Although the children whose lives were sacrificed in Bethlehem do not meet the technical definition of martyrdom, the Church recognizes them as innocent victims whose deaths were occasioned by Jesus’ birth. So it is deemed fitting to remember them in the same season when we remember the human birth of Jesus.
It is not easy to celebrate this feast with a spirit of joyous celebration which generally fits this time of year. One thing the account of the massacre does provide for us is a glimpse of the reality of the evil situation which Jesus entered when he became human. The shadow of his cross begins to overshadow his life at its very beginning.
The death of the babes of Bethlehem also recalls the death of innocent male children at the time of the enslavement of Israel by Egypt’s pharaoh. He, like Herod, condemned the male children of the Israelites for fear that they would grow too numerous and would join Egypt’s enemies in a revolt against Pharaoh’s power. Of course, Matthew’s purpose in writing his Gospel is to reveal Jesus as the new Moses. Just as Moses was saved from the slaughter, Jesus is also saved. His parents take him to Egypt until those who seek his death are themselves dead. Jesus, like Moses, then enters the Promised Land after escaping from Egypt.
As we celebrate today, we cannot turn our heads away from the slaughter of innocent children in our own time either through abortion, or through gun violence in our neighborhoods and in our schools, or through terrorist attacks like that that took place in Manchester, England, this past year. The evil situation into which Jesus is born is still with us today.
As we commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus in the liturgy today, let us also lift up the innocents who are still being slaughtered today by our unwillingness to confront the evil of violence and poverty which continues in our own time.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator