Herod the Great was appointed King of the Jews by the Roman authorities in Palestine and he proved to be ruthlessly efficient in his thirty-three years of dealing with his subjects. In the Gospel according to Matthew, Herod tried to persuade the Magi, to whom he played host on their journey seeking the one ‘who has been born king of the Jews’, to bring word to him once they had found the child. His desire was to eliminate Jesus and, when he realised that the Magi had tricked him and left the country, Herod killed all the children under the age of two in and around Bethlehem. These were God’s innocent ones, paralleling the story of Pharaoh slaughtering the Hebrew children in Egypt.
Reflecting upon the feasts of the Church: The Holy Innocents 28 December