The Holy Innocents

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“After they had left, suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother with you, and escape into Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, because Herod intends to search for the child and do away with him.’Joseph got up and, taking the child and his mother with him, left that night for Egypt, where he stayed until Herod was dead. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: ‘I called my son out of Egypt’” (Matt. 2:13-15).

No sooner has Our Lord been born on this earth than there is contradiction. The angel of the Lord again appears to Joseph, and again in a dream, and gives him an indication that he is again going to change all their plans.

They might have been planning to go back peacefully to Nazareth, and after all the commotion and turmoil of the previous days, finally, their lives are settling down a little. But he's told to “take the child and his mother with you” and escape to Egypt. It's a story of contradiction, of difficulties, of the Cross.

The story that had preceded the birth of Christ is now continuing. The Holy Family is beginning to see how the words of Simeon are going to be fulfilled: “Thy own soul a sword will pierce” (Luke 2:35). He is truly to be a sign of contradiction.

The powers that be of this world, the political powers, are out to get the Child, to search for the Child and do away with Him.

As always, Joseph obeys, and he obeys immediately: “Joseph got up and taking the child and his mother with him, he left that night for Egypt” (Matt. 2:13-14).

Again, we see the Holy Family, people in Scripture, when they see the will of God, they move with urgency. He stayed there.

We don't understand the plans of God. This sign of contradiction that comes on this particular feast day is a mystery. But God is speaking to us about suffering, that reality in our life, and the sanctification of it.

St. Matthew continues: “Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, was in a furious rage, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the wise men” (Matt. 2:16).

Herod becomes a real butcher. Unfortunately, so many people in the medical profession today follow in the footsteps of Herod. Mother Teresa liked to say that people who perform abortions, or vote for them, or condone them, politicians, who approve of them, are just a bunch of assassins.

We could remember today the millions and millions of unborn babies whose lives have been terminated.

Also, we could remember the words of John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae, the Gospel of Life, where he tells all followers of Christ that they have to be “unconditionally pro-life.”

Today is a good day to see: What have I done in the past year to have an influence in that area? Do people around me know that I am unconditionally pro-life? Have I tried to influence my environment with letters to the newspaper, with participation in pro-life activities, by being in contact with people of a similar bent, and of getting more and more informed through social media about the brutality of this whole culture that is so prevalent in society?

There's no easy explanation for suffering, least of all for the suffering of the innocent.

It's scientifically very clear that life begins at conception. It's been that way for decades. Every day it becomes more and more scientifically clear that babies in the womb begin to feel pain at a very early age.

All these things are things we have to get to know more about so that we change the culture. We bring about “a culture of life,” as John Paul II liked to say (John Paul II, Encyclical, Evangelium vitae, March 25, 1995), and “the civilization of love” (John Paul II, Letter to Families, February 2, 1994; Apostolic Letter, Salvifici doloris, Point 30, February 11, 1984; Catechesis, June 8, 1994).

St. Matthew, in his description of this event, shows us the suffering, apparently useful and unjust, of some children who give their lives for a Person and for a Truth whom they didn't even know.

Suffering is often a cause of scandal. For many people, it's like a great wall which prevents them from seeing God and His infinite love for men. Why doesn't Almighty God prevent such apparently useless suffering?

Suffering is indeed a mystery. Yet through faith, the Christian can discover, in the darkness of his own or other people's suffering, the loving and provident hand of his Father God, who knows so much more and sees so much further than he himself can.

We have to try and see suffering from a supernatural perspective. God is at work here. He's using me or He's using this situation, or this apparent tragedy or difficulty, or this broken heart, to bring about His plans, greater plans, plans of divine love.

We have to try and accept those crosses as they come and learn to see with faith the loving hand of Our Father God behind them.

When through faith we accept these realities, then we begin to understand to some extent the words of St. Paul to the first Christians in Rome when he said: “We know that in everything God works for the good for those who love him” (Rom. 8:28), including everything that seems to be piercingly inexplicable or incomprehensible.

You may have heard during these days of Christmas, or in other Christmases, of people whose hearts have been broken over Christmas because of the loss of a loved one, maybe a young loved one. And yet, we know God is at work behind all of these things.

Nor must we forget that our greatest happiness and our most authentic good are not always those which we dream of and long for—what I dream of, what I want, what I thought was going to happen, how everything was going to work out as I had planned. We live in a valley of tears, and God is at work behind those tears.

