The Holy Innocents Today, dearest brethren, we celebrate the birthday of those children who were slaughtered, as the Gospel tells us, by that exceedingly cruel king, Herod. Let the earth, therefore, rejoice and the Church exult — she, the fruitful mother of so many heavenly champions and of such glorious virtues. Never, in fact, would that impious tyrant have been able to benefit these children by the sweetest kindness as much as he has done by his hatred. For as today’s feast reveals, in the measure with which malice in all its fury was poured out upon the holy children, did heaven’s blessing stream down upon them.
“Blessed are you, Bethlehem in the land of Judah! You suffered the inhumanity of King Herod in the murder of your babes and thereby have become worthy to offer to the Lord a pure host of infants. In full right do we celebrate the heavenly birthday of these children whom the world caused to be born unto an eternally blessed life rather than that from their mothers’ womb, for they attained the grace of everlasting life before the enjoyment of the present. The precious death of any martyr deserves high praise because of his heroic confession; the death of these children is precious in the sight of God because of the beatitude they gained so quickly. For already at the beginning of their lives they pass on. The end of the present life is for them the beginning of glory. These then, whom Herod’s cruelty tore as sucklings from their mothers’ bosom, are 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
Saint Augustine pray for us as we do battle with those who would bring on a new cruel, cold winter of unbelief, replete with millions of new Holy Innocents.
“St. Augustine pray for us as we do battle with those who would bring on a new cruel, cold winter of unbelief, replete with millions of new holy innocents.” Amen!
Millions! My God. What have we become? A heartless army of bloodthirsty self seeking mongrel’s.
Worse than that…a nation committing suicide.
Since 1920 one billion abortions have been performed on this planet. One billion.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/global-life-campaign-new-international-abortion-stats-org-reveals-1-billion
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“Russia had the highest number of abortions per woman of child-bearing age in the world according to UN data as of 2010. In terms of the total number, in 2009 China reported that it had over 13 million abortions, out of a population of 1.3 billion, compared to the 1.2 million abortions in Russia, out of a population of 143 million people.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Russia
Aside from abortion, we have even had a Herod in the 21st century: Kim Jong-Il. See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/892434/posts
Tom D.
Triplets a threat? Well your right. Another Herod. “Since 1920 1 billion abortions have been performed on this planet.” Outrageous! What an endless stream of tears.
Imagine for a moment a torment of heart. That being in the depths of purgatory women & men having made the grave decision to choose abortion, are now given a glance. A two year glance to cherish the life they helped to end. And at the end of this period they hear the thunder of Herods horses & men. They witness the brutal slaying of their children. Then, only then, they realize it’s their sword that’s pulled from the sheath. Their hand thrusting the tip of the blade into their own beloved child. A nightmare. A cold winter of unbelief.
Abortion has always been with us. When mom conceived my sister, the midwife sent to ask “Do you want it?…”it”. Fifteen months later when mom conceived me, the midwife sent to ask: “Do you want it?” The midwife was the richest woman in the county. Mom kept us.
Abortion is now made legal, a supposedly legitimate and publicly acceptable “Right of Privacy”, a “Right to Choose” to murder our constitutional posterity after having invited the person into our lives by the conjugal act and then killing him for coming. Without due process of law, the innocent soul, the brother of Christ, may be put to death. (and we get to pay for it).
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Human sacrifice to satiate the blood lust of the unsaved.
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St Augustine really wrote beautifully of these children and their mothers.
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Thank You, Donald McClarey.
I remember first hearing the old testament story of sacrificing children to Moloch who was a pagan god. I thought it was incredible at the time. Now and today the abortion industry is much worse. The poor infants are not even allowed the dignity of looking their killer in the face. The blood is on many hands for not speaking up more forcefully. When did you last hear a homily on the topic? More recently I have been learning what the allies did to the city of Dresden at the end of WW-II. In a word, it was unspeakable. Indeed, what have we become.
Rick: “More recently I have been learning what the allies did to the city of Dresden at the end of WW-II. In a word, it was unspeakable. Indeed, what have we become.” .
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War is hell. No sympathy from me for Hitler and his accomplices. They were scheduled to have an atomic bomb dropped on them. The moral of World War II is: Do not start World War III. Our job was done to the best of our ability. God will differentiate between the innocent and the just.
It is told that King Herod rotted to death in his tent. King of the world was he?
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley