On the Fourth Day of Christmas..........

Prayer of the Day

We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the innocent children of Bethlehem by order of King Herod. Receive into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims. By your great might frustrate the designs of great tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love and peace by your son Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen

Matthew 2:13-18

The Escape to Egypt

¹³ When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

¹⁴ So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, ¹⁵ where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”^[a]

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.”

On this “Holy Innocents Day,” when we remember the children killed by King Herod, what can you do to provide a better, safer, life for children in our community?

The Holy Innocents gave witness not by words but by their life's blood,
- give us strength to be your witnesses before all,
both by words and by actions.