Often, it's difficult for us to see things from their true perspective. We can only take in a very small part of the complete reality. We only see the tiny piece of reality that is here in front of us.

We're inclined to feel that earthly existence is the only real one and often consider our time on earth to be the period in which all our longings for perfect happiness ought to be fulfilled.

But sometimes God uses those contradictions, those heartbreaking moments, those tragedies, to lead us along deeper spiritual pathways, to help us to look up and see that there's another reality, a supernatural reality.

Frank Sheed in To Know Christ Jesus says: “There is anguish for us, twenty centuries later, in thinking of the slain babies and their parents. For the babies the agony was soon over; in the next world, they would come to know whom they had died to save, and for all eternity would have that glory. For the parents, the pain would have lasted longer; but at death they too must have found that there was a special sense in which God was in their debt, as he had never been indebted to any. They and their children were the only ones who ever agonized in order to save God's life.”

Sometimes God permits broken hearts and hearts filled with pain that will never be erased in this world. Crosses are burdens that will last always, but which will lead us along true pathways to holiness.

Suffering comes in many forms. No one willingly looks for it in any of those forms. Christ who is like us in all things but sin (cf. Heb. 4:15) did not yearn for suffering. He said: “Father, if it is possible, take this chalice away from me. Yet not my will, rather yours be done” (Matt. 26:39).

And yet, Jesus proclaimed as “blessed”—we can use that word “blessed” in terms of privileged, happy, or lucky—"are those who mourn” (Matt. 5:5), that is to say, those who carry a heavier cross of illness, of handicap, of physical pain, of poverty, of slander, of injustice.

Faith transforms the meaning of suffering. In union with Christ's suffering, it is changed into a sign of God's love, into something very valuable and fruitful.

A man told me in the last few days how he was distributing pieces of Christmas cake to small children in rural Kenya, and he came across a young girl, maybe six or seven years of age, who was blind. She had never had Christmas cake before.

When he realized she was blind, he gave her a few more pieces of the cake, small little pieces. There were so many kids and all they could have was a small little piece each, but he gave her a few more pieces.

Each time she would say, ‘Thank you, uncle. Thank you, uncle’—grateful for this little service, for this little joy. You could see he was the one who was more moved by this young girl who couldn't see.

All these children were enjoying themselves at Christmas, and this little girl also, but a little bit limited in her joy because of her handicap. Yet Our Lord has called her blessed.

In one of the Antiphons of the Mass of this day, it says: “These have been redeemed from among the human race as the first fruits of God and for the Lamb of God. They follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (Communion Antiphon, Holy Mass of December 28).

The Cross, pain and suffering, are the means which Our Lord uses to redeem us. He could have used other means, but He chose to redeem us precisely by the Cross.

St. Josemaría liked to say that “suffering is a sign of divine predilection” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, Point 959), that God has loved this person in this special way.

Since then, suffering has had a new meaning, which can only be understood when it is united to Him. That's why it's a very good thing to thank Our Lord for the crosses that He sends us. Thank you, Lord, for this pain, for this suffering, for this anxiety, for this worry, for this broken heart, because I know that you're acting in it and through it.

Our Lord had the power to do away with suffering, but He never used that power for Himself. Although He worked miracles to feed the crowds, He Himself suffered hunger. He shared with us the experience of exhaustion and pain.

His soul tasted every bitterness: indifference, ingratitude, betrayal, slander, moral agony as in its highest degree when He took upon Himself the sins of the world, the shameful death on the Cross.

His enemies were astonished by His incomprehensible behavior. “He saved others,” they said mockingly, "He cannot save himself” (Matt. 27:42).

In our situation, in our marriage, in our family, in our social relations, in our professional work, in sickness, or in financial problems, when we encounter the same things that Our Lord encountered—indifference, ingratitude, betrayal, slander, moral agony—we know to whom we can turn.

We can find solace in the heart of Christ. We can find meaning and understanding there, and that meaning and understanding can lead us to thank Our Lord for what He sent us.

