The Feat of Holy Innocents…..
One of this year's Christmas Puddings
It’s superficially strange that in the midst of these happiest celebrations of the birth of Redemption we should also commemorate a shocking act of violence. The slaughter at Bethlehem mars the simple beauty of a tale of angels, shepherds, stars and kings from Persian lands afar….and in the twelve days we keep the bitter-sweet memorial of the Holy Innocents….
Herod‘s murder of the children of Bethlehem is shocking because it is a capricious abuse of power. It’s injustice might almost be said to prefigure what’s to come in Gethsemane and afterwards. The story goes that one of Herod’s own children who was wet-nursed in Bethlehem was also killed in the slaughter….whether or not that’s true it’s certainly the case that Herod had an appetite for fratricide that the Borgia might have envied…he murdered several of his sons…leading Caesar Augustus to comment…’I would rather be Herod’s swine than one of his sons…for he yet spares his swine but kills his sons…’
The Herod actually have quite an impressive record in terms of New Testament murder: Herod the Great (of Ascalon) orders the slaughter of the innocents; his son Herod Antipas (Antipatros) orders the execution of St John the Baptist in payment for Salome’s dance of the veils; and finally Herod Agrippa executes St James and imprisons St Peter…
It is also poignant that this sorry act of wanton violence gave birth to one of the most beautiful of the Christmas season’s carols….The Coventry Carol…’Lully-lullay thou little tiny child…’. It was composed in the early sixteenth century and may have had various settings…King’s College choir often sing it in the service of Nine Lessons and Carols on Christmas Eve and it’s traditional to sing the carol for Morning Prayer and at the Mass on Holy Innocents Day…
The Celtic Daily Prayer of the day (Northumbria) opens hauntingly with ‘Where is the sound of hope?’
In the Middle Ages this was a day when sweetmeats were given to the young choristers in cathedral churches…in Spain it was usually a sugared almond…a practice introduced into the chapels royal probably brought to England by Katherine of Aragon.This was also the day when the boy-bishop was elected by cathedral chapters to preside over the games in the church….
Traditionally there was no killing in the hunts on Innocents Day…the hunters left their kill go free….and unlike Boxing Day there was no hunting with hounds on Innocents Day…and carp was often served on the fourth day as the main dish at the feast…
In the carol of the twelve days….the four calling birds are said to represent the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. However….the four colly birds of the carol are ‘blackbirds’….