{"id":987,"date":"2015-12-28T09:26:26","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T14:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/?p=987"},"modified":"2021-12-28T12:04:51","modified_gmt":"2021-12-28T17:04:51","slug":"the-holy-innocents-martyrs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/2015\/12\/28\/the-holy-innocents-martyrs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Holy Innocents, Martyrs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s Gospel recalls that when Herod received word that the prophecies regarding the Messiah were starting to be fulfilled he saw it as nothing other than a threat to his leadership. In his twisted obsession with power he thought a toddler was a threat to his reign. Little did he know that he wouldn&#8217;t even live long enough to know the\u00a0Messiah as a a grown up. Today the Church remembers those little children who were a victim of Herod&#8217;s &#8220;profiling&#8221; to ensure his power. The Church believes that even when someone unbaptized dies for Christ, their shed blood &#8220;baptizes&#8221; them. The Holy Innocents are remembered as martyrs for having shed their blood for Christ. Even though they&#8217;d never known him in their short lives, they died for him and came to know him in eternity when his earthly mission was complete.<\/p>\n<p>We remember the Holy Innocents during the Christmas octave because their witness came during Jesus&#8217; childhood, but the suffering of these innocents reminds us of so much suffering by innocent children in the world today: abortion, abuse, child soldiers, trafficking, and so many other forms of exploitation. The Herods of today are ideologues, exploiters preying on the weak, or simply those who see children as a threat to their autonomy, lifestyle, or well being. We must pray children at risk, but also work so that every child is safe, protected, and cherished.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s ask the Holy Innocents to intercede today for all children in danger and at risk, but also to pray that those responsible change their ways and seek forgiveness\u00a0for what they&#8217;ve done.<\/p>\n<p><em>Readings:\u00a01 John 1:5\u20132:2;\u00a0Psalm 124:2\u20135, 7c\u20138;\u00a0Matthew 2:13\u201318.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/catholicharboroffaithandmorals.com\/Holy%20Innocents%20New%2002.jpg\" width=\"250\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s Gospel recalls that when Herod received word that the prophecies regarding the Messiah were starting to be fulfilled he saw it as nothing other than a threat to his leadership. In his twisted obsession with power he thought a toddler was a threat to his reign. Little did he know that he wouldn&#8217;t even &#8230; <a title=\"The Holy Innocents, Martyrs\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/2015\/12\/28\/the-holy-innocents-martyrs\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about The Holy Innocents, Martyrs\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[132,137],"class_list":["post-987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas","tag-holy-innocents"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p65qtw-fV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=987"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3045,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987\/revisions\/3045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}