After the Resurrection, the Apostles were sent to proclaim the benefits of the Cross to the whole world. “It was necessary that the Messiah should suffer like this” (cf. Luke 24:26), Christ Himself had explained these matters to the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

Our Lord wants us to avoid pain and combat illness with all the means at our disposal. He wants us to use all the human means. But He wants us to understand, at the same time, that our pain and our suffering can have a redemptive meaning and can lead to our personal purification, even in the case of those which seem unjust or out of all proportion.

Fulton Sheen likes to tell the story of a lady at the turn of the 20^th^ century in France, Élisabeth Leseur. Her story is on the Internet. She was a very normal Catholic lady, but she married a very intelligent man, a very prestigious man. He was the Chairman of the Communist Party of France and he was the editor of the Communist newspaper.

She felt she had been given this husband to convert him. She tried to engage him intellectually, to explain to him from an intellectual perspective the truths of the faith, but she got nowhere.

After several years of their marriage, she developed a very serious disease, I don't know if it was tuberculosis of the spine or something. She was in an iron lung for a couple of years. One day she said to her husband, “After I die, you will convert and become a Catholic.”

He remembered thinking that there was nothing further from his mind. He thought that his wife must be nearing her end. She said, “Because I have asked God to ask me enough suffering so as to save your soul.” She said, “And after I die, and after you become a Catholic, you will enter a seminary and you will be ordained a Catholic priest.”

He dismissed these as the thoughts of a dying woman. “Definitely my wife is losing her mind. She's nearing her end.”

When this good lady died, he had a lot of grief and he wanted somehow to reconnect with her, with her soul. He decided to go on a tour all over France and visit all the places they'd been to on their honeymoon, to somehow relive those moments, because he truly loved her so much.

On one occasion, he found himself outside a little village church in a small village somewhere in France. He remembered that on their honeymoon they'd gone into the church.

He hated going into churches. It wasn't good for him to be seen going into churches, being such a prominent Communist. But he'd made a promise that he would go everywhere that they'd gone on their honeymoon, so he went into the church.

In the church, he got this great desire to go to Lourdes. He had no time for Lourdes. He had dismissed it in his Communist newspaper as a fraud, one of those Catholic superstitions. But he got this great desire to go there and so he went to Lourdes.

While standing in front of the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, he had a monumental conversion. So great was the grace of his conversion that the thought of going back to Paris and resigning from the Chairmanship of the Communist party and the editorialship of the Communist newspaper didn't cost him a thought.

Three months later, he entered a Dominican seminary. Eventually, he was ordained a Dominican priest.

Fulton Sheen said, “In 1925, I did my retreat given by that Dominican priest, Fr. Felix Leseur. It's not often in the course of your life that you attend a retreat where the preacher frequently says during the retreat, ‘As my wife Elizabeth used to say…’ His life tells us a great story of the value of human suffering.”

Our Lord wants us to accept the crosses that He sends us. He wants us to learn how to understand that this has a redemptive meaning.

A lady asked me once, “Father when I turn on my computer, can that be redemptive?”

Well, if turning on, flicking the switch of your computer, or pressing the button is redemptive, imagine how much more redemptive can be a migraine headache, or a broken heart, or some other suffering.

That doctrine filled St. Paul with joy in his prison cell. He said, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh, I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (Col. 1:24).

Suffering is not sanctified by those who suffer in this life because of wounded pride, or envy, or jealousy. We may create a lot of suffering for ourselves, but that's not the Cross of Christ. That cross comes precisely from our being far away from Him. That cross is one's own cross and it's heavy and it’s fruitless.

We have to examine our conscience and see if it's truly Our Lord's Cross that we are carrying wholeheartedly.

Often that Cross of Christ can consist in the tiny irritations that may turn up in our work or in our dealings with others: divine calls to be a bit more patient, kind, or understanding.

It may be in things that are unforeseen or for which we're not prepared, or the character of someone with whom we have to live, or a plan that has to be changed at the last minute, or tools of our work that fail us in the worst possible moment, or extremes of heat or cold, or misunderstanding, or being sufficiently off-color to feel incapable of doing our work properly.

But whether it's little or great, suffering accepted and offered to Our Lord produces peace and serenity. As we see St. Joseph fleeing by night with the Child and His Mother, carrying that unexpected cross, we also sense a great peace and serenity, a joy that comes from following the calling that God has given to him with all of its consequences.

When crosses are not accepted, the soul is out of tune and its internal rebellion can be shown externally in gloom or bad temper. We have to try to make a conscious decision to take up and carry the little Cross of each day with determination.

