Mothers, Grandmothers, Patriots. Religious Imageries of Female Members of the Confraternity of the Infant Jesus at the Church of St Wojciech and St Stanisław in Rzeszów, Poland

This paper presents the findings of ethnographic field research focusing on the worship of the Christ Child as practised by female members of a Fraternity of the Infant Jesus in the main church (kościół farny) in the city of Rzeszów in south-eastern Poland. Based on anthropological analysis of secondary sources and primary data collected through interviews, I try to answer the question of why the women choose to worship God as a Child, and how their choice is connected with their spiritual path. What kind of figures do they embrace as spiritual role models, and why? What is it about the worship of the Child Jesus that they find attractive, and how do they maintain, and contribute to, that form of worship? I will connect these aspects of the worship to women’s strong need for “giving/protecting life” as well as for sensual relationship with the sacred. I treat this need as a self-embraced development strategy combining a fulfilled feminine identity with a religious life as worshippers of Christ.