Today, were it not the first Sunday after Christmas, which supercedes other Feast days, would be kept as the Feast of the Holy Innocents.
There are days in the church year when the calendar feels as though it has slipped its sensible shoes and wandered into territory too heavy for polite conversation. The Feast of the Holy Innocents is one of those days. Just after Christmas joy spills across the church — before the poinsettias have even begun their slow wilt — we are brought face to face with the cry of children who never had the chance to grow into their names.
It is not a story we tell easily. King Herod’s rage, the flight into Egypt, the tiny lives cut short — none of it pairs naturally with leftover shortbread and the warm glow of Christmas lights. Yet the Church keeps this feast precisely because it tells the truth: that Christ was born into a world capable of both tenderness and terror. And God chose to dwell here anyway.
But Holy Innocents is not simply a historical marker lodged somewhere between Bethlehem and Cairo. It is heartbreakingly contemporary. Innocence is threatened every day: in children caught in the crossfire of conflict, in youth navigating violence in their neighbourhoods, in those whose hope is eroded by poverty, prejudice, or neglect. Some suffer quietly, out of the spotlight — kids who show up at school hungry, who carry worries far too heavy for young shoulders.
And so this feast calls us, gently but insistently, to widen our vision. To see the vulnerability around us. To honour those who, like the infants of Bethlehem, bear the cost of the world’s brokenness without understanding its logic.
Yet the Gospel insists on this too: God is with them. Emmanuel, in the arms of Mary and Joseph fleeing danger, is still Emmanuel in every shelter, every school, every refugee camp, every food bank, every home where kindness refuses to give up. The Christ who once escaped Herod’s fury is the Christ still protecting, still healing, still insisting that every child is treasured beyond measure.
Perhaps our task today is simple, if not easy: to guard innocence wherever we find it, and to restore it where we can. To speak peace into children’s lives. To be the steady presence adults are called to be. To ensure that the world, or at least our small corner of it, becomes a safer place for little ones to laugh and grow without fear.
It is holy work. And Christ goes with us.
Companion Prayer
Holy God,
who gathers the lost and shelters the vulnerable,
we remember today the Holy Innocents—
the children of Bethlehem, and every child whose life
is touched by violence, hunger, or fear.
Give us courage to protect the young,
compassion to comfort the wounded,
and wisdom to build communities
where innocence is cherished and all may flourish.
Hold every child close to your heart,
and make us instruments of your peace.
Through Jesus Christ, who became small for our sake. Amen.