The Holy Innocents
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Why does God allow pain and sadness; what is their purpose and what are we to do with them? Today’s Feast, the Martyrdom of the Holy Innocents – those little children whom King Herod murdered in his effort to prevent Jesus from becoming King, help us to answer these questions.
Frank Sheed makes a striking point: the children massacred and their parents who experienced the pain of their loss are the only people who suffered in order to save God’s life. By their death Herod believed he had killed the Messiah, the newborn king of the Jews, and thus Jesus was saved. In some way God is eternally indebted to them and in return the children gain the crown of martyrdom, being killed for the sake of Christ and receive the reward of heaven.
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The Feast of the Holy Innocents teaches us to do two things when we face pain and sadness. We should think about heaven and we should offer up our pain to Jesus to help him rescue souls.
The death of the Holy Innocents teaches us that this life is about getting to Heaven. Even though their earthly life was cut short by our standards, they achieved that purpose – they are glorified in heaven. Oh, and by the way, heaven is not static. Those children missed out on nothing, nothing but sin. Heaven is dynamic. It is life and growth and learning and living at the highest level, which they have been doing, with God ever since Herod sent out the decree.
Prolonged pain and loss can make us sad, but as Saint Thomas Aquinas says one of the best remedies to sadness is to think about heaven. The meaning and purpose of this life is to prepare us for eternal life, Heaven, the life of unending joy. In comparison to eternity this life is very short. As St Paul writes: This life is just a slight momentary affliction preparing us for an eternal weight of glory. Sooner or later, we will all be in heaven together. The pain or sadness we have now will not last forever, and once we are in heaven, we will never again suffer pain or anxiety and we will never be separated from our family or friends. That will be heaven for me – maybe purgatory for them…
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However, for many, there is the fear that some of our loved ones who are not interested in God will not be with us in heaven. That is second reason we need the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Their suffering and death helped bring salvation to the whole world because their death enabled Jesus to escape to Egypt until the appointed time; and because these children were associated with the sacrifice of Christ. They teach us that our own pain and suffering, our own personal cross is the greatest means at our disposal to help rescue our loved ones and get them to heaven with us.
· When we suffer or are in pain, we are not victims
· We are Agents of Change
· Jesus was not a victim. He said “No one takes my life from me, I lay it down of my own accord and I take it up again.”
· We can say the same thing “Nothing and no one can take my freedom and power from doing good.”
· Jesus brought about the greatest change in the world and saved souls by means of his suffering
· Jesus was the greatest Change Agent by His suffering
· Now He is inviting you to join by joining your suffering to his
· 2 Tim 2:3 Join with me in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus
· Learn the lesson of today’s feast; offer up everything to Jesus to help him rescue souls.
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The Son of God suffered to make me a son of God, yet I am so unwilling to suffer for the love of Him or to help Him save other souls.
Diary 1767 My daughter, I want to instruct you on how you are to rescue souls through sacrifice and prayer. You will save more souls through prayer and suffering than will a missionary through his teachings and sermons alone… I will now instruct you on what your sacrifice shall consist of, in everyday life, so as to preserve you from illusions. You shall accept all sufferings with love. Do not be afflicted if your heart often experiences repugnance and dislike for sacrifice. All its power rests in the will, and so these contrary feelings, far from lowering the value of the sacrifice in My eyes, will enhance it.
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St John Paul II wrote a letter to the world called On the Mission of the Lay Faithful. There he called us to band together in movements or associations to carry out a particular calling in the name of the Church. The Movement of the Holy Family is a response to this call. It is a spiritual army that individuals choose freely to join. And the result is an army of people who now share in the spiritual power of all the members joined together to help their loved ones and friends to conversion and salvation.
The Church offers benefits to those who choose freely to associate together to help one another – they share graces and merits that benefit all the members. Once I become a member, then I am not just relying on myself but on the graces and merits of all the members - their prayer, works, joys and sufferings all joined in one spiritual reservoir that now benefits me and all those I choose to apply them to.
CCC 2027 No one can merit the initial grace which is at the origin of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life, as well as necessary temporal goods like health and friendship.
Every morning at Mass, when the gifts are placed on the altar, I say to Jesus, I offer you my prayer work joy and suffering, and I unite them to your sacrifice made present in this Mass and I offer them for intentions of all the Members of the Movement and for my own intentions – which I then name. In this way we have each other’s back and we are fighting and caring for one another spiritually.
This is not something that just happens – it takes an act of the will, your own personal yes to be part of the Movement, this spiritual army. So I encourage you to join us and it’s very easy – just click on the button below or in the show-notes.