The Holy Innocents, Martyrs

Feast of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs

December 28, Christmas Season

Who are the holy innocents?

Every December 28, during the Christmas season, a Eucharistic feast is celebrated in honor of the Holy Innocents. These were the infant boys who were ordered to be slain by King Herod. The gospel passage of the feast is found in Matthew 2:13-18: "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 protecting the unborn

In some areas of the world, modern society has evolved without respect and protection to the life being nurtured in a mother's womb. The feast of the Holy Innocents reminds us how important life is, especially those who are innocent or powerless, like the unborn in a mother's womb. The massacre of the infant boys is a gruesome story of how power can be abused and misused by men like 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 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 given the title Martyrs by the early Fathers of the Church like St. Augustine and St. Irenaeus. 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

The story of the Holy Innocents can be found only in the gospel of Matthew. It is not found in the other three gospels. When we look to the Old Testament for a parallel story, perhaps their (the Holy Innocents) story can look backward to the birth of Moses. In the Old Testament 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. They did this because there was a law in ancient Egypt 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, who found him floating inside a basket on the river. She decided to adopt the baby Moses and made him to live and grow in the Egyptian royal court.

A feast to remind us to pray also for those innocently killed in war

This feast of the Holy Innocents reminds us also to pray for all those innocently killed in war. In the many wars that human history has recorded, there are recorded statistics of people who have died - millions of civilians and those who are not involved in war, like medical personnel and clerical members of various Christian denominations. They have been victimized by ethnic cleansing, wars from border disputes, and religious wars. There are many killings from wars recorded in the history of human civilization, but one that is still near to the memories of older generations is the holocaust of World War II. Those who have lived during the War (especially the Japanese) know that the destruction of both lives and property with the bomb dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, should not be repeated. It is a direction to extreme destruction and self-destruction. As we enter into the new year, we can intensify our efforts to influence others to prayer in general, and to pray specifically for peace for all. For "a world at prayer, is a world at peace". St. John Paul II intensified these efforts with the World Day of Peace celebrated every January 1.