By Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas
The Church, "expert in humanity" (as Pope Paul VI put it), knows that the mystery of Christmas (like that of Easter) is so great that it cannot be adequately plumbed - let alone celebrated - in a single day. And so, taking a page out of our Jewish liturgical heritage, the Church gives us an octave observance - eight full days to consider the central doctrine of the Incarnation, enabling us to reflect on it from a variety of perspectives, not unlike holding a diamond up to the sun to appreciate its beauty from many different angles.
Throughout the Christmas Octave, we encounter a number of saints' feasts. Do these commemorations serve as distractions from the central mystery of the Octave? Not at all - because, as St. Paul teaches us, "God is glorious in His saints." (2 Thessalonians 1:10) Indeed, we can say that the very first fruits of the Incarnation are saints, the comites Christi (the companions of Christ), and in this week, the majority of them are martyrs - privileged "witnesses" to Christ: Stephen, the so-called "proto-martyr" (Dec. 27); Thomas à Becket, the medieval defender of the freedom of the Church (Dec. 29); and also, the Holy Innocents, really the first to shed their blood for Christ.
We are introduced to the "Holy Innocents" by St. Matthew (Chapter 2 Verses 16-18) after he has told us of the visit of the Magi, whom Herod wanted to use as "reconnaissance" men to determine the identity of this "newborn King of the Jews." Not obtaining the information he desired, Herod resorts to mass murder to ensure his competition is dead, ordering the execution of all male babies under the age of two in Bethlehem.
The Collect for the day's liturgy notes that these little ones confessed the true faith, "not by speaking but by dying." Indeed, the very word "infans" in Latin means one who cannot yet speak! The prayer goes on to ask the Lord for the great grace "that the faith in you which we confess with our lips we may also speak through the manner of our life."
The Office of Readings for the feast treats us to a reflection of Quodvultdeus, a fifth-century bishop of Carthage in North Africa and a spiritual son of the great St. Augustine. The author addresses a question to the absent Herod: Why are you afraid, Herod, when you hear of the birth of a king? He does not come to drive you out, but to conquer the devil. But because you do not understand this you are disturbed and in a rage, and to destroy one child whom you seek, you show your cruelty in the death of so many children.
The Church in the United States has seen in the Holy Innocents the forerunners of the millions of babies slaughtered through legalized abortion. And we have witnessed the fear and rage of those ensnared in the culture of death. But why such rage? The vast majority of pro-lifers offer a kindly protest. The rage is born, no doubt, because - deep down - everyone knows the truth of what is happening in the abortion clinics.

The Church in America - especially the hierarchy - have made numerous mistakes in the post-Vatican II era. One area in which the Church shines, however, is in her unrelenting pro-life witness. Ours was a lone voice in the immediate wake of Roe v. Wade. In fact, the pro-abortionists used our solitary witness to play the anti-Catholic card, hoping to make the issue appear as a sectarian Catholic issue.
Our Catholic school system provided strength and youthfulness to the pro-life movement. A few years ago after the March for Life in Washington, D. C., a journalist in favor of "abortion rights" noted in the Washington Post (also strongly pro-abortion) that he was "expecting to write about [the March's] irrelevance." But admitted: "I was especially struck by the large number of young people among the tens of thousands at the march." He highlighted the fact that the vast majority came from Catholic schools who "were taught from an early age to oppose abortion."
Europeans are stunned by the vitality of the pro-l...

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