These blessed children, the first to participate in Christ’s sufferings, would also be among the first to benefit from the infinite merits of His glorious Passion and to reign with Him in the heavenly homeland.
Newsroom (28/12/2020 11:46 AM, Gaudium Press) Until the entrance of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who devastated the city of Jerusalem and took the population into captivity, there was always a son of David, from the blessed line of Judah, sitting on his father’s rightful throne.
When, seventy years after this painful exile, the great Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon, he issued a decree authorizing the Israelites to return to their homeland (cf. Es 1:2-4). Many of them, including a large contingent of priests and Levites, then undertook the return journey to Jerusalem (cf. Es 2:1-67).
The sons of Levi rule the Chosen People
In fact, although the country was still subject to foreign rulers – first the Persians, then the Greeks – the true holders of power became the high priests, assisted by a council of elders, constituted by an aristocracy that was mostly priestly.
In the second century B.C., when Antiochus IV Epiphanes – a “vile man” (Dan 11:21), a true “root of sin” (I Mac 1:11) – ascended the throne of Syria, a furious persecution against the religion of Israel was unleashed.
The Maccabees, of priestly lineage, rose up against the Seleucid, obtaining great victories and acquiring for the Jewish nation a power and glory comparable to those of ancient times.
Many Israelites thought they saw in this triumph a clear sign of the divine hand, transferring the Davidic kingship to the tribe of Levi. Thus, the descendants of these heroes, called Hasmoneans, came to occupy both the chair of the supreme pontificate and the royal throne.
If, many centuries before, the scepter had been taken away from the tribe of Judah, Israel continued, however, to be ruled by sons of Jacob’s blood, successors of the Patriarch Abraham, heirs of God’s promises.
Herod: the Bloodthirsty King
Circumstances changed when, on the grounds of fratricidal struggles within the Hasmonean family itself, Rome intervened by force of arms, and the emperor Mark Antony granted the title of king of the Jews to a foreigner, detested by the nation for belonging to the Idumean people, an irreconcilable enemy of Israel: Herod.
It didn’t take long for the new monarch to demonstrate that all his actions and administrative acts were driven by proud greed. The hatred and contempt of his subjects, which he felt weighed down on him, added to the natural insecurity of one who is unreasonably ambitious, made him fear in anyone who stood out for his qualities, or who gained the sympathy of the people, an adversary of his power.
During the years of his long reign, he unscrupulously got rid of all conspirators or those who simply cast a shadow over him. One by one, his closest relatives – including his wife Mariamne and three children – and a great number of aristocrats in Judea fell under the blows of his cruelty. Nothing was an obstacle to this fierce will, full of arrogance and thirst for domination.
The Tyrant Trembles before a Child
What was the bloodthirsty tyrant’s shock when, already old and embittered by the weight of his countless crimes, he saw a sumptuous caravan from the East arriving in Jerusalem, with three wise men asking for the “king of the Jews who had just been born” (Mt 2:2)! Immediately, disquiet and anxiety took over his heart: he thought that the stability of his throne was threatened.
This agitation translated well how much God was absent from his cogitations and perspectives, as a pious author rightly comments: “The upright and sincere soul is never disturbed because it possesses God. Where God dwells, no disturbance is possible, says the Holy Spirit: ‘Non in commotione Dominus’ (I Kings 19:11). If a soul ever experiences disturbance, it is because it has lost God and, with Him, righteousness and candor. That Herod should be disturbed should not surprise us; after all, he was a usurper, and when he heard that a king of the Jews had just been born, he certainly feared that he would lose both his throne and his crown.
However, using the cunning characteristic of the “sons of the age” (Lk 16:8), Herod inquired of the priests and the teachers of the Scriptures as to the place indicated by the prophets as the birthplace of the Messiah. Once he had the answer, he decided to kill the newborn baby.
Pretending great piety, he sent for the Wise Men to show them the way to Bethlehem, but in reality he wanted to use them to carry out his evil intentions.
Blinded by pride, this wicked monarch believed he had enough power to oppose the divine plan and change, according to his whims, what God had determined from all eternity and announced by the mouth of his messengers!
