Baby Bones
Today, December 28, is the Feast of the Holy Innocents in the Western Church. We Orthodox observe it on December 29. This past summer, I was taken into a cave under the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and shown what the Church believes are relics of the Holy Innocents: the bones of dead babies, found in Bethlehem.
I asked our guide how we could be sure these were the bones of some of the infants massacred at the order of King Herod? The story is here, in Matthew 2:16-18:
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16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18 “A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”
Jesus escaped the massacre because his mother and father had fled for Egypt. Anyway, the guide said that St. Helena, the Christian mother of Constantine, discovered them on her famous journey to the Holy Land in 325-326. Tradition has it that she bribed a rabbi to tell her where the massacred children's bodies had been buried. I don't know how truthful that is, but that's the tradition, and there has been a church on that site -- revered by the early church as the Messiah's birthplace -- since 330.
In any case, today and tomorrow are the days in which the ancient churches remember those baby boys murdered by power, to protect itself. The pro-life movement considers the Holy Innocents to be patrons of the unborn whose lives were taken so that their mothers, who had power over their life or death, could live as she wanted to live. Today (and every day), those innocent babes now living in glory surely pray for the souls of their mothers and fathers, for their repentance. And maybe we should all ask the Holy Innocents for their prayers, that we all would repent of the way nearly all of us fail children in our world today. This past year, I spoke to someone who works to fight sex trafficking, and he told me the market for children is large. Plus, we have created a Machine in the West today, one that requires robbing little children of their innocence and sexualizing them, for the sake of Progress. It is a vile thing, what Power does to the Powerless.
Y’all might enjoy some more reflections on this illusion of progress at Christmas:
https://gaty.substack.com/p/christmas-classics-and-the-illusion
Thank you again!
You sound like one of those “Twitter is a private company” people. When Twitter, google, your bank, your car dealership, and your grocery store all collaborate to crush your existence for being a TAC commenter, I hope you take comfort in the knowledge that at least it wasn’t the government that did it to you, lol.
Perhaps in 2023 you will learn that the devil is smarter than you and your pointless distinctions are. Had Herod sent armies of abortionists, phalanxes of false gods, wagonfuls of planned parenthood funding, and corps of demon-possessed pro-choice propagandists to Bethlehem, instead of soldiers, would that have been more pleasing to the Lord?
Like it or not, you are still living in Biblical times. Wake up and smell the sulfur - and pray!
As for the Devil he is blinded by his own hubris- thinking he knows more and better than God. Can there be a greater fool?
We, perhaps understandably, underemphasize this aspect of the harms caused by abortion, because the primary harm and cruelty caused to the baby itself looms so large, as well as secondary effects such as on the mother, on a culture that lacks respect for life, etc. But it is a significant negative consequence of abortion in itself.
And this connects quite closely to what Herod or Pharoah intended to accomplish in their heinous decrees. They were motivated by a desire to prevent an individual whose mission they feared from being there to fulfill their mission.
Would it be too much of a stretch to suggest that there are individuals in positions of power and influence today who reason along somewhat similar lines? Who advocate for abortion (among other reasons) because they hope to throw a wrench in God’s plans and so prevent or postpone at least some of what they fear would come about if those plans were not interfered with.
I don't think reality works that way-- it's not planned out in minute detail. And you could say something in similar about people not conceiving a particular child at a particular time, and not just because of contraception: A couple that never marries or has sex might have had a child who would cure cancer. And of course this sort of speculation works for negatives too: the child not born might have become an serial killer, the next Stalin, or the guy who gives the orders that starts a nuclear war.
That being said, God has instituted individual free will and human agency as legitimate parameters for how things function on Earth. When an individual decides not to marry (or not to pursue a particular career, or not to move to a particular place, or not to make some other major life choice) he might make an unfortunate decision, but he has not sinned in the eyes of God per se.
When a woman decides to kill her baby, however, that is more than an unfortunate choice, it is a serious sin or crime in the eyes of God. And although God is doubtlessly aware that individuals do or could make such choices, such choices do not fit into the legitimate parameters for free will and human agency that he has instituted. Is it then difficult to countenance that the latter sort of actions could interfere with his plans in a different and more serious sort of way than the former? That the whole broad mysterious and dynamic mechanism of divine providence that is designed in such a way as to respect and work with free will and human agency could be interfered with more seriously than in the former sort of case?
This also connects to questions about the trajectory of individual souls. If some particular child of God is intended to play a key role (whether in curing cancer or in setting free the Hebrew slaves) and his intended parents don’t get together and do their thing, perhaps he’ll be born to other parents in similar circumstances around the same time. If he is conceived and killed (either before or shortly after birth) though, then what? I think according to classical Christian doctrine he would go straight to heaven. Even if you believe in reincarnation, however, there are complications that come up.
In any case, abortion (and infanticide, euthanasia, etc.) at the very least provides a major additional factor that can seriously interfere with God’s plans.
Jesus could very well have been killed by Herod’s edict and subsequent efforts, otherwise the angel would not have counseled Joseph to take him to Egypt and remain there until Herod’s death. And Herod was motivated by exactly that possibility to do what he did. It was not really some sort of power play over the weak and innocent that motivated him, nor depravity for its own sake, it was an attempt to prevent an individual he feared from being around to fulfill his mission (Herod was a jew and believed in the prophecies about a messiah).
I suspect there are modern day Herod’s that are at least somewhat similarly motivated, even if they have no particular individual in mind. Anything that can help to throw a (further) wrench into God’s plans and potentially murder the next great saint or prophet - or even the next great meek child of God who might play some key role in some particular capacity, presents an attractive proposition.
All of this being said, this is hardly the only thing that makes abortion problematic, nor the biggest one. But it is a side of the issue that deserves to be considered.
Better living through degradation?
To suggest that the conditions we had in the past were preferable to the conditions we have today because it was easier then than now to be focused on what really matters is more to advocate for easiness than for what really matters.