Wholly Innocent

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Innocence is the recurring theme of the entire season of Christmas. Our Lady, who was conceived without any stain of Original and Actual Sin, was chosen from all eternity to be the New Eve, the Ark of the New Covenant, the Singular Vessel of Devotion, the Mystical Rose, the Tower of David, the House of Gold in which the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity would be made incarnate by the power of the Holy Ghost. The innocent Blessed Virgin of Nazareth was to have the singular privilege of conceiving and giving birth to the King of Innocence Himself, stripped of all of His royal prerogatives as He was wrapped in swaddling clothes as He lay in the bed of hay that lined the manger in the stable in the cradle in the cave in Bethlehem. The purity and innocence that was His from all eternity with His Co-Eternal Father radiated brilliantly from His Most Holy Face. Each baptized soul shares in the glory and beauty of that innocence of the newborn Babe of Innocence at the moment Original Sin is flooded out of its midst and replaced with the very inner life of the Blessed Trinity that is sanctifying grace. Our Lord became a humble Babe so that all babes could be regenerated in the laver of baptism, providing them with all of the graces necessary to leave the world at the moment of their deaths as unspotted as they entered the Church in the baptismal font.

Saint Paul wrote of the humility of Our Lord's stripping Himself of his attachment to his royal prerogatives as the King of Kings to be born as a humble Babe in Bethlehem so as to redeem us by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross:

Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man. He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above all names: That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2: 6-11)

 

The Innocent One Who had become Flesh in the tabernacle of the Virginal and Immaculate womb of the Innocent handmaid of Nazareth was meant to pay back in the perfect human nature of Adam before the Fall from Grace in the Garden of Eden what was owed to Him in His Infinity as God: the blood-debt of human sins. His time had been appointed from all eternity to be Good Friday. Although He could have redeemed us with the shedding of just one drop of His Most Precious Blood at the moment of His Circumcision eight days after His birth, Our Lord undertook His fearful Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross so as to show us the depth of His love and the horror of our own sins. Try as others might to expedite the time of the Sacrifice of Himself to the Father in Spirit and in Truth on the gibbet of the Holy Cross, Our Lord's time had been affixed by the Father. Not even the great King Herod the Great, the puppet king placed over the Jews by Caesar Augustus, could use all of his bloody might to extinguish the life of the newborn Babe before His time.

Having heard from the Three Kings of the Orient that a new King of the Jews had been born in Bethlehem, the wicked Herod sought to crush out such a "rival" when he was but a defenseless child. Saint Joseph, the just and silent man of the House of David, was warned in a dream by Saint Gabriel the Archangel to take the Child and His Blessed Mother into Egypt until Herod had died, thus thwarting the tyrant's plans to kill the King of Kings before He was to fulfill the Father's Holy Will during His Passion and Death. Our Lord was thus forced to life as a refugee in a place of exile until He, like Moses before Him, was called out of Egypt to effect in due course the New and Eternal Passover by means of His Paschal Sacrifice, superceding the Old Covenant and the Old Passover forever.

Herod did not know any of this. Blinded by his violent rage, the ogre ordered the execution of all the male children two and under in Bethlehem in order to do away with the One Who had come to save his own immortal soul, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. An unknown number of sons of mothers and fathers was killed. These little boys were killed because a wicked king was trying to kill the infant Jesus. They were killed because of Our Lord. They will killed in the place of Our Lord. They are thus truly martyrs for Christ even though they did not even know Him, no less had the ability to confess His Holy Name before men.

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., noted this in The Liturgical Year:

The Daughters of Rachel wept over their little ones, and the land streamed with blood; but the Tyrant's policy can do no more; it cannot reach Jesus, and its whole plot ends in recruiting an immense army of Martyrs for heaven. These Children were not capable of knowing what an honour it was for them to be made victims for the sake of the Saviour of the world; but the very first instant after their immolation, all was revealed to them; they had gone through this world without knowing it; and now that they know it, they possess an infinitely better. God showed here the riches of his mercy; he asks of them but a momentary suffering, and that over, they wake up in Abraham's Bosom: no further trial awaits them, they are in spotless innocence, and the glory due to a soldier who died to save the life of his Prince belongs eternally to them.

They died for Jesus' sake: therefore, their death was a real Martyrdom, and the Church calls them by the beautiful name of the Flowers of the Martyrs, because of their tender age and their innocence. Justly then does the ecclesiastical Cycle bring them before us to-day, immediately after the two valiant Champions of Christ, Stephen and John. the connection of these three Feasts is thus admirably explained by St. Bernard: "On St. Stephen, we have both the act and the desire of Martyrdom; in St. John, we have but the desire; in the Holy Innocents, we have but the act. . . . Will anyone doubt whether a crown was given to these Innocents? . . . If you ask me what merit could they have that God should crown them? let me ask you what was the fault for which Herod slew them? What! is the mercy of Jesus less than the cruelty of Herod? and whilst Herod could put these Babes to death, who had done him no injury, Jesus may not crown them for dying for Him?"

