RCJR on Sanctify of Human Life Sunday; with notes on Pharaoh, Herod, and Margaret Sanger...

In the liturgical calendars of both East and West, the Feast of the Holy Innocents has been celebrated a few days after Christmas (Dec. 27 in some Middle Eastern churches, Dec. 28 in the West, Dec. 29 in most Orthodox churches) for centuries. The good thing about this is the close juxtaposition of the Nativity with a memorial to the first martyrs -- those who lost their lives solely for the sake of Christ. The unfortunate thing is that the feast is not attached to the Sunday following the Nativity, making it far more a routine observance by worshiping Christians.

Of course, in the way dates roll around the days of the week, Holy Innocents does fall on a Sunday from time to time. But, since the founding of our parish, we have always observed Holy Innocents on the Sunday following Christmas. When I've compared notes with other pastors of congregations whose Sunday worship follows the classical liturgical calendar, I discover that more often than not, other pastors have done the same thing.

The lectionary for this feast always uses Matthew's account of the slaughter for the gospel lesson. The Old Testament lesson comes from any number of places -- God's comfort for weeping Rachael at the deportation of Jews to Babylon in Jeremiah 31, the passage Matthew says was fulfilled by Herod's slaughter, readings from Exodus on Pharoah's attempt to slaughter all baby boys among the Jews, as well as passages such as Revelation 21.

And, the Biblical, theological, and pastoral themes that emerge from the slaughter of the Holy Innocents are numerous, as RCJr suggests. Abortion is an obvious issue illumined by the Biblical texts appropriate for this Feast. The murderous hatred of the world and its leaders for Christ and any associated with Him is another much needed theme that can be expounded from these passages.

Obviously, the themes and applications arising naturally and powerfully from this feast should not be confined to a single annual observance. But as a pastor I have chosen to mark every Christmas season with this feast, not merely because of the occasion it gives me to preach on themes entirely wholesome and much needed by Christians today, but also to take a saw and to apply it across the grain of the treacley self-indulgent spirit of the age seen in vapid so-called Christmas carols blaring in the public squares beginning before Halloween in many places.

On this last note, I report great enthusiasm in my flock for our observance of Advent year after year. The four weeks before Christmas are a penitential season -- a month devoted to extra focus on repentence from sin and preparation for Christ's second advent. John the Baptist makes his appearance frequently in the lectionaries for this season, another antidote against the vapid self-indulgence of the culture. Our parish observes Compline on Wednesday evenings during Advent, featuring extensive readings from the Old Testament prophecies of the coming Messiah, and the singing of Psalms drawn from Israel's longing for redemption. When Christmas arrives at the end of this season, we commence 12 days of celebration (all the way to Epiphany on January 6, another feast we routinely move to the following Sunday).

The classical liturgical calendar (found today in the Revised Common Lectionary) is a powerful pedogogical tool for inculcating Biblical events, Biblical theology, basic Christology, and themes fundamental to Christian discipleship. Contrary to its critics, it is not constraining, but rather enabling, shaping, and illumining.