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Daily Feed Feast of the Holy Innocents, MartyrsDecember 28, Christmas SeasonWho are the holy innocents?Every December 28 during the Christmas season, a feast is celebrated in honor of the Holy Innocents - those infant boys who were slain by the jealous Herod the Great. In the gospel passage of this feast taken from Matthew 2:13-18, it is said that:  "When the magi had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared
to Joseph in a dream and said, 'Rise, take the child [Jesus] and his
mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is
going to search for the child to destroy him." Joseph rose and
took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt...When
Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became
furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem
and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time
he had ascertained from the magi."A feast to remind us of those innocently killed, including the unborn Our modern society has evolved in a way that the protection of life in a mother's womb is not as safeguarded as in times of old. This feast reminds us of the value of protecting all human life, especially those who are innocent or powerless. The massacre of the infant boys is a gruesome story of how power can be abused by such men as Herod. We do not know the exact number of infant boys massacred by Herod. But according to estimates of bible scholars, if Bethlehem during the time of Jesus had a population of about one thousand people, then the infant boys who are two years and younger may have numbered about twenty. These were the ones killed and murdered and of whom the prophet Jeremiah spoke about: A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more. Patrons of choirboys and Martyrs The Holy Innocents are also honored as patrons of choirboys. They were also given the title Martyrs by the early Fathers of the Church like St. Augustine and St. Irenaeus, for they bore witness to the Messiah not by words but by their death. These innocent infant boy martyrs triumphed over the world and won their crown without experiencing the evils of the world and the devil. A parallel to the story of Moses This story of the holy innocents can only be found in the gospel of Matthew. It is not found in the other three gospels. And if we look to the Old Testament for a parallel story, perhaps their story can look backward to the birth of Moses. In the story of Moses, when Moses was born, he was hid by his mother and sister in a basket and made to float on a river because there was a law that Jewish boys are to be killed. Pharoah, the king of the Egyptians, had ordered the massacre of all Hebrew boys (cf. Exodus 1:16). Moses however survived because he was discovered by Pharoah's daughter floating inside a basket on the river and adopted by her to live and grow in the Egyptian royal court. A feast to remind us to pray for those innocently killed This feast reminds us to pray for all those innocently killed, and not only the unborn. In the many wars that our human history has recorded, there are many numbers which tell of people who died, many of whom are innocent victims. These are the people who have been victimized by ethnic cleansing, by racial wars, and also religious wars. There are many massacres recorded but one that we should not also forget is the holocaust of World War II. And one that should not be repeated again is the destruction of both lives and property with the bomb dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When we look at how our human civilization sometimes degenerates through an increase of conflict and war, then it is perhaps because we lack the gift of prayer. We are only to remember the saying that "a world at prayer, is a world at peace". And John Paul II intensified the efforts for this cause with the World Day of Peace celebrated every January 1. |