Called to save the lives of innocents
by Douglas Theuner

On September 16th I wrote to my diocese that "...we have yet to discern or feel the full extent of the impact of September 11th. We will live with this for years to come and the next days and weeks will reveal both the extent of our wounds and the resilience of our faith."

We are now several weeks into those "years to come" and my thoughts are focused on how we are, and might continue to be, responding after the initial shock has moved into a deeper level of our corporate and individual consciences. The "war" in Afganistan sputters on with no discernible positive resolution. The global economy is still staggering and unemployment is rising. We continue to experience fears and anxieties over such previously unthinkable things as bioterrorism. For most of us life has returned to a modicum of normalcy but grave doubts and uncertainties remain.

For me a part of that return to normalcy is to anticipate the coming annual celebration of our Lord’s Nativity. I have always found Christmas somewhat problematic, as the promise of the birth of the Prince of Peace seems, 2000 years later, so far from realization. A teenager was shot to death in front of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem just a few weeks ago. What more wrenching symbol can there be for those who celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace? It brings to my mind the massacre of the Holy Innocents which we observe three days after the Feast of the Nativity. At Christmastide do we rejoice or mourn, or both?

In the Church Calendar the Feast of the Nativity is followed the next day by the Feast of St. Stephen, the First Martyr. As T.S. Eliot observed in Murder in the Cathedral: "Is it an accident, do you think, that the day of the first martyr follows immediately the day of the Birth of Christ? By no means. Just as we rejoice and mourn at once, in the Birth and Passion of our Lord; so also in a smaller figure, we both rejoice and mourn in the death of martyrs. We mourn for the sins of the world that has martyred them; we rejoice, that another soul is numbered among the Saints in Heaven." On the next day we observe the witness of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist; the only one of Jesus’ disciples not thought to have died a martyr. On the day following, December 28th, comes the most unusual observance of all, that of the Holy Innocents; all the children in and around Bethlehem two years of age and under who were murdered by King Herod in order to eliminate a potential threat to his throne.

The Holy Innocents are not technically martyrs because they were not killed because of their witness to Jesus Christ. They were killed, and are remembered, because they were in the way; innocent people who were eliminated for no other reason than that their lives interfered with the exercise of power. They were deemed expendable through no fault of their own other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is an observance to which we certainly ought to be able to relate this year. The people in the airplanes and buildings involved in the September 11th attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania were "innocents", like the children on the ground in Afganistan today. They were "innocents" like most of the millions of Sudanese who have died of war and starvation in the last few years, like the children walking to parochial school in Belfast and those who died in the bombing in Omagh, like so many unwitting Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians in India and Pakistan who die there in "religious" warfare, like the innocent Jews, Muslims and Christians; Palestinians, Israelis and foreigners who die daily in the "Holy Land" of either outlawed or state-sponsored terrorism, like the people who died in London during the "Blitz", in Dresden in the fire bombings, in the atomic attacks on Horoshima and Nagasaki and at Pearl Harbor, like the faceless (to us) millions who die from the ravages of AIDS in Africa, like the laid-off mill workers in Berlin, New Hampshire.

The Church has provided a day on which to remember the "innocents," a term not used in this case to judge culpability; a term used simply to describe the fact that they were in the way of the pride, greed and self-interest of "the principalities and powers". Why not turn this obscure commemoration into an opportunity to pray for the "innocents" of the world; the ones who always pay the highest price? And let us not forget that among them are many in every conflict and on every side who serve in the military.

In my twenty-four years as a parish priest my cures, from a small, rural/suburban mission to a large downtown parish, always observed the "red letter days"; something which was very meaningful for me and some parishioners. Saying: "We don’t do it because nobody comes", is a lot like saying "We don’t need to become handicap accessible because no differently-abled persons worship here." What a wealth of opportunity for spiritual growth there is in bringing home that Christmas is a liturgical celebration of twelve days by celebrating the unique focus of those days which the Church has placed within that season. We need to remember "the cost of discipleship" as it is represented in the Feast of St. Stephen. We need to capture the soaring visions of John the Evangelist in the commemoration of his feast. We need to remember the Holy Innocents of another time and place in order to pray for those of our own and to commit ourselves to saving their lives, for saving the lives of the innocents is surely the call of Christians.

I propose to observe the Feast of the Holy Innocents at a celebration of the Holy Eucharist in St. Paul’s Church, Concord, on Friday evening, December 28th at 7:00. This is for people in the Concord area and those from congregations where it simply will not be possible to have a celebration on that day. I hope that others will observe it in their own congregations, with special emphasis on the "innocents" in their community; those who are at risk simply because they are in the way of those less at risk. Such a celebration might actually honor our Lord’s ministry more than much of our usual observances of His Nativity do. May God bless us all as we bring before the Heavenly Throne all that we are; especially our care for those "innocents" most at risk.

Douglas Theuner is the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire.