Holy Innocents (also known as Childermas or Children’s Mass)

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[Salvation]

Holy Innocents

Memorial

• 28 December (Roman Catholic; Church of England; Lutheran Church)
• the feast is sometimes known as Childermas or Children’s Mass
• 27 December (Syriac Orthodox Church; Syro-Malankara Catholic Church; Maronite Church; Chaldeans; Syro-Malabar Catholic Church)
• 29 December (Eastern Orthodox Church)

Profile

The children slaughtered by Herod the Great when he tried to kill the infant Christ.

When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi. Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet: “A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more.” - Matthew 2:16-18

Patronage

• babies
• children’s choir
• choir boys
• foundlings

Images

• Gallery of images of the Holy Innocents

Additional Information

• Book of Saints, by the Monks of Ramsgate
• Catholic Encyclopedia,
• Goffine’s Devout Instructions
• Golden Legend, by Jacobus de Voragine
• New Catholic Dictionary
• Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Saints, by Matthew Bunson, Margaret Bunson, and Stephen Bunson

Readings

A tiny child is born, who is a great king. Wise men are led to him from afar. They come to adore one who lies in a manger and yet reigns in heaven and on earth. When they tell of one who is born a king, Herod is disturbed. To save his kingdom he resolves to kill him, though if he would have faith in the child, he himself would reign in peace in this life and for ever in the life to come.

Why are you afraid, Herod, when you hear of the birth of a king? He does not come to drive you out, but to conquer the devil. But because you do not understand this you are disturbed and in a rage. To destroy one child whom you seek, you show your cruelty in the death of so many children.

You are not restrained by the love of weeping mothers and fathers mourning the deaths of their sons, nor by the cries and sobs of the children. You destroy those who are tiny in body because fear is destroying your heart. You imagine that if you accomplish your desire you can prolong you own life, though you are seeking to kill Life himself.

The children die for Christ, though they do not know it. The parents mourn for the death of martyrs. The Christ child makes of those as yet unable to speak fit witnesses to himself. But you, Herod, do not know this and are disturbed and furious. While you vent your fury against the child, you are already paying him homage, and do not know it.

To what merits of their own do the children owe this kind of victory? They cannot speak, yet they bear witness to Christ. They cannot use their limbs to engage in battle, yet already they bear off the palm of victory. - from a sermon by bishop Saint Quodvultdeus about the Holy Innocents

[Salvation]

The Feast of the Holy Innocents or Childermas is repressed due to the Sunday liturgies.

[Salvation]

Please ping your pro-life lists to pray for the ongoing slaughter of Holy Innocents through the practices of abortion.

[Salvation]

This is one feast on which we are all united for the children.

[Salvation]

Holy Innocents (also known as Childermas or Children’s Mass)

The Holy Innocents

King Herod Revisited

THE HOLY INNOCENTS Feast: December 28

Feast of the Holy Innocents - December 28 - 1928 BCP

We remember today the Holy Innocents, First Martyrs

Orthodox Feast of the Holy Innocents, December 29

December 28 - Feast of the Holy Innocents

 

Ending the Holocaust of the Innocents

 

Dec. 28 - Feast of The Holy Innocents

[the invisib1e hand]

This is one feast on which we are all united for the children.

Somebody ping Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden.

[Kolokotronis]

“Synaxarion:

The infant-slaying Herod mentioned here is the same one that ruled at the time of Christ’s Nativity. In those days, certain Magi, who were wise and noble men, perhaps even kings, set forth from the East, and came to Jerusalem, seeking the King of the Jews, Who had been born; and they said that in the East, where their homeland was, an unusual and strange star had appeared two years before, which, according to an ancient oracle (Num 24:17), was to signify the birth of some great king of the Jews. “For we have seen His star in the east,” they said, “and have come to worship Him” (Matt. 2:2). Hearing these things, Herod was troubled, and the whole city together with him. Then, having inquired and been informed by the high priests and scribes of the people that, according to the prophecies, Christ was to be born in Bethlehem, he sent the Magi thither and ordered them that, when they would find the Child, to inform him, so that he also - as he affirmed - might go and worship Him. But the Magi, after they had worshipped, departed by another way to their own country by a divine command. Then Herod was wroth and sent men to slay all the infants of Bethlehem and the parts round about, from two years old and under, thinking that with them he would also certainly slay the King Who had been born. But this vain man who fought against God was mocked, since Jesus the Child, with Mary His Mother, under the protection of Joseph the Betrothed, fled into Egypt at the command of an Angel. As for those innocent infants, they became the first Martyrs slain in behalf of Christ. But their blood-thirsty executioner, the persecutor of Christ, came down with dropsy after a short time, with his members rotting and being eaten by worms, and he ended his life in a most wretched manner.

Apolytikion in the First Tone

Be entreated, O Lord, by the sufferings endured for You by the Saints, and we pray You, heal all our pain.

Kontakion in the Plagal of the Second Tone

When the King was born in Bethlehem, the Magi arrived from the East with gifts guided by a Star on high, but Herod was troubled and mowed down the children like wheat; for he lamented that his power would soon be destroyed.”

In Orthodoxy, we commemorate the 14,000 infants (Holy Innocents) slain by Herod in Bethlehem on December 29th (new calendar).

[Salvation]

Thanks for your prayers and information. I saw the difference in the dates in the original article, but was still wanted to post it.

[annalex]

Massacre of the Holy Innocents

Alexey Pismenny

Oil on canvas, 36" x 24"
2008

[Huber]

Touchstone Magazine & the Society of Saint James offers an excellent Ecumenical calendar of the liturgical year. I buy a bunch each year and give them out as gifts.

http://www.fsj.org/pages/fsjcalendar.php

[incredulous joe]

I was just about to note that I reviewed the gallery and it seemed as though the subject matter had not been addressed since the mid-1500’s.

[lightman]

O, Christmas Eve more beautiful than the days
How can Herod bear the light
That blinks in your darkness
And is celebrated and worshipped
His pride listens to no reason
How noisy it sounds to his ears

He tries to destroy the untaught ones
By killing untaught souls
And rises a crying in town and country
In Bethlehem and in the field
And awakes the spirit of Rachel
That starts haunting field and meadow

- Excerpt from the 17th century dramatic play “The Gijsbrecht van
Aemstel” by the Dutch playwriter Joost van den Vondel

[lightman]

Layman Richard Cleary wrote a brilliant satirical piece in last Sunday’s York Daily Record in which he “commends” Indiana Planned Parenthood for keeping Herod in Christmas:

http://ydr.inyork.com/ci_11288027

[narses]

+

Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:

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Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.

Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment

Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

[wagglebee]

We have no way of knowing if He will again be an Infant when He returns, I believe that He would certainly be protected from the culture of death just as He was protected from Herod.

However, the FACT remains that the culture of death has murdered ONE BILLION truly unique HUMAN BEINGS in abortuaries worldwide in the past century.

Chuck Colson explains it brilliantly here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2154988/posts

[RJR_fan]

There are reasons why we so often hear instrumental versions of the haunting tune to The Coventry Carol. It is named after the city of Coventry, England, where the 16th Century Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors depicted Herod's slaughter of the innocents, told in the lyrics.

1. Lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.
Lullay, Thou little tiny Child.
By, by, lully, lullay.

2. O sisters, too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day;
This poor Youngling for whom we sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

3. Herod the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day;
His men of might, in his own sight,
All children young, to slay.

4. Then woe is me, poor Child, for Thee
, And ever mourn and say;
For Thy parting, nor say nor sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/coventry_carol-1.htm