Dying for Jesus Is Nobler!

Feast of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs

Thursday, December 28, 2023

1 Jn 1:5-2:2; Mt 2:13-18

Today’s feast evokes sad feelings in us. 

Just days after the birth of Jesus, innocent children die protecting the Lord. 

However, by dying in Jesus’ place, the innocents have prefigured what Jesus would later accomplish in his life.

The innocents died for him, just as Jesus, the innocent and blameless, would die for us. 

Living for Jesus is noble! But dying for him is nobler!

The feast of the holy innocents celebrates the children’s sacrifice for the sake of the Lord. 

The sacrifice of the holy innocents reminds me of the lines from the Scottish Jesuit Fr. James Quinn’s This is my will, my new command: ‘No greater love a man can have than that he die to save his friends.’

Let us honor the holy innocents who have shown us what it means to love the Lord!

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar