28 December 2026 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” Matthew 2:18
The joy of Christmas is followed by the tears of Bethlehem. Herod, furious at being tricked by the Magi, kills all the boys of Bethlehem two years old and under. Matthew hears in the mothers' cry the voice of Rachel weeping in Ramah. From Abel onward, innocent blood has cried out to God; the Holy Innocents are the first to die in place of Christ.
The Church honours them as martyrs who witnessed to Christ not by speaking but by dying. On this day Kerala's Church celebrates Holy Childhood Day: children praying and sharing for other children. We also remember all innocent children who suffer today: the unborn, abused, trafficked, hungry and war-torn. Jeremiah's promise stands: “there is hope for your future.”
Theme: “Rachel weeping for her children.”
The Holy Innocents and Holy Childhood Day.
“And the LORD said, “What have you done? Listen; your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground!”” Genesis 4:10
“When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under.” Matthew 2:16
Apply: Pray for children who suffer violence.
“Thus says the LORD: Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for there is a reward for your work, says the LORD.” Jeremiah 31:16
“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” Matthew 2:18
Apply: Console a mother who has lost a child.
“But the righteous live forever, and their reward is with the Lord; the Most High takes care of them.” Wisdom 5:15
“But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:20–21
Apply: Help children share a gift with poor children.
God hears every innocent cry.
Let us protect and serve the little ones.
Take-home resolution: Support a work for vulnerable children this season.
Dear friends, the joy of Christmas is followed by tears. Herod, furious at being tricked by the Magi, killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under (Matthew 2:16). Matthew hears in the mothers' cry the voice of Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more (Matthew 2:18; Jeremiah 31:15).
The first reading takes us back to the beginning: Cain kills his brother Abel (Genesis 4:8). From the first family, innocent blood has cried to God. The Holy Innocents join this long line, and they are the first to die in the place of Christ.
Why does God allow this? We do not have a full answer. But Christmas tells us that God did not stay distant from suffering. He came into a world where children are killed, and he himself would be killed. He is with the innocent who suffer.
The Letter to the Hebrews speaks of those who suffered for their faith: they were stoned, sawn in two, killed by the sword; of whom the world was not worthy (Hebrews 11:37–38). The Holy Innocents could not speak, but their lives witnessed to Christ.
Today the Church in Kerala keeps Holy Childhood Day: children praying for and sharing with other children. Let us remember the innocents of today: unborn children lost to abortion, children who are abused, trafficked, starving or caught in war. Herod is still at work.
Jeremiah gives a promise: there is hope for your future, says the Lord (Jeremiah 31:17). Let us protect children in our families and parishes, defend the unborn, and support children in need. And let us comfort parents who grieve the loss of a child. Amen.
Children, today is your special day! Pray for children who are sad, hungry or in danger, and share something to help them.
Lord Jesus, the Holy Innocents died in your place. Protect all children today, the unborn and the suffering, and console every weeping mother. Make our children generous for other children. Amen.
The joy of Christmas is followed at once by the tears of Bethlehem. Today’s readings draw one line of innocent blood through the whole Bible. Genesis shows the first murder, of a brother, by a man who would not master his anger. Jeremiah hears Rachel weeping and carries God’s promise that her children will come back. Hebrews remembers those who suffered for their faith and of whom “the world was not worthy”. Matthew shows the children of Bethlehem, killed by a frightened king, while the Child he sought is carried away. The key words are blood, weeping and hope.
Setting.
Genesis 3 told how the first man and woman turned from God. Genesis 4 shows what follows outside the garden: sin moves from the relation with God to the relation with a brother. The story is short and bare, and the word “brother” sounds seven times in vv. 1–11.
The names may be meaningful. Abel (hebel in Hebrew) means “breath” or “vapour”, the word used in Ecclesiastes for what passes away. His life is short, and he never speaks in the story.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.” (4:5)
The hidden wound is envy. The Hebrew says literally that it burned in him. His face tells what his heart is doing.
“If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (4:7)
God does not reject Cain. Before the crime he speaks to him, questions him and offers a way out. The Hebrew of this verse is difficult, but its main sense is clear: nothing is yet decided.
“Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.” (4:8)
A note on the text. The standard Hebrew text says “Cain said to his brother Abel”, and then gives no words. The words “Let us go out to the field” come from ancient versions, including the Greek and the Syriac, and both the NRSV and the POC include them. Two lines later a brother is dead.
How the Church reads it.
Jesus himself names “righteous Abel” as the first in the line of those who shed innocent blood (Matthew 23:35). Hebrews says that Christ’s blood “speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (12:24), for Abel’s blood cries out for justice, and Christ’s for mercy. The Catechism sees in this story the anger and envy that are the consequences of original sin (CCC 2259). St John Paul II opens Evangelium Vitae with a long meditation on Cain and Abel (EV 7–9). The Syriac teacher Aphrahat, in his Demonstration on Prayer, says that Abel’s offering was accepted because of the purity of his heart (in substance).
Setting.
Jeremiah 30–31 is often called the Book of Consolation, a bright section in a dark book. The prophet lived through the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC. The northern tribes had been taken away by Assyria more than a century earlier.
