The Liturgical Year by Adolf Adam:
Even the oldest liturgical calendars already havea series of saints’ feasts directly following on Christmas. The Middle Ages saw these saints as a crotege of honor accompanying the Christ-child, and gave them the name Comites Christi (“Companions of Christ”). In the Roman liturgy these companions are Stephen the first martyr on December 26, John the Apostle and Evangelist on December 27, and the children whom Herod slew in Bethlehem on December 28 (cf. Mt 2.13-18). These three were regarded as representing the three possible forms of martyrdom: voluntary and executed (Stephen), voluntary but not executed (John), and executed but not voluntary (Holy Innocents).
A voice was heard in Ramah,
Lamentation and bitter weeping:
Rachel Weeping for Her Children
Refusing to be comforted for her children,
Because they are no more.
Jeremiah 31:15
Today is the commemoration of the Holy Innocents
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,
Lamentation and bitter weeping:
Rachel Weeping for Her Children
Refusing to be comforted for her children,
Because they are no more.
Jeremiah 31:15
************
Another sad day during the Christmas Season.
I think in every Catholic Household, throughout the rich liturgical year, you should choose to celebrate the feasts and commemorations that have meaning for your household. The Feast of the Holy Innocents is one of those for my household since I lost my own baby in 2002. It speaks to me as a mother in grief over the loss of my child in “lamentation and bitter weeping, refusing to be comforted for my child because he was no more.”
But more than that over the years, it reminds me to pray for the mothers and children who are victims of abortion, children lost to miscarriage and stillbirth, and other disasters. It is a day to remember the children, lives cut short, and to remember them and ask for their prayers too.
For me it will be a special day. It is true that the home in a mother’s heart will always be there after the loss of a child. But I think it is also true that a new baby is the salve that makes the pain from that injury bearable. I didn’t realize how much I still hurt until I compared my Christmases from 2002, 2003, and 2004 to the Christmases since Rosie was born. Certainly time and distance has helped, but the deep ache and emptiness I felt previously is not as severe. It’s like remembering what it was like to be very hungry compared to being very hungry. It’s that different. But going to mass today always helps me to heal some more.
If you have lost a child, a son or daughter, sibling, little friend, today would be a good day to remember him or her. Join your prayers with the ones at mass today and ask your little friend in heaven to be your intercessor with the Father.
Today is also a special day to remember all of the little children who have died through abortion.
A Prayer for Abortion Victims
Prayer for all victims of abortion. May those involved in abortions be reconciled to God and may the innocent dead be saved.
Holy Mother of God and of the Church, our Lady of Guadalupe, you were chosen by the Father for the Son through the Holy Spirit.
You are the Woman clothed with the sun who labors to give birth to Christ while Satan, the Red Dragon, waits to voraciously devour your child.
So too did Herod seek to destroy your Son, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and massacred many innocent children in the process.
So today does abortion killing many innocent unborn children and exploiting many mothers in its attack upon human life and upon the Church, the Body of Christ.
Mother of the Innocents, we praise God in you for His gifts to you of your Immaculate Conception, your freedom from actual sin; your fullness of grace, your Motherhood of God and the Church, your Perpetual Virginity and your Assumption in body and soul into heaven.
O Help of Christians, we beg you to protect all mothers of the unborn and the children within their wombs. We plead with you for your help to end the holocaust of abortion. Melt hearts so that life may be revered!
Holy Mother, we pray to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for all mothers and all unborn children that they may have life here on earth and by the most Precious Blood shed by your Son that they may have eternal life with Him in heaven. We also pray to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for all abortionists and all abortion supporters that they may be converted and accept your Son, Jesus Christ, as their Lord and Savior. Defend all of your children in the battle against Satan and all of the evil spirits in this present darkness.
We desire that the innocent unborn children who die without Baptism should be baptized and saved. We ask that you obtain this grace for them and repentance, reconciliation and pardon from God for their parents and their killers.
Let there be revealed, once more, in the history of the world the infinite power of merciful love. May it put an end to evil. May it transform consciences. May your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of hope. May Christ the King reign over us, our families, cities, states, nations and the whole of humanity.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary, hear our pleas and accept this cry from our hearts!
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protectress of the Unborn, Pray for us!
A Prayer for Abortion Victims
http://www.sancta.org/patr-unb.html
Grave site of Baby John – found dead and alone at a construction site. Given a grave and Christian burial in 2005.
Other sources
Catholic Culture
Church of the Holy Innocents in New York.
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