The Holy Innocents

“These then, are they

justly hailed as “infant martyr flowers”;

they were the Church’s first blossoms,

matured by the frost of persecution

during the cold winter of unbelief”

- St Augustine

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Happy feast of the Holy Innocents.

It is a great feast because we celebrate martyrdom. And grace! And the paradoxical beauty of mighty weakness found in the smallest of all.

But this feast always leaves me with a sad, hollow place inside. What about their mothers? What of them? The jolting, long lasting trauma of it all. Babies violently murdered before their very eyes. Wrenched from their protection by the might of capricious law. Did they ever recover and come to understand?

I have to picture each one of them 33 years later crossing paths with the grown Jesus - believing that He would make it so in his providence - hearing Him speak, feeling his love, watching Him gather all their other children to himself and telling them stories. I have to imagine him holding each of their faces in his hands and filling them with a peace they might not have had until then. Telling each of them in turn their boy was safe and gloriously shining in the Father’s presence. That their child’s blood powerfully protected the life of our future salvation and that each mother was thanked tenderly and kindly by a grateful God.

I would like a feast for all those Holy Mothers on whose shoulders was laid the heavy cross of losing a baby boy. It was a vital part of salvation history that they humbly submitted to this ‘severe mercy’.

If we have ever lost a child to violence, to miscarriage, to sickness or even have had to give them up for adoption so they could have a better life - know that God understands the ongoing sorrow. And the mothers of the Holy Innocents do as well.

All you Holy Innocents, pray for mothers who weep for their children. Grant them consolation and peace. Amen.