THE HOLY INNOCENTS
December 28


 OUR Divine Redeemer was persecuted by the world as soon as he made his
appearance in it. For he was no sooner born than it declared war against
him. We cannot expect to be better treated than our great Master was before
us. He himself bids us remember that if it hated him first, it will likewise
hate us, though we have more reason to fear its flatteries and smiles than
its rage. The first make a much more dangerous and more violent assault upon
our hearts. Herod in persecuting Christ was an emblem of Satan and of the
world. That ambitious and jealous prince had already sacrificed to his fears
and suspicions the most illustrious part of his council, his virtuous wife
Mariamne, with her mother Alexandra, the two sons he had by her, and the
heirs to his crown, and all his best friends. Hearing from the magicians who
were come from distant countries to find and adore Christ, that the Messiah,
or spiritual king of the Jєωs, foretold by the prophets, was born among
them, he trembled lest he was come to take his temporal kingdom from him. So
far are the thoughts of carnal and worldly men from the ways of God; and so
strangely do violent passions blind and alarm them. The tyrant was disturbed
beyond measure, and resolved to take away the life of this child, as if he
could have defeated the decrees of heaven. He had recourse to his usual arts
of policy and dissimulation, and hoped to receive intelligence of the child
by feigning a desire himself to adore him. But God laughed at the folly of
his short-sighted prudence and admonished magicians not to return to him.
St. Joseph was likewise ordered by an angel to take the child and his
mother, and to fly into Egypt. Is our Blessed Redeemer, the Lord of the
universe, to be banished as soon as born! What did not he suffer! What did
not his pious parents suffer on his account in so tedious and long a
journey, and during a long abode in Egypt, where they were entirely
strangers, and destitute of all succor under the hardships of extreme
poverty! It is an ancient tradition of the Greeks, mentioned by Sozomen, *
St. Athanasius, * and others, that at his entrance into Egypt all the idols
of that kingdom fell to the ground, which literally verified the prediction
of the prophet Isaiah. * Mary and Joseph were not informed by the angel how
long their exile would be continued; by which we are taught to leave all to
divine providence, acquiescing with confidence and simplicity in the
adorable and ever holy will of Him who disposes all things in infinite
goodness, sanctity, and wisdom.

 Herod, finding that he had been deluded by the magicians, was transported
with rage and anxious fears. To execute his scheme of killing the Messiah,
the desired of all nations, and the expectation of Israel, he formed the
blood, resolution of murdering all the male children in Bethlehem and the
neighboring territory which were not above two years of age. In this example
we admire how blind and how furious the passion of ambition is. Soldiers are
forthwith sent to execute these cruel orders, who, on a sudden, surrounded
the town of Bethlehem, and massacred all the male children in that and the
adjacent towns and villages, which had been born in the two last years. This
more than brutish barbarity, which would almost have surpassed belief, had
not Herod been the contriver, and ambition the incentive, was accompanied
with such shrieks of mothers and children, that St. Matthew applies to it a
prophecy of Jeremiah, which may be understood in part to relate more
immediately to the Babylonish captivity, but which certainly received the
most eminent completion at this time. A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation
and great mourning: Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be
comforted, because they are not. Rama is a village not far from this town,
and the sepulcher of Rachel was in a field belonging to it. The slaughter
also was probably extended into the neighboring tribe of Benjamin, which
descended from Rachel. The Ethiopians in their liturgy, and the Greeks in
their calendar, count fourteen thousand children massacred on this occasion;
but that number exceeds all bounds, nor is it confirmed by any authority of
weight. Innocent victims became the spotless Lamb of God. And how great a
happiness was such a death to these glorious martyrs! They deserved to die
for Christ, though they were not yet able to know or invoke his name. They
were the flowers and the first fruits of his martyrs, and triumphed over the
world, without having ever known it, or experienced its dangers. They just
received the benefit of life, to make a sacrifice of it to God, and to
purchase by it eternal life. Almost at the same time they began to live and
to die; they received the fresh air of this mortal life forthwith to pass to
immortality: and it was their peculiar glory not only to die for the sake of
Christ, and for justice and virtue, but also in the place of Christ, or in
his stead. How few perhaps of these children, if they had lived, would have
escaped the dangers of the world, which, by its maxims and example, bear
every thing down before it like an impetuous torrent! What snares, what
sins, what miseries were they preserved from by this grace! With what songs
of praise and love do they not to all eternity thank their Saviour, and this
his infinite mercy to them! Their ignorant foolish mothers did not know
this, and therefore they wept without comfort. So we often lament as
misfortunes many accidents which in the designs of heaven are the greatest
mercies.

