Holy Innocents Day
Giotto di Bondone's Massacre of the Innocents.
Today, December 28, is Holy Innocents Day. On this day we remember the male infants slaughtered by King Herod in his vain attempt to murder the infant Jesus.
Catholic tradition dictates that today is an appropriate time to bring our children to church and to have them blessed.
It's also a good time to pause and reflect on the vast numbers of children suffering in one form or another around the world.
Abortion. Child abuse. Neglect. Exploitation. Prostitution. White slavery. Drug abuse. War. Terrorism. Hunger and malnutrition. Disease. Land mines.
Let us do what we can in order to free our children from these scourges. Our children are our most precious and valuable resource. They are, literally, and figuratively, our future. Let us treat them with the love and respect they deserve, and teach them the folly of our ways, so that the next generation would learn from our mistakes.
O God, whose praise the martyred innocents did this day proclaim, not by speaking, but by dying: Destroy in us all the malice of sinfulness, that our lives may also proclaim thy faith, which our tongues profess. Through our Lord. Amen.
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