Feast of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs
Why is there so much evil and cruelty in human being? Where does it come from? Why do we succumb to anger and hatred? The slaughter of innocent children by Herod has a very specific reason: fear of losing power. But this Child was not able to threaten his reign, maybe he could prevent his son or even grandson from taking power.
However, can be seen, that anxiety is an irrational state, has nothing to do with a realistic assessment of the situation. We say figuratively that fear has big eyes. Its greatness comes from the imagination. Its creations can be so scary that fear do not allow us to calmly look at reality. Fear do not allow to be distanced from ourselves and soberly assess the situation. Fear makes us feel a threat to our existence and identity. That is why fear activates the most powerful forces in us, and in the most violent way. Ultimately, fear becomes the most important and guides a person's behavior in all areas. If there is a problem that does not arouse fear, we can still judge and decide soberly. However, each touch of the anxiety zone causes an excessive reaction.
Herod as king by his fear wreaked great havoc. Usually, however, we do not have such abilities as he does, but we wreak similar havoc in our surroundings. First of all, it is because of the emerging hatred. If, as is quite common, it is expressed as anger, slander, then the devastation of our personality becomes very severe. “Whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.” (cf. Mt 5:22). The slander most often does not feel the gravity of his sin, because he is completely preoccupied with his experience, and his imagination offers him all possible excuses, which he willingly accepts.
Today's Gospel passage is extremely eloquent. Herod committed the crime because he wanted to kill the truth, which, however, cannot be killed. So, he killed those whom he could kill, and they were close to the truth itself, that is, the innocent. Such a situation, however, causes an increase in remorse and even greater aggression towards the truth. This mechanism is typical. Whoever does not accept the truth in simplicity will want to kill it anyway, and since this cannot be done, he will destroy those who are closest to the truth. It is impossible to reconcile living in truth and lying in any form: “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. (cf. 1Jn 5-6)
Each of us has once been tempted to defend ourselves against the truth, as St. John emphasizes very strongly. Therefore, for each of us, the basic gesture towards the truth is to confess our guilt. Only this confession, which is the recognition of the most fundamental truth about our life, allows us to enter the path of truth. This confession appears to be something terrible, something that undermines the foundation of our identity. It seems to us that admitting guilt takes away our reason for being. But it turns out completely different: “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.” (cf. 1Jn 2:1-2)
Through confession, we unite ourselves in Christ in a marvelous way. This is because we no longer build our identity on our "I", which we think "must be innocent," but on Christ, who becomes our only hope, our life and everything, becomes our righteousness before God (see 1 Corinthians 1:30)
Until Tomorrow
fr. george