Bearing Witness

Feast of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs A-1 (December 28)

Entrance Antiphon The innocents were slaughtered as infants for Christ; spotless, they follow the Lamb and sing for ever: Glory to you, O Lord.

Collect O God, whom the Holy Innocents confessed and proclaimed on this day, not by speaking but by dying, grant, we pray, that the faith in you which we confess with our lips may also speak through our manner of life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

(December 28) Feast of the Holy Innocents Herod “the Great,” king of Judea, was unpopular with his people because of his connections with the Romans and his religious indifference. Hence he was insecure and fearful of any threat to his throne. He was a master politician and a tyrant capable of extreme brutality. He killed his wife, his brother and his sister’s two husbands, to name only a few. Matthew 2:1-18 tells this story: Herod was “greatly troubled” when astrologers from the east came asking the whereabouts of “the newborn king of the Jews,” whose star they had seen. They were told that the Jewish Scriptures named Bethlehem as the place where the Messiah would be born. Herod cunningly told them to report back to him so that he could also “do him homage.” They found Jesus, offered him their gifts and, warned by an angel, avoided Herod on their way home. Jesus escaped to Egypt. Herod became furious and “ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under.” The horror of the massacre and the devastation of the mothers and fathers led Matthew to quote Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah,/sobbing and loud lamentation;/Rachel weeping for her children...” (Matthew 2:18). Rachel was the wife of Jacob/Israel. She is pictured as weeping at the place where the Israelites were herded together by the conquering Assyrians for their march into captivity. Twenty babies are few, in comparison to the genocide and abortion of our day. But even if there had been only one, we recognize the greatest treasure God put on the earth—a human person, destined for eternity and graced by Jesus’ death and resurrection. "Lord, you give us life even before we understand" (Prayer Over the Gifts, Feast of the Holy Innocents).

Scripture today: 1 John 1:5-2:2; Psalm 124:2-5, 7cd-8; Matthew 2:13-18

After the Magi had departed, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying: “Arise, and take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt: and stay there until I tell you. For Herod will seek the child to destroy him.” Joseph arose, and took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt and he was there until the death of Herod. This took place so that what was foretold by the prophet might be fulfilled, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” Then Herod, perceiving that he had been tricked by the wise men, was exceedingly angry. He arranged to destroy all the boys of two years and under in Bethlehem and its surrounding district, according to the time when he had carefully inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, “A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are no longer.” (Matthew 2:13-18)

Bearing Witness Today the Church celebrates the unknown infants of Bethlehem who were quietly and ruthlessly dispatched by Herod. This occurred because the Christ‑child had been born in their midst at about the same time as their own birth. While the Church invites us to think of the lesson of their brief lives, in the first instance we are invited to think of Christ. He is at the centre of the Gospel scene in that it was because of Herod’s response to him that this happened. In one Gospel scene after another we see how, as St John puts it in the prologue of his Gospel, the Word of God came unto his own and his own did not receive him. It is the mystery of sin, the sin that is so embedded in the world and so powerful a force in its functioning. God became man but a major element in the world, the world that had come from his hands, did not accept him. It did not accept him, it opposed him, it hated him, it endeavoured to destroy him, and in due course it did indeed destroy him. The “world” and its Prince attacked, injured and put an end to the life of the Son of God made man. We see this pattern appear as soon as the Son of God entered the world. Herod heard (from pagan wise men!) that the infant King had arrived, the One long foretold. Herod immediately planned his destruction. Now this is a most important lesson for each of us. Long before, the prophet Nathan had told King David a story of a murderer. He asked David what should be done to the murderer in the story, and David had said that the man ought be put to death. Nathan replied: “You are that man!” For David himself was a murderer, having arranged the death of Uriah the Hittite. Each of us has in us something of Herod, in that the sin within us rises up against the Son of God and resists him. The sin within us and with which to a greater or lesser extent we so often co-operate, draws us into offending God. As we contemplate the arrival of the Christ‑child and Herod’s sinful response to him, let us resolve to renounce sin and to accept Christ and his revelation totally.

Our Gospel scene today (Matthew 2:13‑18) also invites us to think of these innocent infants so ruthlessly done away with. Due to the circumstance of the time and locale of their birth, they had a form of association with the Messiah, and because of hatred for Christ they were pitilessly put to death. The suffering this caused their parents and families and the community of Bethlehem would have been incalculable. The Church honours them because of their association with Christ in their death. They died because of hatred for Christ, even though they did not realize it. The celebration of this by the Church in her liturgy century after century surely shows forth the immense dignity of being associated with Christ in life and in death, whatever be one’s circumstances or age. By their death, these Innocents bore witness to the supremacy of Christ which Herod attacked. That God abundantly blessed the uncomprehending sacrifice of these Innocents is proven by the fact that they are celebrated in the Church’s liturgical year as martyrs for Christ. The point is that the supreme work of life is to be associated with Christ and to bear witness to him. All are called to do this and it is within the reach of all from the youngest to the oldest, from the greatest to the least, from the most prominent and well‑known to the most ordinary and unknown. Let us then be among those who take their stand with Christ, who choose to walk in his company and participate in his mission. His mission is to manifest himself to the world as the Lord of lords and the King of kings. With the coming and presence of Christ, the world is not simply a vast ensemble of elements that roll on in their unceasing functions. The world has an Absolute, a Centre, a High Point, a Meaning. The world has one Reference Point on which hinges everything. Christ is the heart and the soul of the world, transcending it while in his humanity being profoundly part of it. Let us then cling to him and moment by moment associate with him. Our life and our death should constitute a grand association with Christ, a following in his footsteps to the very end.

Our Lord said to his disciples, you have not chosen me, no. I have chosen you, and I am sending you out to bear fruit that will last. That lasting fruit is discipleship. Being a disciple means living in profound association with him who is our supreme Friend. It means bearing witness to him and in this way winning the world for him. We are to make disciples of all the nations. The whole world is called to belong to Christ and to bear witness to him to the end.

(E.J.Tyler)

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