Daily Retreat 12/28/06
2006 Dec 28 Thu:Holy Innocents, mts F
1 Jn 1:5 – 2:2; Ps 123(124):2-3,4-5,7b-8; Mt 2:13-18
From today’s readings: “If we say, ‘We have fellowship with Him,’ while we continue to walk in darkness, we lie and do not act in truth.... Our soul has been rescued like a bird from the fowler's snare.... A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more..”
The Slaughter of Infants
Today’s feast of the Holy Innocents has taken on a new significance in the last decades since the legalization of abortion. King Herod saw the Babe of Bethlehem as a threat to his throne; likewise, it is a chilling fact that those who turn to abortion most often do so because they see their baby as something that would upset the security of their own enthroned lifestyle.
By itself, the Gospel has no words of comfort to address the slaughter of the innocent infants. However, the Church, malcontent with Matthew’s muteness, presumes to proclaim this poignant passage in the context of the joyful octave of Christmas; moreover, the Church even honors the Holy Innocents as glorious martyrs, since they truly bore witness to Christ with their own life’s blood.
Now the Church does not deny that every martyr’s death is a tragic consequence of unfettered evil - this is certainly true about the senseless slaying of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem, and the senseless slaying of the unborn innocents looms as the most gruesome tragedy of our day. But in focusing on the witness of martyrdom instead of the senselessness of death, the Church affirms that evil does not have the final word! God only allows evil so that ultimately a greater good may come from it; thus, the eternal glory of martyrdom can arise from even the evil slaying of innocents, and the modern holocaust of legalized abortion will also be inevitably consumed by undying Christian commitment to God’s Gospel of Life!
1 Jn 1:5 – 2:2; Ps 123(124):2-3,4-5,7b-8; Mt 2:13-18
From today’s readings: “If we say, ‘We have fellowship with Him,’ while we continue to walk in darkness, we lie and do not act in truth.... Our soul has been rescued like a bird from the fowler's snare.... A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more..”
The Slaughter of Infants
Today’s feast of the Holy Innocents has taken on a new significance in the last decades since the legalization of abortion. King Herod saw the Babe of Bethlehem as a threat to his throne; likewise, it is a chilling fact that those who turn to abortion most often do so because they see their baby as something that would upset the security of their own enthroned lifestyle.
By itself, the Gospel has no words of comfort to address the slaughter of the innocent infants. However, the Church, malcontent with Matthew’s muteness, presumes to proclaim this poignant passage in the context of the joyful octave of Christmas; moreover, the Church even honors the Holy Innocents as glorious martyrs, since they truly bore witness to Christ with their own life’s blood.
Now the Church does not deny that every martyr’s death is a tragic consequence of unfettered evil - this is certainly true about the senseless slaying of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem, and the senseless slaying of the unborn innocents looms as the most gruesome tragedy of our day. But in focusing on the witness of martyrdom instead of the senselessness of death, the Church affirms that evil does not have the final word! God only allows evil so that ultimately a greater good may come from it; thus, the eternal glory of martyrdom can arise from even the evil slaying of innocents, and the modern holocaust of legalized abortion will also be inevitably consumed by undying Christian commitment to God’s Gospel of Life!
posted by FrPitstick | 12/28/2006
<< Home