Word to the Wise
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - Dec. 28 - Feast of the Holy Innocents, martyrs
[1 John 1:5-2:2 and Matt 2:13-18,771]When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he because furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi....
The effort by the evangelist, Matthew, to tell the story of Jesus' birth is very different from that of the evangelist, Luke! It seems clear that Matthew was working with different traditions. It is from Matthew that we learn of the Magi and the Flight into Egypt! It is also from Matthew that we learn about Herod's order to kill children. However, we cannot be certain this order was ever carried out, nor does the evangelist show any interest in learning that. The intent is to show Jesus' life as mirroring that of Moses, a major theme of the rest of the gospel. The "infancy narratives" are "mini-gospels."
The story of the slaughter of the innocents echoes the story of Moses' birth, the exile in Egypt and the persecution by Pharoah. All of this is presented as the fulfillment of prophecy, which is also a major theme of the Gospel of Matthew.
Although the status of children in the time of Jesus was very different from our modern standards, the feast of the Holy Innocents offers the opportunity to understand once more how children can become the instrument of deadly political and social powers. They become commodities, whether in human trafficking or objects to be destroyed as in abortion, seen simply as a lifestyle choice!!!! Our individualistic and consumerist social forces can be lethal to the most vulnerable persons in society. When children, in the womb or out, are treated as consumer objects, are we any different from Herod or Pharoah? The celebration of this feast in the liturgical season of Christmas is an important "preaching" to us all. AMEN