The infant victims of massacre ordered by Kind Herod are considered as the first martyrs as they sacrificed their lives for Christ. Herod had been made the king of Judea by the Roman Empire although he was not even a Jew: his father was an Idumean, his mother an Arab.
He remained in power mainly by the support of Roman army. He brutally executed all suspected rivals to his throne including his wife, two grown sons, brother, and two brothers-in-law. No wonder he was terrified at the news that a rival king, a descendant of King David, had been born somewhere in Bethlehem who could someday claim to be the legitimate king of Israel and Judea! Herod’s anger intensified when he realized that the Magi had not returned to his royal palace to report the whereabouts of the Child Jesus. Thus, he orders the
massacre of boys below 2 years and below.
Herod symbolizes people, forces and cultures standing against sacredness of life especially against the right to life of the unborn. Insecurity feelings and fear aroused in Herod that someone who would be a threat to his power is born and forces him to make such cruel order to kill innocents. Emergence of Herod’s are visible in the modern world are seen in different ways and forms.
When people look at children as a hindrance for their privacy or pleasure life, wherever education is denied to children and tortured with forced labour, wherever children are abandoned and neglected, wherever they are physically, and mentally tortured modern Herod’s emerge. Amen.
Fr. Jerry Joseph Vallomkunnel MCBS