Catholic Saints

Our dear Jesus was persecuted by the world as soon as he made his appearance in it.  War was declared on Him, by Herod in his attempt to have him killed, as a little newborn baby.  During the Octave of Christmas, the Church celebrates the memory of all the small children of the neighborhood of Bethlehem, put to death by Herod. 

Sacrificed by a wicked monarch, these innocent lives bear witness to Christ, who was persecuted from the time of His birth, by a world that could not receive Him.  In the midst of this mass murder of children, it was Christ himself who was the very target.  It was at that point, that the world started to turn against Him, from the very moment of His entrance into this world as man, in the form of a little baby.  The choice to be for Him or against Him was put clearly before men at that point. 

What the persecutors didn’t know was that they were powerless.  It was Christ who came to perform a work of salvation that nothing or no one could prevent.  It was by His own blood that he would redeem the world, by falling into the hands of His enemies.  It is today, on the Feast of the Holy Innocents that the Church remembers those young children that were murdered by Herod’s order, hoping he would kill the child Jesus.