Friday Focus January 09, 2026
The Holy Innocents
Christina (Tina) McKinlay
January 8, 2026
Herod Gives Orders to Slay The Children
The Holy Innocents
"A sound is heard in Ramah, the sound of bitter weeping. Rachel is crying for her children..."
(~Jeremiah 31.15)
One of the most heart-wrenching cries that you will ever hear in this life is the wailing of a mother over her dead child or children.
It is an all too frequent reality.
Almost daily, it seems, we are presented with images of women weeping over their dead children in war zones such as Gaza or Ukraine, after hate-driven terrorist attacks or school shootings, or in the wake of natural disasters.
Children are supposed to live, long after mother and father have died.
Children are supposed to laugh and dance, play and sing, and have fun.
Children are supposed to be free, not burdened down with the cares of the world.
That is why a mother's grief is often-times inconsolable.
On December 30th, we acknowledged those babies who were murdered by King Herod, their own king, murdered just so that he would not lose the throne to one of them.
It was to escape the massacre of these innocents that the Holy Family left all they knew behind, to take refuge in a strange and foreign land.
It is easy to condemn Herod for his cruelty. He willfully ordered the murder of innocent children- denying the Earth of the joys and the fulfillment children bring. He failed to respect and care for the most vulnerable of all created beings, and all this to safeguard his own position and power.
But are we all that different?
It behooves us to remember all the children who have been—and are being—murdered two thousand years later.
It behooves us to pray and do penance for those children we have neglected, hurt, or abused; to remember the thousands of indigenous children robbed of their identity and abused at Residential Schools. In Canada today, tens of thousands of children go to school hungry; many others are homeless.
Statistics tell us:
that 1 in 5 children in Canada live in poverty.
Millions more children around the world are killed or orphaned by war, are starved to death due to poverty or the ravages of climate change or forced to flee their homes and seek refuge in strange and foreign lands.
Children are supposed to be bearers of hope and bearers of the future.
As we remember the Holy Innocents, let us recommit ourselves to ensuring that the children of our own time can live lives full of joy and hope, and free of the fear of want and violence.
It is not enough simply to weep at the images we see daily.
We must turn our weeping into action
—for God has promised "All that you have done for your children will not go unrewarded..."
(Jeremiah 31.16)
Peace+ Norman
Friday Focus 9 January 2026