Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Christmas

  • The Presentation of the Lord I

    The Presentation of the Lord I

    Today’s readings (Used a “vigil” of this feast for the school children to close Catholic Schools Week.)

    Back in the time that Jesus lived, it was a law that every first-born male in a family was presented to God, given to God to do God’s will. They would come on the fortieth day of the child’s life and present the child, along with a sacrificial offering and they would receive a blessing from one of the priests. It hardly seems possible, but it’s already been forty days since Christmas, since the day Jesus was born! How time flies for us!

    What’s really interesting is that, in the case of Jesus, his parents were presenting a child to God who came in a special way from God himself. They were giving back to God the child that God only gave them to take care of. Just as every first-born son was presented to God in order to do something special with his life, this first, and only born Son of God and son of Mary and Joseph had the most special thing to do with his life, and that was to lay his life down for all of us.

    On this feast day every year, we bless candles to light the Church and light people’s homes. We do that because we remember that on this day, Jesus, who is the Light of the World, was presented to the wise old Simeon, who recognized that Jesus was the Light that was to come into the world. God’s Spirit had promised he would never die until he saw that Light, and now he knew that he could die in peace.

    Simeon was at peace because he knew that God was lighting the world and taking care of his people who used to dwell in darkness. The same is true for all of us. The darkness can be pretty scary, can’t it? Certainly when we wake up in the middle of the night and can’t see anything, it’s scary because we could fall over something. That’s a lot like how life in this world can be sometimes. Sometimes the world is dark because of war or violence or people hating one another. It can be hard to see where our world is going in times like that, and oftentimes we fall into temptation or into sin. We need light to show us the way out of all that darkness.

    Who is that light? Well, of course we know that light is Jesus. Jesus is the one who came into the world and lit up the world and lights up our lives. He lit up the lives of Mary, and Joseph, and Simeon and lots of people when he was living on earth. Now that he has died for us and is risen from the dead, Jesus lights up our life and shows us the way out of the darkness. Even if we do fall here and there, Jesus’ light helps us to get back up and get going on the path once again.

    So as we come to the end of Catholic Schools Week this year, it’s a perfect feast for us to celebrate. The theme for our week has been “Catholic Schools Light the Way.” It’s only fitting to have that theme when we end up on this feast of Jesus, the Light of the World. If this week has taught us anything, it certainly must be that we receive the light from Jesus, that Light comes in a special way through Jesus’ presence in our school, and now we are called to be light for others.

    Our school is a place of the Light when we reach out to each other and help those who are in need, whether they need help with their studies, or just need a friend. Our school is a place of the Light when we reach out as one to help those who are poor and needy. Our school is a place of the light when teachers give of themselves, guiding our young people with wisdom; and when students are open to what they are being taught; and when parents make the Light known at home. When we all share the light that we have been given, when we are light for others, that light can light some of the really dark places of our world. Maybe we won’t get rid of all that darkness today or all at once. But little by little, the light we bring by doing God’s will in our lives will brighten our world one heart and mind at a time.

    The Lord is our light and our salvation. Whom should we fear?

    (UPDATE: I never gave this homily, because the kids had a snow day. So I just preached on the readings of the day, homily below.)

  • The Baptism of the Lord

    The Baptism of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    baptismofthelordToday is the last day of the Christmas Season. What a wonderful gift we have as Catholics to celebrate the birth of our Lord for an extended period of time! Last week was the Epiphany of the Lord, a time to celebrate Christ manifested in the flesh, the greatest gift of God to his creation. On the occasion of the Epiphany, we have three traditional readings. The first is the reading about the magi visiting the Christ Child. The second is the wedding feast at Cana, where Christ turned water into wine, the first of his miracles. And the third is the Gospel we have today, of Christ being baptized by John the Baptist in the River Jordan. So today is the octave day of the Epiphany.

    As we heard last week, Epiphany means “manifestation.” In each of these Gospels, Christ is manifest in our world in a different way. The magi celebrated that this baby was truly the manifestation of God in our world, because no other birth would have been occasioned by such great astrological signs. The wedding feast at Cana celebrates that Jesus is no ordinary man, that he had come to change the world by the shedding of his blood, just as he changed the water into wine. And today his baptism celebrates that Christ is manifest in the weakness of human flesh to identify himself with sinners through baptism.

