Receive,
we pray,
into the
arms
of
your
mercy
all innocent victims;
and by your great might
frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and
establish your rule of justice, love and peace…
OK, so it’s kind of weird that today is the Feast of
the Holy Innocents if you are into chronology, but
it its with the infancy narrative, so here we go.
Re-enter the story, post Christmas eve where all is calm, all is bright. Three magi “from the east” (As-
trologers? Seers? Wise men? Not kings though!)
have seen a new star in the sky and have set out,
following it to see where it leads them. (Hence
the phrase “Follow your star.”)
En route they stop at the court of King Herod
to ask what he knows about a king being born.
He says he hasn’t a clue but he tells them to
be sure to stop on their way back and tell him
here this king is ,so “I too may worship him.”
Being a good (meaning bad) Middle Eastern
dictator, he sees this news as a direct and dire
threat to his power and plans to neutralize the
threat by killing him.
At long last the the magi arrive at the manger
(which we celebrate January 6th as the Epiphany,
the showing forth of Christ to the Gentiles, which
ends the 12 days of Christmas.) Having reached
their journey’s end, they present their 3 symbolic
gifts of “gold as to a mighty King, frankincense
as to the true God, and myrrh to foreshow his
burial.” We have no idea how long they actually
stayed, but when they headed back, “being warn-
ed in a dream” they go by a different route home.
Herod finally figures this out and enraged, sends
his minions out to kill all the little boys below the
age of 2 in the region in the hopes of neutralizing
the treat. However, having been warned in a dream
himself, Jospeh has taken Mary and Jesus and
they have fled to Egypt as refugees.
This story is always hard to read and
to contemplate. But this year it
seems more poignant, im-
minent & disturbing
than ever in my
lifetime.