The Holy Innocents of Bethlehem suffered for Christ. Although countless millions of preborn children have been put to death in this country and around the world by means of chemical and surgical abortion since Leninist Russia instituted surgical child-killing on January 13, 1918, three months after the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, those victims of the errors of Russia, which are the anti-Incarnational errors of Modernity in the world and Modernism in the Church, have not been put to death in the place of Our Lord. True, many of those who have participated in the slaughter of preborn babies have a consciously vicious hatred for Our Lord and His Holy Church. That is not the same thing, however, as Herod's desire to kill Christ Himself and the mortal jeopardy to which the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem were thus exposed. While we invoke the Holy Innocents to stop the shedding of innocent blood in this country and the world by praying for the conversion of all those who support this sin that cries out to Heaven for vengeance to the true Faith and for the proper consecration of Russia to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, it is wrong to equate the victims of the genocidal practice of chemical and surgical baby-killing with them, worse yet to state that the souls of aborted babies share in the shame martyrdom as the Holy Innocents themselves, which is precisely what the International Theological Commission did in its egregious The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised,equating the fate of preborn babies with that of the Holy Innocents, thus distorting the meaning of the martyrdom of the children whose deaths we honor this very day within the Octave of Christmas.

Some of the infants who suffer and die do so as victims of violence. In their case, we may readily refer to the example of the Holy Innocents and discern an analogy in the case of these infants to the baptism of blood which brings salvation. Albeit unknowingly, the Holy Innocents suffered and died on account of Christ; their murderers were seeking to kill the infant Jesus. Just as those who took the lives of the Holy Innocents were motivated by fear and selfishness, so the lives particularly of unborn babies today are often endangered by the fear or selfishness of others. In that sense, they are in solidarity with the Holy Innocents. Moreover, they are in solidarity with the Christ who said: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). How vital it is for the Church to proclaim the hope and generosity that are intrinsic to the Gospel and essential for the protection of life.

A priest attached to the conciliar structures, albeit in the "resist and recognize camp," as can be seen in his remarks, but who will not be otherwise identified wrote the following a few years when he was still speaking to us:

The Holy Innocents died for Christ, and, as you say, in the place of Christ.  Aborted babies do not die so that Christ may live, but so that their parents bent on evil may continue their works of death.  The result of the sacrifice of the Holy Innocents is the will of God fulfilled in His only-begotten Son.  The result of the slaughter in our midst is a furtherance of the reign of satan among us.  The death of the Holy Innocents served the will of God; the death of aborted babies serves the will of selfish parents, greedy "doctors", and satan himself.  It is hard to conceive of two more diametrically opposed realities.

It might be helpful also to add something about the wholesale re-definition of martyrdom being done by the modern Church even beyond the issue of abortion.  There are those who wish to "canonize" various protestant heretics who died while proselytizing their errors abroad.  Some wish to "canonize" the Catholics who die while spreading liberation theology.  And, of course, there is the hideous spectacle of those who claim that Pope John Paul II was a "martyr" for the faith -- spending more than twenty-four years after the assassination attempt living the "oppression" of the papal palace, traveling around the world, receiving the accolades of the faithful and the enemies of the Faith alike, hobnobbing with the political elites on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and imposing his vision of the Council on the Church he re-made in his own image.  This is all of a piece with those who misappropriate the Holy Innocents in their political and theological efforts to reshape the Church and her doctrines. . . .

It is in God's time, not satan's or ours, when and how the immolation of Jesus was to occur.  The idea that aborted babies go to Heaven is akin to saying that gossip is an act of piety so long as the information offered is true.  The test is, as always, according to the direction of Jesus: judge the tree by its fruit.

The Catholic concept of authentic martyrdom for Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as He has revealed Himself through His true Church has been under attack in the past forty years just as much as almost every other aspect of the Faith that has been handed down to us from the Apostles. Indeed, we need to pray to the Holy Innocents that those in the counterfeit church of conciliarism who attack the Faith will be converted to the true Faith before they die and admit and abjure their errors publicly. For the plain fact of the matter that efforts to change everything about the Faith (the nature of truth, the nature of the Church, false ecumenism, the Mass, the Rosary, Limbo, martyrdom, seeking converts to the Faith) has only made it more possible for the Herods of the world to attack the Faith with a fury that can come only from Hell itself.