Sufferings can be sent to us by Our Lord to purify many things of our past life, or to strengthen our virtues, and to unite us to the sufferings of Christ Our Redeemer, who, in His innocence, suffered the punishment due to our sins.

The Holy Innocents were united in some way to the innocence of Christ. In the Liturgy of today, we say, “O God, on this holy day, on this day the Holy Innocents gave witness to you, not by words but by a martyr's death” (cf. Opening Prayer, Mass of December 28).

When we die to ourselves in the martyrdom of the little things of each day, we also give witness to Christ. Those who suffer with the intention of co-redeeming are comforted by Our Lord. He sends them peace and serenity.

St. Josemaría liked to say that joy and happiness in this world have their roots in the form of a cross (cf. J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 28; Christ Is Passing By, Point 43). We are called to sympathize with and help people to overcome their difficulties and their sufferings.

The Entrance Antiphon of the Mass of today says: “The innocent children were put to death in place of Christ. They follow Him, the sinless Lamb. They praise Him forever, singing glory to you.”

Those who suffer with Christ will be rewarded by having God as their comforter in this life and, afterwards, the infinite joy of eternal life. St. Matthew tells us that Our Lord says, “Well done, good and faithful servant. ... Enter into the joy of your master” (Matt. 25:21).

These are words that Our Lord will say to us at the end of our life if we have managed to remain united to Him through all its joys and sorrows, the ups and downs.

The Book of Revelation says, “God will wipe away every tear from the eyes of the blessed and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

The hope of heaven is an inexhaustible source of patience and energy at a time of severe suffering. We see that this is not in vain. This has a purpose. God is at work here.

In the same way, the knowledge, which faith gives us, that our pain and suffering are of enormous use to those who live with us, our friends, our relatives, and it helps us to bear suffering and exhaustion without complaint.

Joseph went silently to Egypt.

We ought to feel that the weight of our affliction is light, compared to the good things which God has prepared for us. A lady told me once, “I thank God for the crosses that He sends me because I realize they could be worse.”

At the moment of our Calvary, God can give us graces to see that things could be worse and that maybe other people's Calvary is greater.

Those who offer up their suffering are co-redeemers with Christ, and God the Father always pours out on them such great comfort that they're filled with peace in the midst of sufferings. St. Paul says, “For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too” (2 Cor. 1:5).

St. Paul felt the consolation of the Divine Mercy, and that enables him and us to console and support others. Our Father God is always very near to His human children, but especially when they're suffering.

Human fraternity moves us to practice this service of comfort. St. Paul says to the Thessalonians, “Comfort one another” (1 Thess. 4:18). There may be a thousand things which tend to separate us, but suffering unites us.

But it does happen sometimes that a painful situation arises in which we don't know what is the right thing to do. Maybe if we recollect ourselves in prayer for a moment, and ask ourselves what Our Lord would do in the same circumstances, we may receive abundant light.

Sometimes all we need to do is to keep the suffering person company, to talk to them in a friendly and positive way, to encourage them to pray for others and to offer their suffering for some specific intention, or to help them to recite some prayer like the Rosary, or to simply listen to what they have to say.

When many people nowadays have forgotten the Christian meaning of feasts, we can add to them the light and salt of little mortifications, realizing that in this way we give joy to Our Lord and help other souls to come nearer to Bethlehem.

In the Furrow we are told, “You asked Our Lord to let you suffer a little for him. But when suffering comes in such a normal, human form—family difficulties and problems...or those awkward things of ordinary life—you find it hard to see Christ behind it. Open your hands willingly to those nails...and your sorrow will be turned into joy” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 234).

St. Josemaría also says, “Don't complain if you suffer. It's the prized and valued stone that is polished. Does it hurt? Allow yourself to be cut, gratefully, because God has taken you in His hands as if you were a diamond. An ordinary pebble is not worked on like that” (ibid., Point 235).

We contemplate Mary at the foot of her Son's Cross. We will learn to offer our pain and suffering to Him and to have great sympathy for those who suffer.

Mary, may you help us to sanctify pain, uniting it to that of your Son, Jesus. Help us to ask the Holy Innocents, that they may teach us to love mortification and voluntary sacrifice, so that we offer up our pain and to have great compassion for all who suffer.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

VA