The “Comites Christi”: Part 3—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.
—Matthew 2:13-14
On the 28th day of December, we celebrate the last of the Comites Christi (“Companions of Christ”). In these days after Christmas, the Holy Innocents, those infant boys of Bethlehem murdered by order of King Herod following the visit of the Magi (see the Gospel for today’s feast), stand alongside the protomartyr, Saint Stephen, and Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist, witnessing to Christ’s victory over sin and death by the power of the Incarnation.
These innocent victims of Herod’s jealousy and rage gave testimony to the Messiah and Redeemer, not by any words they spoke, but by the shedding of their blood. Their story invites us to remember the experience of the first Christians, as we recall the fullness of the Paschal Mystery in this season of the Incarnation and Nativity. This is why the antiphon for the Canticle of Zechariah for Morning Prayer for today’s feast can declare: “At the king’s command these innocent babies and little children were put to death; they died for Christ, and now in the glory of heaven as they follow him, the sinless Lamb, they sing for ever: Glory to you, O Lord.”
This scene from the Gospels is not included in children’s Christmas pageants and is more often than not simply ignored in our telling of Christ’s birth. This is because these children, in all their innocence, suffered and died senseless deaths, and there is no way to sanitize or explain away this tragic tale. And yet, the story of the Holy Innocents remains an essential part of the Christmas story. Because, even here, in this dark story, devoid of the holiday cheer that we associate with these holy days, the light of promise continues to shine, because these children share in the sacrifice that the “newborn King of the Jews” (see Matthew 2:2) would himself experience on the Cross at the end of his own life.
“These could not speak, yet they bore witness to Christ. They could not sue their limbs to engage in battle, yet they won the palm of victory.”
-Saint Quodvultdeus
In faith, we recognize that the Child who has been born for us was born into a specific time and place, into a world that was not all that different from our own. Because, just as we see in too many places today, the rich and powerful of first century Palestine were bent on protecting their wealth, their influence, and their agendas, not caring who was destroyed in the process. And yet, as we hear in Mary’s Magnificat, God casts down the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the lowly, including defenseless children whose only crime was being born. Even within the grim tale that is at the heart of this feast, we discover how God’s saving action—perfectly expressed in the Incarnation of the Son—is at work amid human cruelty and suffering, reminding us that the violence and death we encounter too often in our war-weary world is not the end of the story.
And so, on December 28, we continue the long-standing tradition of honoring the Holy Innocents as martyrs. Joining the poet Prudentius, we praise the Innocents as “sweet flowers of martyrdom / cut down in life’s bright dawning hour,” and as playing, in their simplicity, by God’s altar with the crowns and martyrs’ palms that are their heavenly reward” (from “Hymn for Epiphany”).
O God, whom the Holy Innocents confessed
and proclaimed on this day,
not by speaking but by dying,
grant, we pray,
that the faith in you which we confess with our lips
may also speak through our manner of life.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-Collect for the Feast of the Holy Innocents