Ramah lay a few miles north of Jerusalem, in the land of Benjamin, and Jeremiah says that exiles were gathered there in chains (Jeremiah 40:1). Rachel, Jacob’s beloved wife, was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, and so the grandmother of the great northern tribes. She had died long before; the prophet imagines her crying from her grave for her lost descendants.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.” (31:15)
The Bible lets a mother cry with no easy words offered. It gives this grief the dignity of Scripture.
“Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for there is a reward for your work, says the Lord: they shall come back from the land of the enemy;” (31:16)
God alone can say “stop weeping” without being cruel, because he alone can bring the children back.
“there is hope for your future, says the Lord: your children shall come back to their own country.” (31:17)
Later in this same chapter comes the promise of the new covenant (31:31–34).
How the Church reads it.
Matthew quotes v. 15 today and stops there. A reader who knows Jeremiah hears what comes next, the promise of return, and so the Gospel’s silence is not despair. Jewish tradition has also treasured Rachel as the mother who weeps and intercedes for her children; a well-known passage in the Midrash on Lamentations says that God was moved by her plea (in substance). For Christians the final answer to every Rachel is the Resurrection.
Setting.
Hebrews 11 is the great roll call of faith. It opens by defining faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (11:1), and it runs from Abel (11:4) through Abraham and Moses. At v. 32 the author runs out of time and hurries on.
The readers are tired Christians who have already known suffering (10:32–34). The chapter tells them that the people of God has always walked by faith, in victory and in defeat alike.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions,” (11:33)
Lions recall Daniel (Daniel 6). The “raging fire” of the next verse recalls the three young men (Daniel 3).
“Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection.” (11:35)
Faith here looks beyond death. Their courage rests on a promise that they did not see fulfilled.
“They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword;” (11:37)
Zechariah son of Jehoiada was stoned in the Temple court (2 Chronicles 24:20–22). An old Jewish tradition says that Isaiah was sawn in two. A note on the text: some ancient manuscripts have one more verb here, “they were tested”, and the POC reflects a text of this kind (ചിലരെ വിചാരണ ചെയ്തു); the NRSV follows those without it.
“of whom the world was not worthy.” (11:38)
A stunning reversal. The world judged them worthless and drove them out. God’s verdict is that the world did not deserve them.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism calls Hebrews 11 a eulogy of the faith of the ancestors (CCC 147) and urges us to look to this “cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1; CCC 165). Martyrdom is “the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith” (CCC 2473). On this feast the reading lets the children of Bethlehem take their place in that long line.
Setting.
Herod feared any rival. The Magi had asked him for the “king of the Jews” (2:2), a title that belonged to him by Roman grant. When they did not come back, he acted.
No other ancient writer records this event, and Bethlehem was small. Many scholars reckon the number of boys to have been modest, perhaps a score or so. Josephus does not mention it, but he describes a Herod who had his wife Mariamne and three of his own sons put to death, and the deed fits that picture.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”” (2:15)
Hosea 11:1 speaks of Israel. Matthew sees Jesus as the true Son, who sums up his people’s whole story in himself.
“he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under,” (2:16)
Matthew’s words are plain and restrained. He does not describe the scene; he states it.
“Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:” (2:17)
Compare the wording in 2:15, “This was to fulfill”. Here, as often noted, Matthew writes “Then was fulfilled”, avoiding any suggestion that God intended this evil.
““A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”” (2:18)
Tradition placed Rachel’s tomb on the way to Bethlehem (Genesis 35:19). The mothers of Bethlehem join the mother of Israel in her grief.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that this event shows “the opposition of darkness to the light”, and that those who belong to Christ share his persecution (CCC 530). The Church honours these children as martyrs. St Irenaeus says that the Lord sent these children ahead of him into his kingdom (in substance). St Quodvultdeus of Carthage, in a sermon the Roman Office reads on this feast, says that these children die for Christ without knowing it, and that God’s grace gives them a crown (in substance). The feast is also a defence of the weakest: every human life is to be protected from its beginning (CCC 2270; Evangelium Vitae).
How can babies be martyrs if they did not choose to die for Christ?
A martyr’s crown is above all God’s gift. These children died in place of Christ and because of him. The Church has long held that those who die for the sake of Christ without Baptism are baptized by their death for and with him (CCC 1258), and it has honoured the Innocents from early times.
Why did God warn Joseph and not the other families?
The Gospel gives no answer, and no honest reader should pretend that this is easy. Evil here comes from Herod, not from God. God does not explain suffering in the Bible by theory; he enters it. The Child saved today will not be saved from Calvary. The Catechism says that only the whole of the Christian faith answers the question of evil, and it points to the Cross and the Resurrection (CCC 309, 272).
What about children who die today without Baptism, or before they are born?
The Church entrusts them to the mercy of God, who desires that all be saved, and to Jesus’ tenderness toward children, which allows us to hope that there is a way of salvation for them (CCC 1261).
In Kerala this day is known as Kunjippaithangal, and it is kept as Holy Childhood Day (Thirubalasakhyam). The Holy Childhood Association was founded in France in 1843 by Bishop Charles de Forbin-Janson so that children might pray and share for other children, and it is a Pontifical Mission Society. So the Syro-Malabar child who gives a small coin today stands against Herod in a real way. At the Holy Qurbana we may remember children who suffer now: the unborn, the abused, the trafficked, the hungry and those caught in war. We may also remember parents who have buried a child: the Bible gives them Rachel’s voice, and Rachel’s promise.