20181228
WHO ARE THE HOLY
INNOCENTS TODAY?
28 DECEMBER,
2018, Friday, Holy Innocents
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour: Red.
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First reading
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1 John 1:5-2:2 ©
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The blood of Jesus Christ purifies us
all from sin
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This is what we have heard from Jesus
Christ,
and the message that we are announcing to
you:
God is light; there is no darkness in him
at all.
If we say that we are in union with God
while we are living in darkness,
we are lying because we are not living the
truth.
But if we live our lives in the light,
as he is in the light,
we are in union with one another,
and the blood of Jesus, his Son,
purifies us from all sin.
If we say we have no sin in us,
we are deceiving ourselves
and refusing to admit the truth;
but if we acknowledge our sins,
then God who is faithful and just
will forgive our sins and purify us
from everything that is wrong.
To say that we have never sinned
is to call God a liar
and to show that his word is not in us.
I am writing this, my children,
to stop you sinning;
but if anyone should sin,
we have our advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, who is just;
he is the sacrifice that takes our sins
away,
and not only ours,
but the whole world’s.
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 123(124):2-5,7-8 ©
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Our life, like a bird,
has escaped from the snare of the fowler.
If the Lord had not been on our side
when men rose up against us,
then would they have swallowed us alive
when their anger was kindled.
Our life, like a bird,
has escaped from the snare of the fowler.
Then would the waters have engulfed us,
the torrent gone over us;
over our head would have swept
the raging waters.
Our life, like a bird,
has escaped from the snare of the fowler.
Indeed the snare has been broken
and we have escaped.
Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
Our life, like a bird,
has escaped from the snare of the fowler.
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Gospel Acclamation
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cf.Te Deum
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Alleluia, alleluia!
We praise you, O God,
we acknowledge you to be the Lord;
the noble army of martyrs praise you, O
Lord.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Matthew 2:13-18 ©
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The massacre of the innocents
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After the wise men had left, the angel of
the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and
his mother with you, and escape into Egypt, and stay there until I tell you,
because Herod intends to search for the child and do away with him.’ So Joseph
got up and, taking the child and his mother with him, left that night for
Egypt, where he stayed until Herod was dead. This was to fulfil what the Lord
had spoken through the prophet:
I called my son out of
Egypt.
Herod was furious when he realised that he
had been outwitted by the wise men, and in Bethlehem and its surrounding
district he had all the male children killed who were two years old or under,
reckoning by the date he had been careful to ask the wise men. It was then that
the words spoken through the prophet Jeremiah were fulfilled:
A voice was heard in
Ramah,
sobbing and loudly
lamenting:
it was Rachel weeping
for her children,
refusing to be comforted
because they were no more.
WHO ARE THE HOLY INNOCENTS TODAY?
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ 1 John 1:5-2:2; Ps 124:2-5,7-8; Matthew 2:13-18 ]
Today’s feast of the
Holy Innocents is celebrated in memory of the infants who died for Christ for
no crime or sin of their own.
They were put to death on account of the insecurity of King Herod over the
birth of the new born King. He thought that Jesus was vying for his
throne when in truth Jesus was not interested in his throne. The only
throne that Jesus was interested in was to enthrone himself in the heart of
King Herod. Jesus came to be king of our hearts; not of land and
territory. However, He cannot be king of our hearts unless we recognize that He
is the king of our lives. He is the One who comes to save us
from allowing Satan, the flesh and the World to dominate and control our minds
and our wills.
Unfortunately, there are
many who claim to be innocent without Christ. The new breed of
self-proclaimed Holy Innocents are those who subscribe to relativism. Relativism teaches that nothing is
right or wrong but a matter of preference. It is based on pragmatism, in
that what we think is best for us at a point of time, is acceptable.
Morality does not exist in life because no one has the truth and absolute truth
does not exist. Truth changes with time. That is why St John wrote,
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in
us.” This is the real irony of the world. As the late Archbishop
Fulton Sheen remarked that when the Church in 1854 proclaimed the Dogma of the
Immaculate Conception of Mary, many Christians rejected it because they said
that we are all sinners. But today, if we tell the world that they are
sinners, they will deny this because there are no sins and they are no sinners.
