Holy Innocents

Artist: Domenico Ghirlandaio

Because December 28 fell on a Sunday this year, the Feast of the Holy Innocents was transferred to today.

We could call them, I suppose, the patron saints of so-called collateral damage* (that terminology surely being one of the most wicked euphemisms of our time).

Here's something from the fifth century that bears pondering:

Herod is disturbed. To save his kingdom he resolves to kill [the Child], though if he would have faith in the child, he himself would reign in peace in this life and for ever in the life to come.

Why are you afraid, Herod, when you hear of the birth of a king? He does not come to drive you out, but to conquer the devil. But because you do not understand this you are disturbed and in a rage, and to destroy one child whom you seek, you show your cruelty in the death of so many children.

-- Saint Quodvultdeus

I would also like to call your attenion to a reflection by The Rev John Gibbs for this day. It is a page from a much larger website I just found called "Minnesota Episcopal Environmental Stewardship Commission". The Lectionary Reflections are quite powerful.

* Yes, I know. Technically, the definition of "collateral damage" is that it is "unintended". That, I propose, is a royal cop-out. If such damage is inevitable, it might as well be intended. Remember, Timothy McVeigh called the deaths of the children who died in the Oklahoma City bombing "collateral damage".