    So if Jesus Christ identified himself with us sinners through baptism, then we who have been baptized must also identify ourselves with him. We must manifest him in the world through living the Gospel and following in his ways. Today we hear in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles that Jesus, having been anointed with the Holy Spirit, “went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil.” That’s the model he set for all who would be baptized as he was. So we baptized ones must do the same.

    It is easy to see how we can go about doing good. There are thousands of opportunities to do that in our lives. Children and young people can do good by obeying their parents, being kind to brothers, sisters and friends, attending to their school work, and praying for those who are needy. Adults can strive to lead godly lives, raising families in peace, working diligently at their jobs, and being of service to the community. Every day there is an opportunity to do good in ordinary and extraordinary ways. All we have to do is decide to live our baptismal call and do it.

    Healing those oppressed by the devil might seem harder to do. But there are lots of ways to cast out demons. Teaching something to another person is a way to cast out the demons of ignorance. Reaching out to an elderly neighbor is a way to cast out the demons of loneliness. Educating ourselves on the evils of racism is a way to cast out the demons of hatred. Buying fair trade coffee, or bringing food to Loaves and Fishes, or volunteering at Hesed House is a way to cast out the demons of poverty and hunger and homelessness. Visiting the sick, or picking up medication or groceries for a sick neighbor, is a way to cast out the demons of illness. We have opportunities to heal those oppressed by the devil all the time. All we have to do is decide to do it.

    On this Epiphany Day, on this Christmas day, Christ, born among us, enters the waters of baptism to sanctify them through his body. Our own baptism is a share in this great baptism and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We who have been baptized then are literally INSPIRED – given the Holy Spirit – in order to continue to make Christ manifest in our world. All we have to do is decide to do it.

  • Saturday after Epiphany

    Saturday after Epiphany

    Today’s readings

    “He must increase; I must decrease.”
    By these words, St. John the Baptist indicates that the Epiphany, the manifestation of our Lord in the flesh, is complete. John’s disciples have got it wrong; they took offense at Jesus baptizing when he himself had been baptized by John. They assumed that because John had baptized Jesus, that Jesus must in some way be inferior to John. But John knows his mission as the Forerunner. He knows that his ministry was one of paving the way for Jesus and the Gospel. He knows that his own baptism was a mere precursor of the baptism that Jesus would bring, a baptism that imparts the fullness of the Holy Spirit to all believers.
    “He must increase; I must decrease.”
    St. John the Evangelist tells us in his letters that we are to be on guard against those who come in the name of Jesus but are not of him. We must be wary of pretenders and totally turn away from false idols. He has spent this past week in our first readings giving us the standards of discernment that help us to know the Truth. Anyone of the Truth will testify to the Incarnation of Jesus in the flesh. Anyone of the Truth will love deeply, and will love neighbors as well as God. Anyone of the Truth, he tells us today, will cast out sin, from himself and from others. Even though he may not be perfect, still he will battle sin and turn to Christ incarnate in the flesh for the indwelling of the Spirit, for the grace of his baptism.
    “He must increase; I must decrease.”
    Christ came in the flesh, as the Psalmist tells us today, because the Lord takes delight in his people. His people then, must take delight in him. We must remember that we are all in the service of the one who came to set us free. We must remember that our own thoughts, our own desires, all of these are not the be-all and end-all of existence, and quite often, we must die to them in order to let God be manifested among us. As we offer and prepare our gifts for the Eucharist today, may we also offer the decreasing of ourselves in order to pave the way for the increasing of Jesus Christ.

  • Thursday after Epiphany

    Thursday after Epiphany

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Scriptures continue to reveal Christ manifested in the flesh, and the way his manifestation looks today is like love. We have the great joy of reading from the first letter of John today, and John is always about love. Today John gives us a discerning test, so that we can see if a person is of God. The test is whether that person loves his or her brothers and sisters. Because one cannot claim to love God who is so very much beyond us, if we cannot love the brother or sister who is right in front of us.
    That can prove to be a very daunting test to be sure. Because we’re not very often irritated by the God who is beyond us, and much more often irritated by the brother or sister who is always right there in our face! Still, the commandment is clear: “Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
    Jesus Christ is the personification of God’s love for us. God came to be among us not in some kind of ethereal nature, but with a human face and a human heart, and a love that overcomes all the flaws of our flesh. It is that love that sets us free. In Jesus, all the prophecies of deliverance are fulfilled: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” Jesus says, “because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”
    And if our own love for our brothers and sisters can transcend our petty day-to-day irritations, or even our deep-seated hurts and resentments, than maybe we can set people free, and even set ourselves free, and make Jesus incarnate in the world yet again.

