Herod didn’t want the newborn King of the Jews to live beyond
infancy, at least not as long as Herod was in power. His solution
was to immediately destroy anyone who poses a threat to his power,
pleasure, wealth, ease or comfort.
It’s amazing to think to what extent Herod would go to assure his
undiminished power. He would slaughter all the male infants below
two years of age in Bethlehem. Bethlehem was a small town.
Scholars determined that there may have been as many as forty male
infants in the city which were under the age of two. Our
imaginations refuse to dwell on the suffering, the ruthless pain
that these children must have experienced at the moment of their
deaths and the crushing pain that devastated the hearts of their
parents.
Yet each age in history has its own Herod, individuals who would not
stop at any extreme to safeguard their own personal kingdoms. If
one cannot vanquish Christ and Christian values in a free and open
intellectual or spiritual confrontation, then they would use any
means available to attain their end no matter how immoral it may
be. Amoral tyrants substitute their own good for the common good.
The life of their country centers about their own personal needs.
In our own country during the last thirty years of the twentieth
century, the roster of Christian martyrs grew quite long. Catholic
priests and religious, Protestant pastors, laity of different
Christian churches lost their lives, were deprived of their liberty
and had to flee into exile. These people suffered because they
refuse to give up their Christian values.
Today, even if martyrdom is not a threat to Christians, there are
values Christians must live by, but living out these values can be
painful. These values include integrity, honesty, incorruptibility,
concern for others and service to others. These values can put heavy
demands on Christians.
When we think of the Holy Innocents, while we wonder at the lives of
our modern martyrs and at their painful sacrifices accepted by these
heroic victims, we should reflect at our own lifestyles and at the
Christian values by which we should be living.