Thus it is that our focus this day should be on the fact that a political potentate was intent on retaining his own power at all costs, including crushing out the Infant Jesus, reminding us of the great efforts that have been waged from the Pentecost Sunday to our own day to stamp out the Catholic Faith. Whether it was the hatred of the Holy Name of Jesus exhibited by the Sanhedrin, or the perverse cruelty of the Roman Emperors and their minions, or the mockery of the philosophes and artistes of the Renaissance, or the desire of the Protestant Revolutionaries to live lives of impurity or the wanton pursuit of wealth with impunity unto eternity, or the efforts to stamp out the Social Reign of Christ the King in Central Europe, Scandinavia, and England immediately thereafter, or the rise of Freemasonry, or the anti-Incarnational thrust of the American Revolution and Constitution, or the violence of the French Revolution, or the attacks upon the Church led by the leaders of the Risorgimento in Italy, or the Kulturkampf of Otto von Bismarck in Germany, or the delusional beliefs of Woodrow Wilson and his cohorts that world peace could be guaranteed by an international organization, or the demonic fury of Bolshevism and Nazism and Maoism and Castroism, or the capitalist desire to engineer a corporate/economic structure that obliterates Our Lord and His Social Teaching from the consciousness of man, each of the efforts to attack Our Lord and His Holy Church throughout her history has the same diabolical roots as the attack that Herod the Great launched against the Holy Innocents two millennia ago. The slaughter of the unborn in our own day, as horrific as it is and as deserving as it is of our prayerful attention and solid Catholic action founded in Total Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, is but one symptom of the larger warfare that the Herods of Modernity and their enablers in the counterfeit church of conciliarism have been waging against Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Holy Church.

In the midst of the continued assaults against Our Lord and His Holy Church, much of which is being waged by ravenous wolves in shepherds' clothing in the conciliar structures, we must ask the Holy Innocents to intercede for us, so that the wedding garment of grace that was placed on our bodies following our baptism will be cleansed of all stain of sin (and the punishments due them) by bathing constantly in the Most Precious Blood of the spotless Lamb of God Who taketh away the sins of the world, the Lamb of God for whom they themselves shed their own innocent blood. May we stand up to the Herods of our own day, defending the rights of Christ the King of His Most Blessed Mother, who is the Immaculata, and defending the inviolability of all innocent human life with the same vigor that we defend the integrity of the doctrines of the Holy Faith and adhere to the purity of the worship offered God in the Mass He Himself taught the Apostles to offer before He Ascended to the Father's right hand in glory.

As we still surround the Crib of the Baby Jesus with our acts of love and praise, especially by means of His Most Blessed Mother's Holy Rosary, may we make our own this prayer offered to the Holy Innocents of the City of David, Bethlehem:

Flowers of the Martyrs! we confide in your intercession, and beseech you, by the reward so gratuitously conferred on you, to be mindful of us your brethren, who are struggling amidst the dangers of this sinful world. We too desire to receive those same Palms and Crowns which you have won, but with such innocence and simplicity that the Church says you played with them: whereas we have to fight hard and long for them., and are so often on the point of losing them for ever! the God that has glorified you is our last end as truly as he is yours; in him alone can our hearts find their rest; pray for us, that we may possess him for all eternity.

Pray for us, that we may obtain child-like simplicity of heart, whence comes that unreserved confidence in God which leads man to the perfect accomplishment of his holy will. May we bear the cross with patience when he sends it, and desire nothing but his holly will. You gazed upon the murderers who broke your gentle sleep, and you found nothing to make you fear; the bright sword they held over your cradle had but the look of a toy with which you asked to play; death stared you in the face, and you smiled on him. May we imitate you, and be meek and graceful in the trials that come to us; making them our martyrdom by the quiet endurance of our courage, and the conformity of our will with that of our Sovereign Lord and Master, who only gives the cross that he may give the crown. May we never object to or hate the instruments he uses wherewith to try us; may no harshness nor injustice nor pain ever quench the fire of our charity, not any event ever deprive us of that peace without which our souls live not to God.

And lastly, O ye innocent Lambs, slain for Jesus, and following him whithersoever he goeth, because ye are pure, pray for us to the Lamb of God, that he permit us to come to him in Bethlehem, and, like you, fix our dwelling there, for it is the abode of love and innocence. Speak for us to Mary, a Mother more compassionate than Rachel; tell her that we are her children, and your brethren. She that compassionated your momentary sufferings will pity us and help us in our long years of temptation, pain  and sorrow.

In a special way, let us call upon the Holy Innocents today to pray for the innocence of the Innocent Lamb who took upon Himself the guilt of us all to help us to be wholly innocent at all times and in all things unto the point of our dying breaths.

Viva Cristo Rey!