  • Monday after Epiphany

    Monday after Epiphany

    Today’s readings

    Perhaps our devotion for this Epiphany week should be to pray the Mysteries of Light on the Rosary. Epiphany is a time of manifestation, of light coming into the dark place that our world can be at times. We long to see, and more than that we long to see Christ, the one who comes with peace and justice to make all things right.

    Today’s Mystery of Light, then would be “Jesus proclaims the kingdom of God with its call to repentance,” the third Mystery of Light. This preaching is accompanied by the great and mighty acts of healing, which have the crowds flocking to him in droves. They definitely see in Jesus a light that shines into the darkness of their lives, marked as they are by illness both physical and mental, but also perhaps overwhelmingly spiritual.

    John speaks to us today in the first reading about the discernment of spirits. How do we know what is of the spirit of God and what is of a spirit of deception? John tells us that the decisive test is whether or not that spirit acknowledges that Jesus is incarnate in the world, that he has come to live among us and continues to shed light on the darkness of our world and of our lives. Anything that prefers the darkness, then, is of a spirit of deception.

    Because there were all sorts of people who didn’t flock to Jesus. Many saw him as a charlatan and thought his healings were smoke and mirrors. They preferred the darkness. The same is true today. Many hear the word and turn away from it. Many hear of the kingdom with its call to repentance and choose to turn away. But we cannot be that way. We have the Light, and we are called to live in the Light. Living in that Light, as the Psalmist tells us, gives us the nations for our inheritance.

  • The Epiphany of the Lord

    The Epiphany of the Lord

    Today's readings

    We gather together today to celebrate the twelfth day of Christmas.  Today is the traditional day for the celebration of the Epiphany of the Lord, a time when we can see who Christ really is, when our eyes are enlightened, and our hearts are opened.  Because there is a gift to be had here today; more precisely, I think there are three gifts to be had here today.  The magi famously offered their three gifts: gold, frankincense anhttp://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-2/653261/3Kings.jpgd myrrh.  I don’t think we can expect to receive those gifts today, although we’ll use a bit of frankincense later in this celebration.  But the Scriptures today speak of three gifts that come with this Christ Child … the one who continues to lay sleeping in the manger on this holy day.

    The first fist gift he brings us is justice.  Justice is what people long for in every age.  When everyone has what belongs to them, when no one is poor or needy, when the marginalized are brought into the community, when the wrongly imprisoned are free, when everything is right and we are all in right relationship with one another and with God, that is justice.  People have striven for justice in every age and place.  While we are all called upon to do what we can to make justice happen in our world, we know that we do not ultimately have the power to bring the real justice that this world longs for all by ourselves.  That can only be done by God, and in God’s time.  Our psalmist today says, “Justice shall flower in his days…” The gift the Christ Child brings is the possibility of that great day of justice.  We know that because Christ has died and risen, we can count on the salvation that will be ours on that day when everything is made right.

    The second gift Jesus brings is peace.  Peace, too, can be an elusive thing for us, and peace, too, has been sought after for ages upon ages.  We often think of peace as the absence of conflict.  And that alone is daunting.  We have conflict in many places today.  We think of Iraq, Afghanistan, and many places in the middle east, to say nothing of Africa, Korea, and many other places.  I’m not even sure, honestly, how to count the number of wars being fought today.  And this says nothing about the lack of peace that is violence in our communities, discord in our families, and unrest in our hearts.  If we are to define peace as just the absence of conflict, it is clear that even that is beyond us. 

    But that’s not how God defines peace.  Peace is more than a feeling, it is a way of living, or more exactly, a way of being.  It stems from the right relationship that is justice.  In fact, we are told that if we are to desire peace, we must work for justice because peace can’t happen in an unjust world.  If the mere absence of conflict is a peace that we can’t seem to achieve, how much less will we ever be able to come to a peace that is a completeness of right relationships with God and every other person?  And yet, this child in the manger is the one who has come to bring “peace till the moon be no more.”

