The Holy Innocents

One

The Attack on Children Throughout Sacred History

One of the tragic themes of the Old Testament, a theme which a lot of people don’t know about, is the theme of child murder.

Over and over again, when the influence of the pagans began to infect the Chosen People, they would begin to sacrifice their infants to idols. The false idol most associated with this abominable practice was Moloch.

But as the history of the Israelites unfolds, they are repeatedly susceptible to worship these demon-gods. In fact, when the Kingdom of Israel split into two kingdoms, both kingdoms ended up being conquered and exiled. In the case of both kingdoms, the prophets explain that part of the reason for their exile is the fact that both kingdoms are engaging in baby murder.

So when Herod orders the slaughter of an entire population of little children, it’s nothing new in the Bible. It’s nothing new in the sometimes wretched history of humanity. 

The attack on children and the disregard for the lives of children is ordinary. It is only the coming of Christ, the infant, that causes the world to realize the true beauty and goodness of children, and the horror of abusing or destroying them. 

Two

Disregard for Children in the Pagan world

It’s not just in sacred history that we find this disdain for the lives of children

All the pagan philosophers, and all the practices in the pagan world, allowed for disposing of unwanted children.

If there was something wrong with your new baby, or you didn’t want another baby, you drowned it, or more commonly, left it out in the woods. Before Christianity, there were almost no orphanages because few cultures believed an unwanted baby deserved care, deserved love, deserved to be defended from attack.

So, everywhere they went, one of the first things Christian missionaries had to do was build orphanages to care for the children that people were leaving under trees.

You see, love of Christ entails love of the goodness of Children. And as Herod shows, ignorance and hatred of Christ means an ignorance and hatred of the goodness of children. Which is why our post-Christian society is so committed, like Herod, to eliminating Christ from the world, and to destroying children.

Three

Christ and the Celebration of Children

It is the coming of the Lord that definitively shows the goodness and beauty of Children.

God first comes to earth, is first adored in the flesh, as a child. And Christ not only shows us the importance of Children, He says it explicitly. He says, “Let the children come to me – for to such belongs the kingdom of Heaven.” He takes a child, and says, “If you want to enter heaven, you have to become a child.” He says, “I praise you Father, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, and have revealed them to little children.”

In other words, children are the standard for discipleship, for understanding the faith and getting to heaven. They are our models. 

How will we survive if we disdain, or worse, eliminate our models?

More than that, he warns anyone who might do harm to a kid. He says, if you corrupt a child, “It would be better for such a one to have a millstone hung around his neck and cast into the sea.”

Christ not only highlights the goodness of children, but the grave responsibility of those who attack them.

Four

Christ and Children – are you for them or against them?

Let’s make it very clear, real Christians love and defend children.

The very first Christian document on moral teaching, the Didache says, “You shall not cause the embryo or the unborn child to perish.” 

Those who are indifferent to Christ or hate Christ will be indifferent to children or hate children. That’s what we are, that’s our post-Christian society. Even the leaders of America who claim to be Catholic, who claim to be Christian, if they’re fighting to make child-murder easier, more available, then they are like Herod. Whether they know it or not, they are motivated by a hatred of Christ.

People say this is a Christian nation. But when so much of the population, even after the Supreme Court decision, want to spread and confirm abortion then we know that this country is actually jam-packed with enemies of Christ. And if you’re one of those people who think you’re a good Christian or a good Catholic and you’re indifferent, you don’t really care one way or the other about defending the lives of vulnerable children, that means you’re indifferent to Christ.

Because love of Christ and love of children go together.

Five

Holy Innocents – Patron Saints of Unbaptized Children

Finally, the Holy Innocents don’t just call us to defend the lives of the unborn, they should also offer great consolation to parents who have lost children, whether in the womb or before they could be baptized.

Remember, the Holy Innocents are venerated by the Church as saints. And they didn’t have the chance to be baptized. They didn’t have the chance to grow up as practicing Christians. Sacramental Baptism is the normal, the best, the optimal path to salvation. But the Church, in her wisdom, over the ages, has realized that there can be different kinds of baptism that the gospel doesn’t explicitly tell us about.

There is baptism of blood, the baptism of the martyrs put to death by Christ’s enemies

There is baptism of desire, the baptism of one who wanted to be Christian, but died before they could receive it.

And there is infant baptism, the baptism of a child who cannot make a choice or act of faith for himself – but the choice and the act of faith of his parents suffices.

Putting these kinds of baptism together: Baptism of blood, of desire, and the baptism of infants whose parents want salvation for them.

These kinds of baptism give us great hope. We ask for this extraordinary grace of baptism for all the children who die prematurely. And we hope, with confidence in God’s goodness, that one day we will see all the children who did not grow up on earth, and we will find them full-grown and glorious, rejoicing in Heaven, with those first Holy Innocents who are their patrons.