernstyn. It is housed now in the church of Our Lady of Victory in Prague and is an object of veneration in many other countries besides Ireland.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Irish believed that if the sun shone on the bride, it would bring good luck to the couple............
I recently heard a bride on facebook say that if you put the child of prague's picture up on your page as your profile pic for a week before the wedding it will do the same job!....... Moving with the time's you gotta love it!
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