    The third gift Jesus brings is light: the revelation of the mystery.  And that’s what we celebrate today.  “Epiphany” means “manifestation,” it means coming to know what’s right in front of us.  Coming to see the revelation of Christ in the Scriptures, in the Church, in the Sacraments, and in every person and place.  It is a celebration of light, light that is the glory of God, appearing and overcoming the darkness of a world that does not know God.  Jesus came to a world that was darkened by the absence of justice and peace, into a world which in some ways didn’t want to be brightened by his life.  So basically, he was coming into a world not much different than the one we experience today.  Our time’s need for justice and peace is obvious, and the world’s refusal to come to the light is well-known.  But we have the light.  Jesus came to bring us that light.  Maybe it’s not the light of the star on that night, but it’s the light of Scripture, of his presence in the Eucharist, and his activity in the Church and in our hearts. 

    We who have received the wonderful gifts of his justice and peace and light, are called to bring those gifts to the world, because the gifts we receive are never just for us.  St. Paul tells the Ephesians – and us – today that we are called to be stewards of these gifts, given to us in grace. And so, just like the magi, we are the ones who need to bring our gifts and open our coffers.

    Epiphany is the feast of those called by God's grace to leave behind the familiar and accustomed and to go searching for Christ in, what seems to be, the most unlikely places.  Where will we find him and what gifts shall we bring when we discover Christ in our world?  In place of frankincense, we could advocate for poor families, especially for single parents and the newborn.  There are 25 million poor children in our otherwise-wealthy country, and untold numbers throughout the world. In place of gold, we could contribute to help those at shelters for homeless families, or international programs for children and the aged. In place of myrrh, we could visit the sick and dying.

    The gospel story tells of a light in the sky that guides the foreigners to Christ.  We don't have the star; but grace is continually given to help us find Christ. God's grace does what the star did for the Magi, it guides us to the out-of-the way places where Christ can be found.  The Magi came bearing the types of gifts one would bring to royalty in a palace.  But today Christ isn't found in a palace; he isn't rich, he is poor.  The Epiphany reminds us that each day Christ manifests himself to us in the world's lesser places and in surprising people.  Those are the places to go looking and bearing gifts—starting with the most important gift, ourselves.

    We will come forward in a few moments to pay homage to our king, just as did those Magi so long ago.  When we offer our gifts on this holy day, perhaps we can also offer the gift of ourselves, this gift that we ourselves have received from God himself.  As we begin this year, perhaps we can resolve to make our giving an act of gratitude for all that we have received.  Nourished by our Savior today, we can go forth in peace to bring gifts of justice, peace, and light to all the world.

  • Christmas Weekday

    Christmas Weekday

    Today’s readings

    Not everyone has St. John the Baptist around to point out the Messiah to them. Lots of us, I think, at one point or another, would have loved to have been in the sandals of those apostles when Jesus was passing by. As much as we believe that Christ is present in every person, place and time, I’m sure lots of us would love to have St. John the Baptist point out when we’re missing Christ’s presence in some person or situation. It’s harder when you don’t have the Forerunner showing you the way.

    But not everyone even recognized Christ – or at least who he was – in that time and place either. St. John tells us in our first reading that people don’t recognize that we are children of God because they didn’t recognize God in Christ in the first place. So if we miss Jesus in some situation or person, well, our mistake is not unique to us.

    During this Christmas season, we are celebrating the Incarnation: the presence of God among us. Of course, this isn’t just about the presence of God among us two thousand years ago, but his real presence among us in every person, in every place and blessing, and especially in the Eucharist. During this time, we might gaze on the manger and long to have been there gazing into the face of Christ. We can gaze into the face of Christ today by taking time to reach out to someone in need. During this time, we might imagine ourselves next to the Manger on that night long ago, and long to have been there, holding the Christ Child in our arms. In a few minutes, we can come to the Altar and receive our Jesus and hold him in our hands in the Eucharist. Jesus is just as incarnate, just as Emmanuel, God-with-us, now as he was back then.

    We will be strengthened by the Eucharist today to go forward and see Christ all around us. Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!

  • Mary, the Mother of God

    Mary, the Mother of God

    Today’s readings

    Mary Mother of GodToday, on the Octave day of Christmas, we have an opportunity on this Christmas Day to pause and celebrate Mary, the mother of God. This solemnity is a special one for us as Catholics because people for a long time argued over whether Mary, a human being, could possibly be the mother of Jesus, who is God. Eventually, the Holy Spirit led the Church to realize that downplaying Mary’s role in all of this really downplays Jesus’ divinity, which is totally wrong. To say that Mary is not the Mother of God is, in some way, to say that Jesus is not God, and that’s not what we believe. So, for centuries the Church has taught that “Mary is the Mother of God the Word according to his human nature.”

