In a special way, this great feast of the Holy Innocents, draws me to reflect on refugee families and those parents who have been willing to lose everything in order to give their children life, and a life encounter with Christ’s love.
The Feast of the Holy Innocents
The Church keeps the Feast of the Holy Innocents each December 28th, remembering the young children of Bethlehem whom King Herod ordered killed in his attempt to destroy the infant Jesus (Matthew 2:16-18).
Despite what the media-box tells us we are never alone, we have a history, and a noble lineage. Our freedom and the opportunity to worship Jesus Christ has been won for us through generations of parental sacrifices; forefathers who have risked everything to give us a space to freely chose without coercion the fullness of true love, the Eucharistic love of the Christ Child himself.
We must be noble men, servants, willing to shield the children around us through sacrificial labors and prayers from the Herodian evil of today’s world.
And we must also remember to protect the innocence of the child within us. Let us flee from evil and enter the desert until temptation passes.
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A Prayer for the Holy Innocents
We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem by King Herod. Receive, we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish you rule of justice, love and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in unity of the Holy Spirit, on God, for ever and ever. Amen.