Two discrete interventions of divine Providence – a dream sent to warn the Wise Men and the apparition of an angel to St. Joseph – were enough to bring down the tyrant’s cunning machinations.
But the tyrant waited impatiently and fearfully for the return of those noble foreigners for several days; when he realized that he had been deceived, he gave vent to his anger and decided to perpetrate the most horrendous crime of his life: so that the little King of the Jews would not escape his vengeance, all the infants of Bethlehem and the surrounding area were to perish.
Martyrdom of the Innocents
Great was the consternation in the city of Bethlehem. Soon after having achieved the honor of welcoming the One who was awaited by the nations, its houses were filled with corpses and the streets echoed with the mothers’ cries of pain, mixed with the children’s groans. It was an atrocious and poignant scene to see the little ones torn from their mother’s arms and pierced by the swords of mercenaries.
“Why did Christ act this way?”, St. Peter Chrysologus asks himself. Why did he abandon in this way those who, like Him, rested in a cradle, and the enemy, who sought only the king, caused harm to all the soldiers?”.
And the saint himself answers: “Brothers, Christ did not abandon his soldiers, but gave them a better fate, he granted them to triumph before they lived, he made them achieve victory without any struggle, he granted them the crowns even before their limbs were developed, he willed by his power that they pass over the vices, that they possess Heaven before the earth.
As David had prophesied, the sobs of these little martyrs resounded in the presence of the Most High as songs of glory, and at the same time, they reproached the wicked king who had condemned them: “Perfect praise is given to you by the lips of the smallest of children, of infants whom their mothers’ nurse; this is the strength you bring to bear against the wicked, to silence the enemy” (Ps 8:3).
Their blood ascended to Heaven as the pure and pleasing sacrifice of “lambs without blemish” (cf. Ex 12:2-5) offered in honor of the newborn Divine Infant.
The children who played at the feet of their mothers left their innocent games to go and play at the feet of God’s throne!
Herod’s disquiet and the triumph of children
The antagonism between Herod’s state of mind and that of the Holy Innocents is striking: on one side we find the figure of a man attached to power, jealous of his authority, judging all facts through the prism of mediocre interests; on the opposite extreme, innocent children, trusting and admiring, incapable of doing any harm.
After his heinous crime, Herod experiences inner sadness and restlessness. Not even after receiving the news that his orders had been carried out did he enjoy any peace of mind, for, in addition to the constant affliction of losing his throne, there was the remorse of the infanticide committed, eating away at his soul as worms would soon eat away at his flesh.
In a very different way, the children were elevated to the category of brothers of Christ and princes of his kingdom. He loved them, and so he gathered them like a bud just blossoming into life, to lead them to the beatific vision when he triumphantly opened the gates of heaven.
Childhood, a model of innocence
The Word became flesh and came into the world to bring about the Redemption, and from it to publish on earth “the year of the grace of the Lord” (Is 61:2), a new regime, based on charity and mercy, by which man passed from the condition of a slave to the category of a child of God, having as a rule of life the search for perfection, in the image of the Heavenly Father (cf. Mt 5:48).
To be his disciples, Jesus does not tell us to acquire erudite knowledge, nor does he demand that we practice penances and austerities that are too heavy. He proposes, on the contrary, a model accessible to all: “Truly, I say to you unless you are converted and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3).
To be partakers of his Kingdom and participants in the eternal banquet, we are called to let ourselves be led by the hand of God as docile and trusting children, without resisting his holy will. Jesus brings, every Christmas, the invitation for the restoration of innocence and is ready to restore it in the hearts of those who want to benefit from his grace, since, on our own, we do not have enough strength to free ourselves from our sins.
He himself is waiting for us and will give us a reward at the hour of our death, making us heirs of endless happiness: “Let the little children come to me, for theirs is the kingdom of God” (Mt 19:14).
Text taken, with adaptations, from the magazine Heralds of the Gospel n.108, December 2010. Sister Clara Isabel Morazzani Arráiz, EP
