Jeremiah 31:15-17; Psalm 124; Revelation 21:1-7; Matthew 2:13-18
This is one of the hardest days of the year. We haven't even heard the story of the magi’s arrival yet, but we’re learning about the fallout from that. We learn what happens when we don’t see with sacramental eyes, but with the eyes of fear and hatred.
I don’t know when or why the Church decided to remember the Holy Innocents right after Christmas, but it may actually be on to something. Just as we remember Stephen, the first Christian martyr, right after the celebration of new birth, now we follow John’s vision of glory with the horrible reality of bloodshed and tyranny. It’s a testimony to the truth: we have to see with all our eyes opened.
I have wanted to shut my eyes this fall. I’ve had trouble even looking at the headlines, much less going deeper into the news. 50,000 children have died in Syria from this war, 90% of them at the hands of government forces. Across the United States, as many as 40% of our children are living with food scarcity and dire poverty. The land, the sacred ground beneath our feet, is being assaulted and exploited more and more fiercely; and human children and animals become sick and die as a result. And it looks like things will get worse before they get better. I don’t want to look.
But I have to. A sacramental eye is an open eye. Eyes that only open to bliss are open not to God, but to our own egos. Sacramental vision means finding joy and glory without denying the horror and pain; and it means living in hope that tyrants will be converted, or pass into obscurity. Herod does die, will die. The light will continue to shine.
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