On this day we commemorate the 14,000 Infants (the Holy Innocents) slain by King Herod’s orders at Bethlehem. Since the early days of the Church, the Innocents have been honored as martyrs for Christ. In the Gospel, God warned the Magi in a dream after they found Jesus and adored Him, not to go back to Herod. Thus, they returned to their lands by a different route. Saint Joseph was also warned during his sleep by an Angel to “take the Child and His Mother Mary and flee into Egypt, for Herod will seek the life of the Infant.” When King Herod realized that the Wise Men would not return, he was furious, and in his rage ordered that every male child in Bethlehem and its vicinity, of the age of two years or less, be slain. These were the innocent victims we commemorate this day.