 In Herod we see how blind and how cruel ambition is, which is ready to
sacrifice every thing, even Jesus Christ, to its views. The tyrant lived not
many days longer to enjoy the kingdom which he feared so much to lose. *
About the time of our Lord's nativity he fell sick and as his distemper
sensibly increased, despair and remorse followed him, and made him
insupportable both to himself and others. The innumerable crimes which he
had committed were the tortures of his mind, while a slow imposthume, inch
by inch, gnawed and consumed his bowels, feeding principally upon one of the
great guts, though it extended itself over all the rest, and, corroding the
flesh, made a breach in the lower belly, and became a sordid ulcer, out of
which worms issued in swarms, and lice were also bred in his flesh. A fever
violently burnt him within, though outwardly it was scarce perceptible; and
he was tormented with a canine appetite, which no victuals could satisfy.
Such an offensive smell exhaled from his body, as shocked his best friends,
and uncommon twitchings and vellications upon the fibrous and membraneous
parts of his body, like sharp razors, cut and wounded him within; and the
pain thence arising overpowered him, at length, with cold sweats,
tremblings, and convulsions. Antipater in his dungeon, hearing in what a
lamentable condition Herod lay, strongly solicited his jailer to set him at
liberty, hoping to obtain the crown; but the officer acquainted Herod with
the whole affair. The tyrant groaning under the complication of his own
distempers, upon this information, vented his spleen by raving and beating
his own head, and calling one of his guards, commanded him to go that
instant and cut off Antipater's head. Not content with causing many to be
put to barbarous deaths during the course of his malady, he commanded the
Jєωs that were of the principal rank and quality to be shut up in a circus
at Jericho, and gave orders to his sister Salome and her husband Alexas to
have them all massacred as soon as he should have expired, saying, that as
the Jєωs heartily hated him, they would rejoice at his departure; but he
would make a general mourning of the whole nation at his death. This
circuмstance is at least related by the Jєωιѕн historian Josephus. * Herod
died five days after he had put his son Antipater to death. Macrobius, a
heathen writer of the fifth century, relates * that Augustus, " when he
heard that, among the children whom Herod had commanded to be slain under
two years old, his own son had been massacred, said: It is better to be
Herod's hog than his son." By this he alluded to the Jєωιѕн law of not
eating, and consequently not killing swine. Probably the historian imagined
the son to have been slain among the children, because the news of both
massacres reached Rome about the same time.