 

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saint Elizabeth, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.

Saint Thomas the Apostle, pray for us.

Saint Andrew the Apostle, pray for us.

Saint Barbara, pray for us.

Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.

Saint Peter Chrysologus, pray for us.

Saint Bibiana, pray for us.

Saint Sabbas, pray for us.

Saint Nicholas, pray for us.

Saint Ambrose, pray for us.

Pope Saint Melchiades, pray for us.

Pope Saint Damasus, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.

Saint Sylvester the Abbot, pray for us.

Saint Gertrude the Great, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Dominic de Guzman, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.

Saint Peter Nolasco, pray for us.

Saint John Matha, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint John of God, pray for us.

Saint Philip Neri, pray for us.

Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Brendan the Navigator, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.

Saint Peregrine, pray for us.

Saint Leonard of Port Maurice, pray for us.

Saint John Fisher, pray for us.

Saint Thomas More, pray for us.

Saint Peter Canisius, pray for us.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us.

Saint Francis Borgia, pray for us.

Saint John Francis Regis, pray for us.

Saint Genevieve, pray for us.

Saint Casimir, pray for us.

Saint Hedwig, pray for us.

Saint Louis IX, King of France, pray for us.

Saint Stephen of Hungary, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Brigid of Kildare, pray for us.

Saint Patrick, pray for us.

Saint Martin of Tours, pray for us.

Pope Saint Leo the Great, pray for us.

Pope Saint Gregory the Great, pray for us.

Pope Saint Gregory VII, pray for us.

Saint Boniface, pray for us.

Saint Meinrad, pray for us.

Saint Catherine of Siena, pray for us.

Saint Bernardine of Siena, pray for us.

Saint Louis de Montfort, pray for us.

Saint Joseph Cupertino, pray for us.

Saint Joseph Calasanctius, pray for us.

Saint John Damascene, pray for us.

Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, pray for us.

Saints Isidore the Farmer and Maria de Cappella, pray for us.

Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, pray for us.

Pope Saint Damasus I, pray for us.

Saint Jerome, pray for us.

Saint Basil the Great, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Saint Louise de Marillac, pray for us.

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, pray for us.

Saint Antony of the Desert, pray for us.

Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.

Saint Turibius, pray for us.

Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.

Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.

Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us.

Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.

Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.

Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.

Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.

Saint Irenaeus, pray for us.

Saint Polycarp, pray for us.

Blessed Rose Philippine Duchesne, pray for us.

Saint Rita, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.

Saint Philip Neri, pray for us.

Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.

Saint Peter of Alcantara, pray for us.

Saint Stanislaus, pray for us.

Saint Stanislaus Kostka, pray for us.

Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.

Saint Stephen the Protomartyr, pray for us.

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, pray for us.

Saint Adalbert, pray for us.

Saint Norbert, pray for us.

Saint John Chrysostom, pray for us.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria, pray for us.

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, pray for us.

Saints Cosmas and Damian, pray for us.

Saints Gervase and Protase, pray for us.

Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

Pope Saint Clement I, pray for us.

Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.

Saints Fabian Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Lawrence the Deacon, pray for us.

Saint Lawrence of Brindisi, pray for us.

Saint Eustachius and Companions, pray for us.

Saints Pontian and Hippolytus, pray for us.

Saint Clare of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Agnes, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saints Perpetua and Felicity, pray for us.

Saint Rose of Lima, pray for us.

Saint Scholastica, pray for us.

Saint Margaret of Scotland, pray for us.

Saint Peter Lombard, pray for us.

Saint Albert the Great, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Monica, pray for us.

Saint Augustine of Canterbury, pray for us.

Saint Anselm, pray for us.

Saint Canute, pray for us.

Saint Clotilde, pray for us.

Saint Brendan the Navigator, pray for us.

Saint Coleman, pray for us.

Saint Maria Goretti, pray for us.

Saint Mary Magdalene, pray for us.

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.

Saint Ignatius of Antioch, pray for us.

Blessed Father Vincent Pallotti, pray for us.

Saint Josaphat, pray for us.

Saint Anthony Mary Claret, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Blessed Edmund Campion, pray for us.

Saint Saturninus, pray for us.

Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.

Saint Alphonsus Liguori, pray for us.

Venerable Juan Diego, pray for us.

Venerable Junipero Serra, pray for us.

Venerable Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.

Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Jacinta Marto, pray for us.

Francisco Marto, pray for us.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888

O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil.  Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.  Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with  the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven.  That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels.  Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.  Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.  That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.  These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered.  Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory.  They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude.  Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church.  Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations.  Amen.

Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.

Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.

Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.

Response: As we have hoped in Thee.

Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.

Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.

Verse: Let us pray.  O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls. 

Response:  Amen.