    I had to memorize that line in my second year of seminary, and I’ll never forget it. Basically, there are two parts. Mary is the Mother of God the Word: Mary, chosen from all eternity to be a virgin inviolate and a fit Mother for God, is blessed by conceiving the only Son of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. Calling Jesus “God the Word” in this definition takes us to the opening verses of the Gospel of John which tells us that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” The Word is traditionally believed to be the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

    The second part of the definition asserts that Mary is the Mother of Jesus according to his human nature. We know that Jesus was both human and divine, and both natures coexisted in Jesus Christ without any diminishment of either nature at the expense of the other. We also know that only God himself could beget God the Word, but it would have to take a human woman, a very special human woman, to be the mother of his human nature. Jesus is one in being with the Father, as we pray in the Creed, but he is also one in being with us through Mary, in his human nature.

    St. Paul tells us today that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons and daughters.” Today we rejoice in Mary’s faith that God’s promises to the human race would be fulfilled through her. It is because of her faithfulness that God was born into our world in the person of Jesus Christ and became one of us, walking our walk, living our life, dying our death, and leading us to new life that lasts forever. If not for Mary’s fiat – her “yes” to God’s will for her – salvation history might have gone poorly. Thankfully, because of her great faith, we have adoption as sons and daughters of God.

    Did Mary understand all of this when she said yes to God’s will when Gabriel came to announce the birth of Christ in her? Probably not. But she, as our Gospel tells us today, “kept all these things and reflected on them in her heart.” She was able to study the Gospel before it had ever been written, by reflecting on all the events surrounding the birth and life and death of her Son. And because of Mary, we can reflect on it all too, and rejoice that we are sons and daughters of God.

  • The Holy Family

    The Holy Family

    Today’s readings

    HolyFamily2My spiritual director in seminary used to say that family could be the source of our greatest joys and deepest sorrows. Sometimes all in the same day. That’s just how families are. Our closeness, at least by blood relation, doesn’t always assure that we will be well-functioning.

    There are all sorts of families out there: families broken by divorce or separation, families marked by emotional or physical abuse, families fractured by living a great distance apart, families grieving the loss of loved ones or agonizing over the illness of one of the members, families of great means and those touched by poverty, homelessness and hunger, families divided by immigration issues, families torn by family secrets, grudges and age-old hurts. There are healthy families and hurting families, and every one of them is graced by good and touched by some kind of sadness at some point in their history.

    Even the Holy Family, whose feast we celebrate today, was marked with challenges. An unexpected – and almost inexplicable – pregnancy marked the days before the couple was officially wed; news of the child’s birth touched chords of jealousy and hatred in the hearts of the nation’s leaders and caused the young family to have to flee for their lives and safety. Even this Holy Family was saddened by an extremely rocky beginning.

    The institution of the family is an extremely precarious thing. We know this. God knows this. Yet it was into this flawed structure that the God of all the earth chose to come into our world. Taking our flesh and joining a human family, Christ came to be Emmanuel, God with us, and sanctify the whole world by his most merciful coming.

    St. Paul exhorts us all to be marked by holiness, part of the family of God. We do this, he tells us, by showing one another “heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.” Living in a family, living the Christian life, requires sacrifice. Some days we don’t feel very compassionate, but we are still called to be that way. We might not feel like showing someone kindness, or patience, or being humble. But that’s what disciples do. But the real sticking point is that whole forgiveness thing. Because all of us are going to fail in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience at one time or another. So just as the Lord has forgiven us, so many times and of so many things, so must we forgive one another. We live our whole lives trying to figure out how to do this.

    St. Paul then gives us the recipe for family harmony – at least in the first century near east. Bear with me on this one, because I know that the words can irritate our modern sensibilities. He says: “Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord.
    Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they may not become discouraged.” We have to understand that this was the model of family harmony in that time and place. Not so much here and now. But there is a truth in these words of Sacred Scripture that we need to pull out of today’s reading.

    Wives being subordinate to their husbands in that time and place was the proper balance in the family. We might not agree with that, but that was true then. Husbands loving their wives was something that didn’t even happen very often. So the real correction here was being given to the husbands, who were called upon to forego their traditional macho indifference and to show love to their wives in the same way Christ showed love to the Church.

