In Him There Is No Darkness at All

In Him There Is No Darkness at All

December 28, 2012

Feast of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs

By Melanie Rigney

This is the message we have heard from Jesus Christ and proclaim to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

Our soul has been rescued like a bird from the fowler’s snare. (Psalms 124:7)

When they had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child 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. He stayed there until the death of Herod, that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled, Out of Egypt I called my son. 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. Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet: 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. (Matthew 2:13-18)

Piety

Lord, shine Your light into the dark corners of our world. Bless those who are the most vulnerable among us and hold them tight.

Study

He did it out of fear, ordering the massacre of all boys in the Bethlehem area who were under the age of two. Modern estimates are that six to perhaps twenty boys were slaughtered, though ancient writers put the total as high as 144,000. Augustine called them “the first buds of the Church killed by the frost of persecution; they died not only for Christ, but in his stead.”

While historians may dispute whether the killings actually occurred or if the story was a device for Matthew to show a prophecy being fulfilled, there is no disagreement that Herod was a paranoid despot who didn’t hesitate to eliminate perceived threats to his throne. Our Church has observed the Feast of the Holy Innocents for more than more than 1,500 years.

Killing of children strikes a particularly sad chord in each of us, whether the senselessness happened centuries ago in Bethlehem… a few months ago in Syria… weeks ago in Connecticut… or on a daily basis at abortion clinics around our country. The reasons are legion—ethnicity, poverty, paranoia, hatred—but they all boil down to fear. Fear that we won’t be able to care for the child. Fear of something inside that seems too dark and too desperate to confront. Fear that a child too young to hate will grow up to become someone who not only hates but who will wipe us out if we don’t act first.

And while the poisoned fruit of hatred is particularly horrific to us when children are involved, it is no less tragic when the victims are in their teens, twenties, thirties, or eighties or nineties. A life is a life is a life. Each one is precious, even that of the persecutor.

“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility,” the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote. We can’t magically change the hearts and souls of those who hate us for no apparent reason. We can pray for them that God’s love may touch them… and we can do the best to present Christ’s face to them. For, in the end, that is our best and only hope in reducing or ending the madness in this world.

Action

Think about your most deeply held prejudice, perhaps against someone of another nationality or faith tradition. Where does your fear begin? Pray for guidance on a way to begin overcoming it through love.