Martyrium Innocentum Sacrorum

Murder of the Holy Innocents

Amici, Americani, Compatriotae,

The title of today's post is "Martyrdom of the Holy Innocents," in memory of the Feast of the Holy Innocents observed on December 28th. The Scripture Readings include the following:

• God is Light in 1st John 1:5-2:2
• Thanksgiving for Israel's Deliverance in Psalm 124:2-8
• The Murder of Bethlehem's Babies in Matthew 2:13-18

Once again, Fr. Kirby at Our Lady of Grace gave an excellent homily full of Scriptural exegesis. I will try to faithfully reproduce what I heard, hopefully without error. I have made a few additions for explanatory purposes, but I am unable to do justice to what I heard at Mass; therefore, any errors are obviously mine.

Our story starts with the Patriarch Jacob whom God named Israel (meaning "God contended") in the Book of Genesis. Jacob had four wives from whom sons were born to form the 12 tribes of the people of Israel:

• Leah (whose sons were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun, and whose daughter was Dinah)
• Rachel (whose sons were Joseph and Benjamin)
• Ziplah (whose sons were Gad and Asher)
• Bilhah (whose sons were Dan and Naphtali)

Jacob had traveled a great distance to find a kinswoman for a wife from his uncle Laban, the brother of Rebekah who in turn was the wife of Jacob's father Isaac. Laban was father to Leah and Rachel. Jacob loved Rachel immediately on seeing her. So Laban told Jacob that after seven years work, he would be allowed to marry Rachel. However, at the end of seven years, Laban switched the arrangement such that Jacob was given Leah and not Rachel. Once again, Laban told Jacob that if he worked another seven years, then he could have Rachel. Finally he did get to marry her. She gave him two children, Joseph of the multicolored cloak fame and Benjamin the youngest. During Benjamin's birth, Rachel died. The place where she died was at that time an out-of-the-way virtually unknown locale to later become Bethlehem. Of this place Jeremiah 1:15 says:

Thus says the LORD:
In Ramah is heard the sound of sobbing,
bitter weeping!
Rachel mourns for her children,
she refuses to be consoled
for her children—they are no more!

The reference all the way back to the wife whom Israel (i.e., Jacob) loved is clear. This passage of Sacred Scripture is interposed in the text where Jeremiah is prophesying about the eventual return the exiles of the Northern Kingdom (Israel) back to the Promised Land. The Assyrian Empire had deported the children of Israel into captivity in 722 BC (the deportation of the Southern Kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians would happen later, starting in 597 BC), and Jeremiah 1:8 promised the following:

Look! I will bring them back
from the land of the north;
I will gather them from the ends of the earth,
the blind and the lame in their midst,
Pregnant women, together with those in labor—
an immense throng—they shall return.

But it is verse 7 to which Matthew 2:18 points when King Herod orders the murder of all children two years old and under after the visit of the Magi (the Three Wise Men) from the East:

“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.”

Many people often associate the visit of the Magi with Christmas, but they actually visited some time later when Jesus was around one and half years old. We know this because of the particular Greek word used for child to describe Jesus in Matthew chapter 2 that provides the account of the Magi's visit:

παιδίον - a young child, a little boy or girl, a toddler

Thus, Jesus was no longer an infant babe, but a little boy. We also know that in Luke chapter 1 Jesus was born in a manger within a stable or cave for housing animals, but Matthew 2:11 says that the Magi came to a house where Jesus and his parents were staying. The actual Greek word is:

οἰκία - house, inhabited edifice, dwelling

Therefore, the Magi's visit did NOT happen on or around Christmas, but about one and a half or so years later. For that reason, when Herod heard the Magi's story that they were seeking the new born King of the Jews, he became fearful and jealous, ordering the execution of any male child two years old and under.

Imagine if the police came into the local towns of Lancaster, SC and Waxhaw, NC to shoot dead any child two years old and under. Imagine the devastation that that would wreak on the local community. Now imagine these children of ancient Bethlehem who were forced to give up their lives for our eventual salvation by the Christ child. How often we are ashamed of our Faith. We may say grace over meals at home, but when we dine at a public restaurant, we avoid any prayer and hide our Faith much to the confusion of our own children. Yet the children of Bethlehem without any knowledge had to give up their lives. We need to change course and be proud of the Faith instead of hiding it. We need to tell the truth in love and charity, but tell it nevertheless. And we need to ever be willing to do what these children had to do - give our lives for the Faith. The Holy Innocents died in the House of Bread (which is what Βηθλέεμ in Greek or בֵּית לֶחֶם in Hebrew means) so that we might partake of the Bread of Eternal Life.