Christ did not despise his young warriors, though he was not physically
present at their slaughter; but he sent them from this life of misery to his
eternal kingdom. They were born blessed to suffer death for his sake. Happy is
their age which could not yet confess Christ, and yet might suffer for Christ.
They were the savior’s witnesses, though they did not yet know him. They were
not ripened for slaughter, yet they blessedly died to life. Blessed was their
birth, because they found eternal life at the entrance of this present life.
They were snatched from their mothers’ breasts, but they were immediately entrusted
to the blossoms of angels. The wicked persecutor could not benefit those little
ones by any service as greatly as he benefitted them by the fierce hate of
persecution. They are called blossoms of martyrs, because they were like
blossoms springing up in the midst of the chill of unfaithfulness, as it were
consumed by the frost of persecution. Blessed are the wombs which bore them,
and the breasts that sucked them. Indeed the mothers suffered through their
children’s martyrdom, the sword that pierced their children’s limbs entered
their mothers’ hearts, and they must be sharers in the eternal reward, when
they were companions in suffering. They were killed while small and without
reason, but they will arise at the Last Judgment in full growth and with heavenly
wisdom. We will all come to the same age at the universal resurrection, although
we now leave this world at various ages.
The gospel says that “Rachel wept for her children, and would not be
comforted. Because they are no more.” Rachel was the wife of the patriarch
Jacob, and she signified God’s Church, which weeps for its spiritual children;
but it will not be so comforted that they should return again to worldly
strife, once they have overcome the world by a triumphant death, and escaped from
its miseries to be crowned with glory with Christ. (Aelfric, “Feast of
the Holy Innocents,” in The Old English Catholic Homilies—The First Series
[trans. Roy M. Liuzza; Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 86; Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 2024], 103, 105)
