During the Christmas Octave, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Fr Eoin Patten reflects on this beautiful and thought-provoking Feast.

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The Christmas Octave is marked by precious Feasts for us to ponder during these days – St Stephen’ Day, St John the Evangelist, St Thomas Beckett, and the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. St Stephen, the First Martyr, and St Thomas, both gave their lives as adults for Christ, witness to the power of the grace of the Incarnate Word in their respective duties, in two very different moments in the history of the Church. St John, the Beloved Disciple, bears witness to the Word made Flesh in the Gospel of love and life in its abundance. In Mary, Mother of God, we venerate the Blessed Mother, who gives to the world the Saviour and Redeemer, and who gives witness through her ‘yes’ to God, her fiat, allowing the will of the Father to be done in her life.

Today’s Feast of the Holy Innocents again proclaims the importance of giving witness to Christ, but in a unique way, as children, who confess Almighty God, ‘not by speaking but by dying.’ It is in the Gospel of St Matthew that we hear about the slaughter of the infants, ‘Herod was furious when he realised that he had been outwitted by the wise men, and in Bethlehem and its surrounding district he had all the male children killed who were two years old or under, reckoning by the date he had been careful to ask the wise men.’ (Mt 2:16).

Tyrants always pick on the most defenceless and innocent as Herod did, worried that his own authority and position were under threat. St Quodvultdeus, in a beautiful meditation for today, writes of Herod, ‘He, the source of grace, small yet immense, lies in a manger, and terrifies you on your throne,’ babies become witnesses to the Christ-child, that although ‘they could not speak, yet they confessed Christ. Helpless to enter the battle, they still carried off the palm of victory.’ What a dreadful scene in the royal city of David as parents mourn the death of the children and St Matthew quotes from the prophet Jeremiah to sum up the grief and devastation in Bethlehem, ‘it was Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they were no more.’ Yet, in the midst of such horror, Christ triumphs as these little Saints are crowned with heavenly grace.

The Feast of the Holy innocents also reminds us to pray unceasingly for a culture of life in our land. The new born Messiah is the light to the nations, and how we need that light of life to shine in the darkness of a country that refuses to recognise the precious and sacred nature of all human life, irrespective of age or status.

As we continue to celebrate the solemn days of Christ’s birth, let us pray that our lives may bear witness to the presence of the Prince of Peace in our world and to the martyrdom of the Holy Innocents.