Then there is another
kind of Holy Innocents. They are those supposed Christians who claim to
believe in Christ but do not walk in discipleship with Him or in fellowship
with the Church. They
claim that Jesus saves, and they are justified by faith in Christ. Having
been justified by Christ, no matter what they do, they are saved by the
Lord. Such people, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran, in his book
“the Cost of Discipleship”, says was the cause of the downfall of many
Christians. They have turned costly grace into cheap grace. Costly
grace means discipleship, living out the life of Christ and carrying the cross
with the Lord unto death. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, when
a Christian continues to live a sinful life as before, without giving himself
to following Jesus. This was why St John said, “God is light and in him
is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in
darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth; but if we walk in the
light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the
blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” If we live in darkness,
we cannot claim that we have faith in Christ. To claim that we are justified
in Christ means that we live His life according to His word. St James
reminds us that faith without good works is dead. (cf Jms 2:17) It is
true that the laws cannot save us, nevertheless, “the only thing that counts is
faith working through love.” (Gal 5:6)
So who are the Holy
Innocents? They are those who confess that Christ is their Saviour and on their own, they cannot
overcome sin because they are powerless to do so since sin dwells in
them. This is what St Paul himself discovered in his own struggle against
sins. Hence, he concluded by saying, “So I find it to be a law that when
I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the
law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war
with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my
members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of
death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:21-25)
This is the conviction
of the psalmist too when he prayed, “Our life, like a bird, has escaped from
the snare of the fowler. If
the Lord had not been on our side when men rose up against us, then would they
have swallowed us alive when their anger was kindled. Then
would the waters have engulfed us, the torrent gone over us; over our head
would have swept the raging waters. Indeed the snare has been
broken and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made
heaven and earth.” Our innocence is found in and through Christ, not on
our own efforts or because we are without sin.
Hence, St John is urging
us to acknowledge and confess our sins so that we can come to realize our need
for a savior. “If we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and
his word is not in us. My little children, I am writing this to you so that you
may not sin; but if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the expiation for our sins, and not for
ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” Truly, Christ is the
one whose blood “cleanses us from all sin.” Jesus is our advocate on our
behalf. He speaks and acts on our behalf. To Jesus, we must come to
be forgiven and healed of our brokenness, our sinfulness and our selfishness.
He “is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since
he always lives to make intercession for them.” (Heb 7:25)
Therefore, the path to
become “Holy Innocent” is through confession of our sins and confession in
Christ as our savior.
Whilst the infants during the time of Jesus and all martyrs and all aborted
babies received the baptism of blood, most of us receive the baptism of water
through confession in the name of our Lord. It is through the waters of
baptism, that our sins our forgiven and we are made adopted sons and daughters
of God. At our baptism, we become “holy innocent” because our sins have
been taken away. Christ has died in our place. “Unlike the other
high priests, he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his
own sins, and then for those of the people; this he did once for all when he
offered himself.” (Heb 7:27)
Today, as we celebrate the
Feast of the Holy Innocents, we must pray that we will recover our innocence as
the children of God. We
are called to live out the life of Christ. We must strive to walk in
truth and in the light. We must also suffer injustice at times for Christ, just
like those aborted babies and martyrs who died for Christ. To be numbered
among the Holy Innocents is to be one of them, suffering unjustly for the love
of Christ and for the salvation of humanity. Christian discipleship means
purifying ourselves to become more and more like Christ.
St John wrote, “Those
who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in
them; they cannot sin,
because they have been born of God. The children of God and the children
of the devil are revealed in this way: all who do not do what is right are not
from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.” (1 Jn 3:9f) In saying this, it does not
mean that we are sinless before God. Rather, God justifies us in Christ.
“Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now
justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood,
effective through faith.” (Rom 3:23f)
So long as we are
sincere in wanting to walk the way of truth and love, Jesus will forgive us our
sins. He knows our
hearts as long as we seek to do what is right. He wrote, “Little
children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And
by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts
before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our
hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not
condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever
we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.” (1 Jn 3:18-22)
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
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