Vigils Reading – Holy Innocents

A Reading about the Three Kinds of Martyrdom3 from a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux

Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord: the Lord is God, and he has shone upon us. Blessed be his glorious name for he is holy. It was not in vain that Holiness Itself was born of the Virgin Mary since it has spread both the name and the grace of sanctity so widely. Unquestionably, it is because of this grace that Stephen is holy, John is holy and the young Innocents are holy. It is therefore by a profitable disposition that these three feasts accompany the birth of our Lord, not only in order that our devotion may be kept alive by so many feasts, but also in order that we should see the fruit of the birth of our Lord more clearly in them as an effect and a consequence of the nativity. We can notice in these three feasts, three different types of sanctity… In blessed Stephen we have both the will and the act of martyrdom; in blessed John we have the will only; in the Holy Innocents we have the act only. All of these drank the chalice of salvation, either in the body and the spirit, or in the spirit alone or in the body alone.

My chalice indeed you shall drink, said the Lord to James and John, and undoubtedly he was speaking of the chalice of his passion. Then when he said to Peter, Follow me, evidently calling him to imitate his passion, Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, not so much with physical steps as with an unwavering love of ready devotion. Therefore John also drank the chalice of salvation and like Peter followed the Lord, although not like Peter in every way. For that he should remain like this and not follow the Lord in his physical suffering accorded with the divine plan, for the Lord himself said: I wish him to remain till I come. As if he had said: he indeed wishes to follow me but I wish him to remain.

Who can be in doubt as to whether the Holy Innocents received the martyr’s crown?…For how could that Child who was born for us, not against us, permit that those children, born at the same time as himself, should be killed, when he could prevent it by one act of his will, unless he had something better prepared for them? Therefore we may presume that the martyrdom they underwent for him was sufficient for their sanctification just as, for the other infants of that time, circumcision was sufficient for salvation without any use of their own will, and just as baptism is sufficient nowadays. And do you think that Herod’s wickedness is greater than Christ’s love, that the former should be able to kill such innocents and Christ should not be able to crown the children who were killed for his sake?

Let Stephen be a martyr before human beings, then. That his suffering was voluntary appears especially clearly in this, that at the very moment of death he showed more concern for his persecutors than for himself. The emotion of inner compassion overcame in him the sensation of physical passion, so that he wept more for their crime than for his own wounds. We may say that John was a martyr in the eyes of the angels, to whom as spiritual creatures the spiritual signs of his devotion were more clearly evident. But the Holy Innocents are most especially Your martyrs, Lord, because in them, in whom neither humans nor angels found any merit, You have clearly manifested the prerogatives of Your grace. Out of the mouth of infants and babes you have perfected praise, and the angels declare Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to all those of good will