    Today, the challenge here is one of equality. Of husband and wife being called upon to build up each other’s faith lives at the same time they are raising a family and making a home – together. The challenge is to love the children while still teaching them respect for authority and providing loving discipline so that they can become children worthy of the kingdom of God. The correction we might be hearing from St. Paul today is to put aside the whole heresy of entitlement and humble ourselves, whatever is our role in the family, so that member of the family might grow in faith, hope and love.

    Some days, that will be extremely difficult. Given the culture in which we live – a culture which certainly does not share a concern for faith, hope and love – the challenge to live as a family in good times and bad is one that is almost insurmountable. Maybe today, more so than ever, families face fierce struggles in trying to live healthy, faithful lives in this callous, dark and unforgiving world. Today more than ever we need a Savior to be born in our families so that the weakness of our flesh and the brittleness of our relationships can be transfigured by the amazing gift of God’s love into something they could never be on their own.

    As I said, even the Holy Family was not perfect. I don’t think perfection is what we are supposed to be seeing in them on this, their feast day. Instead maybe we should see faithfulness. A faithfulness that absorbed the challenges of an unplanned pregnancy and the dangers of oppression from the government, and still shed light on the whole world.

    I am aware, however, that even as I pull that theme of faithfulness out of today’s Scriptures, that can still seem insurmountable. Why should you be faithful when the hurts inflicted by other members of your family still linger? That’s a hard one to address, but we’re not told to be faithful just when everyone else is faithful. Sometimes we are called to make an almost unilateral decision to love and respect the others in our families, and let God worry about the equity of it all. I know that’s easier to say than to do, but please know that this Church family supports you with prayer and love as you do that.

    Every single one of us is called to be holy, brothers and sisters. And every single one of our families is called to be holy. That doesn’t mean that we will be perfect. Some days we will be quite far from it. But it does mean that we will be faithful in love and respect. It means that we will unite ourselves to God in prayer and worship. It means we will love when loving is hard to do. Mary loved Jesus all the way to the Cross and watched him die. What we see in the model of the Holy Family for us is not perfection, but faithfulness and holiness.

    That holiness will make demands of us. It did for Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Our church still has the Nativity scene on display; we are still celebrating Christmas. But today’s Gospel reading reminds us that our faith in the Incarnation does mean everything is going to be perfect in this life. We will have to sacrifice, and will have to suffer from many of the imperfections of our families and our world. But we can count on the grace of Christ, born here among us, in our families, to transfigure us all to a holiness we cannot even begin to imagine.

  • The Holy Innocents

    The Holy Innocents

    Today’s readings

    holyinnocentsgiottodibondoneRight here in the middle of the joy of the Christmas Octave, we have the feast of what seems to be an incredibly horrible event. All of the male children in the vicinity of Bethlehem two years old and younger are murdered by the jealous and, quite frankly, rather pathetic Herod. But not only are his plans to kill the Christ Child (and thus remove any threat to his reign) thwarted by the providence of God, but also the horror of this event is transfigured into something rather glorious in terms of the Kingdom of God.

    As I said, in some ways, this is a horrible feast. But the Church, in recognizing the contribution of the Holy Innocents to the kingdom, asserts that this is just the beginning of the world’s seeing the glory of Jesus Christ. As disgusting and repugnant as Herod’s actions are to our sensibilities, yet these innocent children bear witness to the Child Jesus. St. Quodvoltdeus, an African bishop of the fifth century writes of them:

    The children die for Christ, though they do not know it. The parents mourn for the death of martyrs. The Christ child makes of those as yet unable to speak fit witnesses to himself. But you, Herod, do not know this and are disturbed and furious. While you vent your fury against the child, you are already paying him homage, and do not know it.

    To what merits of their own do the children owe this kind of victory? They cannot speak, yet they bear witness to Christ. They cannot use their limbs to engage in battle, yet already they bear off the palm of victory.

    I think the key to making sense of all this is in the first reading. The line that really catches me, because it seems almost erroneous in light of the horrible event we remember today, is “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.” We can see all kinds of darkness in an event like the murder of these innocent children. Yet only God could turn something that horrible around to his glory. They may have lived extremely short lives on earth, yet their lives in eternity were secured forever. They become some of the first to participate in the kingdom that Christ would bring about through his Paschal Mystery.