Matthew's Gospel records that when Herod realized he had been deceived by the magi he became furious and ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under. The evangelist hears in it the voice of Jeremiah: Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be consoled, since they are no more. That passage is the Gospel of the feast, read on the fourth day of Christmas while the crib is still in the church. The Church has honored these children as martyrs since antiquity, though they neither chose nor understood their death. Prudentius called them the flowers of the martyrs, cut down at the very dawn by the persecutor as a whirlwind takes the opening rosebuds; the Latin hymn Salvete flores martyrum still carries the image in the Liturgy of the Hours. Their inclusion among the companions of Christ on the days after Christmas makes the same point as the feasts of Saint Stephen and Saint John: the Child born in Bethlehem was born into a world that would resist him, and to be near him is to share his lot. Red vestments are worn, and the first reading is from the First Letter of John, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. The Gloria is sung, as on all the days of the Christmas Octave. In many places the day carries customs of blessing children, and it has become a natural occasion for prayer and reparation for children who are lost to violence and abortion; a number of dioceses in the United States observe it as a day of prayer for the protection of unborn human life.

Feast

feast

Christmas

December 28

feast