Sadness For the Children

Today's feast of the Holy Innocents hasn't much lifted my spirits today. Perhaps it's because of this week's news of two particularly brutal incidents: first, the kidnap, murder, and savage dismemberment of a 9 year old girl, and then the tragic fire in Connecticut which claimed the lives of three young daughters and their grandparents. In either case, I can't begin to imagine the depth of the pain, the desolation, the emptiness which has seized the hearts and lives of the families left behind. How does anyone deal with such tragedy? Not a shred of good, for anyone, seems even possible in the face of the two realities. Or, for that matter, in the face of any similar violence and death dealt to children or young ones, whether accidental or deliberate.


Faith tells me otherwise, but what a stretch I'm feeling to accept that! The graphic words of the prophet Isaiah in the first Lesson of Morning Prayer did bring some comfort, probably because of the graphic imagery which Isaiah uses to bring it to a more personal level. "...the Lord has comforted God's people, and will have compassion on God's suffering ones." When the people object to him that God has forsaken them, forgotten them, Isaiah replies: "...Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands..." 


It's unknown who all was actually involved in the massacre of the Holy Innocents, reported by Matthew (2:16-18), or how many children were slaughtered. Some estimate it may have been as few as six or as many as twenty. The numbers really don't matter, in a way: neglect, abuse, violence, or the death of a single child or young one is far too costly and is cause for unbridled lamentation. It helps, perhaps, to be reassured that the compassionate, loving God never forgets a child or young one, indelibly imaged in the palms of God's creative hand and in God's heart of love. Nevertheless...


And so we fervently pray on this day: "Receive...into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ our Savior..."