 Parents, pastors, and tutors are bound to make it their principal care,
that children, in their innocent age, be by piety and charity consecrated as
pure h0Ɩ0cαųsts to God. This is chiefly to be done by imprinting upon their
minds the strongest sentiments of devotion, and by instructing them
thoroughly in their catechism. We cannot entertain too high an idea of the
merit and obligation of teaching God's little ones to know him, and the
great and necessary truths which he has revealed to us. Without knowing him
no one can love him or acquit himself of the most indispensable duties which
he owes to his Creator. Children must be instructed in prayer and the
principal articles of faith as soon as they attain to the use of reason,
that they may be able to give him his first fruits by faith, hope, and love
as by the law of reason and religion they are bound to do. The under
standing of little children is very weak, and is able only to discover small
glimpses of light. Great art, experience, and earnestness are often required
to manage and gradually increase these small rays, and to place therein
whatever one would have the children comprehend. The lessons must be very
short, and the truths which are taught, made sensible, when possible, by
examples, images, and comparisons, adapted to the capacities of those that
are to be instructed. The catechist, without demeaning himself, must become
a little one with those that are little. This he must do with suitable
gravity and seriousness; and it is only by his own earnestness and
application that he can make them attentive and earnest. Were he at the same
time to joke, or attend to, or be employed in any other thing, he would in
vain recommend seriousness and attention to those that hear him. O how great
ought to be the zeal of children and others to attend to that saying
doctrine, without which man is a riddle to himself, and no one can attain to
salvation and the love of God! That sublime science which the only-begotten
Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, came from heaven * to declare to us.
The queen of the South came from the bounds of the earth to hear the wisdom
of Solomon: behold more than Solomon is here. * When the Athenians had
forbid any citizen of Megara to set foot in Athens under pain of death, one
Euclides, an inhabitant of Megara, went disguised many miles in the night to
assist at the lectures of Socrates the next morning, and returned the night
following; and this he continued to do a long time with the hazard of his
life. * If such was the earnestness of this heathen to learn a profane
philosophy, with what zeal ought a Christian to study the true and sublime
science of faith, which leads to eternal life! The most ardent desire of
this instruction is the surest mark of true virtue, and of that vehement
hunger and thirst of God's just and holy love, which is the very soul of
sincere piety.

 The solicitude and diligence of parents and pastors to instruct others in
this sacred science, ought not to lessen; neither must any one regard the
function as mean or contemptible. It is the very foundation of the Christian
religion. By this function the seeds of piety and religion are planted in
the hearts of the faithful, which produce their fruit according to the
manner in which they are received. A good catechist contributes more towards
maintaining public peace, than all the laws and magistrates; as inferior
ties of duty are far more binding than coercive force. Hence pope Paul III,
in a bull in which he recommends this employment, declares that "nothing is
more fruitful or more profitable for the salvation of souls." No pastoral
function is more indispensable, none more beneficial, and generally none
more meritorious; we may add, or mole sublime. For under a meaner exterior
appearance, without pomp, ostentation, or show of learning or abilities, it
joins the exercise of humility with the most zealous and most profitable
function of the pastoral charge. Being painful and laborious, it is,
moreover, an exercise of patience and penance. Neither can any one think it
beneath his parts or dignity. The great St. Austin, St. Chrysostom, St.
Cyril, and other most learned doctors, popes, and bishops, applied
themselves with singular zeal and assiduity to this duty of catechizing
children and all ignorant persons this they thought a high branch of their
duty, and the most useful and glorious employment of their learning and
talents. What did the apostles travel over the world to do else? St. Paul
said: I am a debtor to the wise and to the unwise. * We became little ones
in the midst you, as if a nurse would cherish her children; so desirous of
you, that we would gladly have imparted to you not only the gospel of God,
but even our own souls. * Our Divine Lord himself made this the principal
employment of his ministry. The spirit of the Lord is upon me: he hath sent
me to preach the gospel to the poor. * He declared the pleasure he found in
assisting that innocent age, when he said: Suffer the little children to
come unto me, for the kingdom of God is for such. And embracing them, and
laying his hands upon them, he blessed them. * John Gerson, the most pious
and celebrated chancellor of Paris, esteemed an oracle for his learning,
testified his zeal for this sacred function by his book entitled, On drawing
Little Ones to Christ. All his life he employed a considerable part of his
time in teaching little children their catechism. Upon his return from the
general council of Constance, he retired to the city of Lyons, where he
every day assembled the children in St. Paul's church, and taught them the
Christian doctrine, till he was confined to his bed by his last illness.
When he drew near his death, he caused all the little children to be called
together into the church, and there to repeat with one voice: "My God, my
Creator, have mercy on thy poor servant, John Gerson."