"Joy to the World" the trumpets blare, for it's Christmas time! "Merry Christmas!", "Ding dong Merrily on high". The season of Joy, the season of light. Gift giving and singing and feasting and celebration. A season of lifting spirits and shattering darkness. Isaiah 9 even proclaims "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, among those who walked in the land of gloom, a light has shown"
So, why, right in the very center of Christmas, are we commemorating this horrible atrocity?
The reason we are commemorating it is because ours is a church of truth and there is no escaping the fact the the slaughter of the innocents happened and if December 28th is not the exact day, it's pretty close.
We do not know how many children died at the hands of Herod in 2 BC but I just saw a historical special that put the number at about 20. 20 children senselessly murdered within days of Christmas. Horrible how history repeats itself. This shocks us but it shouldn't surprise us. If the author of joy is still at work, so, sadly is the author of misery.
In the Book of Revelation, Chapter 12, the Devil is depicted as a huge dragon with seven heads and 10 horns, the same depiction is made of the Roman beast in chapter 17 and the city of Jerusalem is shown as the whore of that beast.
What is being depicted here? We are being shown that all the evil of the world ultimately flows from the source of evil, the Devil himself. We cannot appreciate the power of the light and the urgency of the light, if we stop our ears and eyes to the darkness it is meant to dispel. The light doesn't merely shine on us, or around us, it shines through us but only if we will let it.
True, none of us have ever killed a 6 year old or a 2 year old as that which happened in Connecticut and Bethlehem. Yet, each of us, of our own free will has, at one time or another, cooperated with the evil that did. When a man looks at pornography or a woman defends gay marriage, we embolden the same malevolent enemy who would not even spare these innocent ones in his blood lust. When we are silent to the silent scream from a mother's womb, how can we claim we are not culpable when the roaring dragon becomes stronger in the devouring of fresh blood?
This is the message of this solemnity. Never forget who your enemy is and how heartless and cruel he is, lest he turn and devour you as well. The message of the Solemnity of the Holy Innocents is that it's on! The battle is engaged. Onward Christian Soldier!
In the name of Rachel and all that is holy, we must resolve to stop the blood flow and turn back the powers of darkness. To do that, we must oppose Satan not at certain times and certain places, but at every time and every place. Every Catholic must be engaged, every Rosary raised and every effort made to produce more Catholics who can raise their Rosaries.
We must look beyond our own circles of comfort and find and convert prayer warriors and Holy livers wherever we can find them.
At judgment, may it be said by these holy innocents, and the thousands more who die in the womb each day and those victims of war and violence "they fought for the least of us, they fought for the likes of us".
What could do more to infuriate the enemy than we fight on despite his most grotesque acts of barbarism against us? That is the message of Christmas. The light came into the world and the darkness did not overcome it (John 1:5), even the darkness of a day like this one.
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