"HOLY INNOCENTS: THEN AND NOW"

 28th December 2021

TUESDAY, FEAST OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS, MARTYRS

                            (1 Jn 1: 5 - 2: 2); (Mt 2: 13-18)

"HOLY INNOCENTS: THEN AND NOW"

Dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, today we celebrate the event of the Feast of the Holy Innocents, recollecting the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem, every one of the newborn children matured two and underneath that had been slaughtered by King Herod the Great in his useless actions and endeavors to kill the baby King of Israel, the One Who was prophesized by the prophets to come into this world and Who might administer over people as King. King Herod consequently expected that his standard and power would be taken over from him and his family, and gave over to this new King, and subsequently, he attempted to kill Him regardless.

Logically, we can comprehend his activities better assuming that we find out about how King Herod the Great rose to control. He was brought into the world as the child of Antipater the Idumaean, a high positioning authority in the Jewish Hasmonean realm hailing from the locale south of Israel referred to then as Idumaea or the antiquated Edom, the adjoining state lining the place where there is Israel. As per chronicled customs, the precursors of Herod had changed over to the Jewish confidence, and abided among the relatives of Israel in Judea. Regardless, as he owed his ascent to capacity to the help and backing of the Romans, he has consistently felt unreliable an option for him and rule.

For what reason is that anyway, brothers and sisters in Christ? That is on the grounds that he could be considered as a usurper, having appropriated the legitimate rule over Judea and the other customary territories of Israel from the Hasmonean rulers, the relatives of the Maccabees who won autonomy for the Jewish individuals a century earlier. Ruler Herod held onto power from the remainder of the Hasmonean lords and convincingly took one of the Hasmonean princesses as his significant other. What's more his standard in Judea and past was portrayed with its neurotic nature and enormous structure projects, like the modifying of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, from this time forward referred to informally as Herod's Temple, and furthermore other significant structures like the Herodion and numerous others.

Herod's distraction with building such fabulous scale projects was an impression of his incredible apprehension about being treated as a usurper, and as a usurper to be sure he was, he expected that one day his standard and realm would be overwhelmed by any individual who might challenge his power and authority, being somebody with more prominent case to the majesty than himself. Henceforth, it was no big surprise that the second King Herod caught wind of the approaching King of Israel through the three Wise Men or Magi that he started to do everything that he could to discover more with regards to the approaching King, the Messiah of God, and later on, in his endeavors to kill this danger to his standard.

Herod the Great's neurosis and assurance to grasp power regardless the expense at last made him submit the incredible and shocking sin of killing, as he requested the killing of such countless blameless people in Bethlehem simply that he may annihilate his rival, the infant King of Israel. He requested his men to submit such incredible homicides, shedding the blood of the blameless youngsters to get his own power and authority, since he was just keen on keeping up with his own brilliance and realm, and really focusing not on the predicament of those whose lives he had obliterated, whose relatives he had killed.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, through this recorded illustration of the killing of Bethlehem, we are totally called to ponder the dangers introduced by transgression on our everyday living, for wrongdoing can undoubtedly ruin us and misdirect us down some unacceptable way, and influence us to capitulate to underhanded deeds like what King Herod had done. That is the number of us had trespassed and the number of our ancestors have fallen into wrongdoing, and even into condemnation as a result of their powerlessness to oppose the charms of transgression. A few of us even maybe reject that we have trespassed, and how all that we have done can be defended, for our own motivations and requirements.

As St. John expressed in his Epistle that we heard as our first reading today, we trick ourselves assuming we say that we have no wrongdoing. We all are miscreants and the Lord alone has the ability to pardon us and free us from the servitude of transgression. That He has done, and He has come into this world, in essence and brought into the world in the individual of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior as we celebrate in this Christmas season. He has shown us the exit from the murkiness and into His new Light, and what we want to do is for us to follow Him, reject sin and decline to permit ourselves to be influenced by it.

As Christians, we all should admire Christ, the True Light and Hope that God has brought upon us and that He has given to us, as the appearance of His affection for every last one of us. Allow all of us to recollect the memory of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem, blessed and guiltless saints of humankind's eagerness and desire, which had prompted such a lot of sufferings, agonies and distresses, as they manhandled the opportunity given to them, the power and power shared with them as Herod the Great himself had done. Let us generally not tumble to similar allurements and allow us to do anything we can to follow the Lord earnestly, subscribing to His objective from now into the foreseeable future.

May God favor all of us, and may He reinforce us in our confidence, that we may constantly try to be better Christians, no matter what and in all deeds. Allow every one of us to remove ourselves from wrongdoing, and be great good examples for one another. Sacred Innocents of Bethlehem, saints of immaculateness and ethicalness, appeal to God for all of us, your kindred brothers and sisters, presently and consistently. Amen.