Holy Innocents' Day

Carols are the Songs of the Reason for the Season, yes?  So, as such beautiful carols such as "Oh Holy Night," "Silent Night" and "Adeste Fideles" (thanks, juvat, for reminding me of that one) all remind us of His birth, and his birth date, there are other days of Christmas, 12 of them in fact, from Birth (Christmas-Christmas) to the Arrival of the Wise Men (Epiphany).  One of these days of Christmas is not, most assuredly not, a happy day except in only the most Jewish of ways (that is, finding something nice to say about a situation that quite frankly sucks big rocks.)(And anyone who gets upset about calling Jesus a Jew, just remember, He was Jewish till the day He died, and then everybody called him a Christian...(my semi-Jewish wife used that line on her dad when he, the fundamentalist Church of Christ member was yammering about converting to Judaism, it almost killed him when she subsequently became a Catholic.)

Holy Innocents' Day.  The day we celebrate Jesus, Mary and Joseph (and the Holy Ass, no, really, the ass that Mary rode out of Dodge/Bethlehem on, no, seriously, it's a real thing.  There are stupid stories about the holiness of the donkey, can you believe it?  Beans! Solemn day, Solemn DAY!) escaping King Herod and his proclamation to have all the 2 year old and younger male children of Bethlehem put to the sword in a vane attempt to forestall Christ's Coming.  Coupla days late there, bub.

So.  A Holy Day celebrating the Massacre of the Innocents.  Joy, or not, as the case may be.  The Church (that would eventually be the Roman Catholic Church, Church of England and Lutheran as The Church went all broken into bits and pieces over the ages) eventually chose to celebrate it on December 28th, though it was originally rolled into the Epiphany and other Churches choose to celebrate it on other days or not at all depending on who they be and who's in charge at the time.

A day to celebrate the murder of innocent children.  Nice.

It later devolved into a role-reversal day in some places, with children serving roles as adults including officiating masses and such.  Or a day for 'innocents' to play not-so-nice pranks on people and get away with it (kinda like Devil's Night in some big cities up north.)  Or for parents to beat the snot out of their children if they were still asleep when the parents got up (no, really, Church-sanctioned kid-smacking, in the Name of Jesus. Yikes!) or blessing toys or other things.

Soooo... there's a Carol associated with this day, of course.  

"Coventry Carol"

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Lullay, thou little tiny Child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we do sing
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

Herod, the king, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day
His men of might, in his own sight,
All children young to slay.

That woe is me, poor Child for Thee!
And ever mourn and sigh,
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

Sung in a minor key, this is quite the haunting, soulful carol.  Kind of "With Great Joy comes Great Pain" to rip off Stan Lee.

As I grow old, Holy Innocents' Day weighs more and more heavily upon me.  Besides my two older brothers, I have an older sister, who I have never met.  Carolyn was born sickly, with a heart defect and lived for almost a year before she died on December 28th in 1960.  Her death haunted my father for as long as I knew him.  I'm sure it haunts my oldest brother, who actually knew her.  And I know it haunts me.  

Why?

Because Christmastime is the season of possibilities.  What can happen in the future.  What has happened in the past.  Mistakes averted, mistakes made.  And the emotional toll of all that baggage.  Which is really what Holy Innocents' Day really is about.  Acknowledging the pain and toll of life, especially the world of the pre-antibiotics and pre-modern medicine, where past 2 years of age the chance of survival climbs incredibly, but 2 and younger?  Just go to any OLD cemetery and count the headstones that just list 'Child' or 'Boy' or 'Girl.'  Subtle hint, there are still lots of countries that seem civilized that don't really track child deaths until around 2yoa.  Still, in this modern world.  There are no assurances of surviving till childhood-childhood.

So, back in really old times, how does a nascent religious movement handle the loss of so many innocent souls?  For all those lost in the past, in the present, in the future...  And, of course, fold in past religions' own festivals and coping methods.  For there is reasonable historical proof that Herod did not in fact order the death of the innocents.  Historical records list a ton of bad stuff that he did.  Killing his own family, putting down insurrections, taxations, land seizures, all that.  No historical proof that Herod killed the young boys of Bethlehem. But... now there's this new religion, and one that preaches salvation to everyone, old, young, saintly, sinner, universal salvation.  Yet there's all these dead innocents everywhere... So.  Holy Innocents' Day.  Where we mourn the loss of so much potential.

For the Innocents lost.  That never got to have Christmas, really.  A good reminder of the terrible toll of times past and present, especially in these new days of resistant strains of the old diseases and waves of un-vaccinated.

A dark day today.  One of loss and reflectance.  But, well, we got a pretty carol out of it.  And it's all happy for the next 8 days until the end of Epiphany and then the long stretch till Lent.