Praised be Jesus and Mary.
Today, as we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Innocence,
we actually commemorate one of the most wicked events in human history.
The fact that someone, because of his own insecurity as well as his own arrogance,
would command the destruction of innocent human life.
He was afraid that a little baby was going to take his throne.
Therefore,
to get rid of this child, he was willing to destroy all the children around Bethlehem.
Just to make sure that one child,
the one child he was after,
would certainly be among them.
And in our own time, you know, we have seen far worse things.
We know we can look at Stalin and
what he did to
over 20 million people.
We can look at Hitler,
what he did to nearly 10 million people.
We can look at what goes on every single day.
You know, over 4,000 babies in this country alone are slaughtered because people don't want them.
And how many others?
You know, throughout the world,
as millions and millions of babies are destroyed every year because of the selfishness of our society.
We can see that fallen human nature doesn't change.
We have the same kind of pride,
the same kind of selfishness,
and the same insecurities as Herod himself had.
As we heard in the first reading,
as well as the gospel,
you know, there's an awful lot of deception.
The Magi were informed that they were deceived by Herod.
Herod surmised that he was deceived by the Magi.
St. John talks about how if we claim we are without sin,
we deceive ourselves.
And, you know, that's exactly what Satan, the deceiver, does to us.
You know, in our fear, confusion, and selfishness,
he causes a huge amount of deception.
We listen to his lies and do some of the most unfortunate things,
you know, all of us.
If we look over the course of our lives,
we would have to admit that we've fallen into his deception many times.
But in the midst of all this, you know, there's great hope.
God, who brings good out of evil,
certainly brought about a great good
through the slaughter of the innocent over 2,000 years ago.
And he's going to bring a great good out of the slaughter of the innocent in our day.
The innocent blood that has been shed
is a powerful,
powerful witness before the throne of God.
It's all going to be addressed and made up for.
But we have, as St. John tells us,
an intercessor who is just.
One who is before the throne of God.
One who is...
He was spared at the time of...
Bethlehem, only to be slaughtered 33 years later.
So each one of us,
as we look at our own sinfulness,
needs to look at the cross.
We need to look at the cost of our sin.
And rather than despairing,
you know, in the face of our sins,
no matter how horrible they are,
it doesn't matter.
We have only one place
where we can go to be forgiven.
And that's to come before the Lord
with all of our guilt,
with all of our sinfulness.
We need to come to one who,
one who is perfectly innocent
and ask His forgiveness
in the sacrament of confession,
the sacrament of His mercy and love
in all of our sinfulness and foolishness.
We have on the cross,
in the blessed sacrament,
and in the confessional,
an intercessor,
before the throne of God the Father,
who is just,
one who was willing
to take on the guilt of those
who are not innocent,
so that our sins could be forgiven.
Amen.
Amen.