December 28 FEAST OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS, MARTYRS. Mass prayers and readings. Sermon from St. Quodvultdeus

December 28
FEAST OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS, MARTYRS
Mass prayers and readings.

Today, the Church celebrates the memory of the small children of the neighborhood of Bethlehem who were put to death by Herod, who was seeking to kill Jesus. These innocent victims bear witness to Christ to a world which would not receive Him.

The Latin Church instituted the feast of the Holy Innocents at a date now unknown, not before the end of the fourth and not later than the end of the fifth century. The feast is kept within the octave of Christmas because the Holy Innocents gave their life for the newborn Savior.

Below you have the Mass prayers and readings of today’s Mass and the 2^nd reading of today’s Liturgy of the Hours which is worth the read and meditation.

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MASS PRAYERS AND READINGS

ENTRANCE ANTIPHON
Innocéntes pro Christo infántes occísi sunt, ipsum sequúntur Agnum sine mácula et dicunt semper: Glória tibi, Dómine.
The innocents were slaughtered as infants for Christ; spotless, they follow the Lamb and sing for ever: Glory to you, O Lord.

The Gloria in excelsis (Glory to God in the highest) is said.

COLLECT
O God, whom the Holy Innocents confessed and proclaimed on this day, not by speaking but by dying, grant, we pray, that the faith in you which we confess with our lips may also speak through our manner of life. Through our Lord.

READING I 
1 Jn 1:5–2:2 
Beloved: This is the message that we have heard from Jesus Christ and proclaim to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” while we continue to walk in darkness, we lie and do not act in truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another, and the Blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from all sin. If we say, “We are without sin,” we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing. If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 
My children, I am writing this to you so that you may not commit sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one. He is expiation for our sins, and not for our sins only but for those of the whole world. 
 
RESPONSORIAL PSALM 
R. Our soul has been rescued like a bird from the fowler’s snare.
Anima nostra sicut passer erépta est de láqueo venántium.
Had not the Lord been with us— 
When men rose up against us, 
then would they have swallowed us alive, 
When their fury was inflamed against us. 
R.
Then would the waters have overwhelmed us; 
The torrent would have swept over us; 
over us then would have swept the raging waters. 
R.
Broken was the snare, 
and we were freed. 
Our help is in the name of the Lord, 
who made heaven and earth. 
R.
 
ALLELUIA
Te Deum laudámus, te Dóminum confitémur; te mártyrum candidátus laudat exércitus, Dómine.
You are God: we praise you; you are the Lord: we acclaim you; the white-robed army of martyrs praise you.
 
GOSPEL 
Mt 2:13–18 
When the magi had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. He stayed there until the death of Herod, that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled, Out of Egypt I called my son. 
When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi. Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet: A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more.

Dec. 28: FEAST OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS GOSPEL, COMMENTARY AND REFLECTION ON THE FLIGHT TO EGYPT.

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PRAYER OVER THE OFFERINGS
Receive, O Lord, we pray, the offerings of your devoted servants, and purify us as we faithfully serve these, your mysteries, by which you grant justification even to those who lack understanding. Through Christ our Lord.

COMMUNION ANTIPHON
Hi empti sunt ex homínibus, primítiæ Deo et Agno; hi sequúntur Agnum quocúmque íerit.
Behold those redeemed as the first fruits of the human race for God and the Lamb, and who follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION
Grant, O Lord, abundant salvation to your faithful as they receive your holy gifts on the feast day of these your Saints, who though still unable to profess your Son in speech, were crowned with heavenly grace on account of his birth. Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

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A sermon of St Quodvultdeus
Even before they learn to speak, they proclaim Christ

A tiny child is born, who is a great king. Wise men are led to him from afar. They come to adore one who lies in a manger and yet reigns in heaven and on earth. When they tell of one who is born a king, Herod is disturbed. To save his kingdom he resolves to kill him, though if he would have faith in the child, he himself would reign in peace in this life and for ever in the life to come.

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.

You are not restrained by the love of weeping mothers or fathers mourning the deaths of their sons, nor by the cries and sobs of the children. You destroy those who are tiny in body because fear is destroying your heart. You imagine that if you accomplish your desire you can prolong your own life, though you are seeking to kill Life himself.

Yet your throne is threatened by the source of grace, so small, yet so great, who is lying in the manger. He is using you, all unaware of it, to work out his own purposes freeing souls from captivity to the devil. He has taken up the sons of the enemy into the ranks of God’s adopted children.

The children die for Christ, though they do not know it. The parents mourn for the death of martyrs. The child makes of those as yet unable to speak fit witnesses to himself. See the kind of kingdom that is his, coming as he did in order to be this kind of king. See how the deliverer is already working deliverance, the Saviour already working salvation.

But you, Herod, do not know this and are disturbed and furious. While you vent your fury against the child, you are already paying him homage, and do not know it.

How great a gift of grace is here! To what merits of their own do the children owe this kind of victory? They cannot speak, yet they bear witness to Christ. They cannot use their limbs to engage in battle, yet already they bear off the palm of victory.

Responsory       

℟. They worshipped him who lives for ever and ever,* and laid their crowns before the throne of the Lord their God.

℣. They fell on their faces before the throne, and blessed him who lives for ever and ever,* and laid their crowns before the throne of the Lord their God.

PHOTO CREDIT: William Holman Hunt – The Triumph of the Innocents

POPE FRANCIS ON THE FEAST OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS

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