28 December 2022

Feast of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs

Today’s feast offers a terrible sign that cannot and should not be ignored. The rage of one man, Herod, who is afraid to lose his position of power, leads to the slaughter of all the infant boys in Bethlehem. Hear the cries of the mothers, inconsolable over the loss of their children. See the broken, sobbing fathers who were powerless to protect them. Taste the salt of the tears poured out. Witness the destructive nature of sin and the desire for self-glorification.

And yet, paradoxically, we as a Church sing in triumph of these little ones who were lost. We regard them as martyrs, dying as witnesses to the one baby boy who, by God’s providential care, was whisked away in the night by his parents and taken to Egypt. This little one is spared destruction by Herod’s troops so that he might live to die later, on the hill of Calvary. Without the death of this Child, the God-Man Jesus Christ, the death of the children in Bethlehem remains only an act of senseless violence; through His death, it is transformed. Today, we pray to enter into the paradox of this mystery in all its fullness.