Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, or Childermas, commemorating the story in Matthew’s Gospel where the babies of Bethlehem are killed by King Herod in his attempt to liquidate the infant Christ (pictured above by Peter Bruegel the Elder). In early medieval Rome, it was a day of sorrow and fasting. In late medieval England and France, it was considered an unlucky day, and whichever day of the week it fell on was said to be ill-omened for the whole of the following year. King Edward IV almost postponed his coronation by a day in June 1461 to avoid starting his reign on the day Childermas had fallen the previous December. Today, in many Catholic countries, it is a day of pranks and jokes, and in some of them, children’s toys are blessed at Mass.
On this day in 13th century Germany, many churches performed disruptive Herod Plays as part of their church services. Members of the clergy dressed up and played the roles of Herod, his courtiers and soldiers, as they threw spears, beat people with bladders, and angrily read the account of King Herod in Matthew’s Gospel.
St Francis de Sales, ‘the gentleman saint’, died today in 1622, after suffering a stroke while staying in a gardener’s hut at a monastery in Lyon. He was the Bishop of Geneva, but was more widely known for his spiritual writings, especially his book, Introduction à la Vie Dévote (Introduction to the Devout Life). Published in 1609, the Introduction was originally written as a series of letters offering spiritual counsel to the wife of an ambassador. It was unusual for its insistence that the spiritual life could be lived in the world, rather than in the cloister, and its positive and gentle tone, focusing on the love of God, has made de Sales a popular saint and author ever since.
‘It is not only an error, but a heresy, to hold that life in the army, the workshop, the court, or the home is incompatible with devotion.’ St Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life
Westminster Abbey in London, the default church for crowning English kings and queens for over 1,000 years, was consecrated today in 1065. The new building was a project of the Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Confessor, who took an existing Benedictine abbey with just a handful of monks, and rebuilt it in a grand style, with the idea that it would be his final resting place. The consecration took place just in time, as Edward died just a few days later. He was buried in an underground chamber before the high altar. Just 180 years later, Edward’s building was pulled down by King Henry III and rebuilt in elegant French Gothic style, the building which still stands today.
Pope Leo XIII closed the first year of his reign by issuing the encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris, attacking the evils of socialism, communism and nihilism, today in 1878. It was the first of a series of open letters by Leo in which he addressed the realities of the modern world and the conditions of working class people.
‘They assail the right of property sanctioned by natural law; and by a scheme of horrible wickedness, while they seem desirous of caring for the needs and satisfying the desires of all men, they strive to seize and hold in common whatever has been acquired either by title of lawful inheritance, or by labour of brain and hands, or by thrift in one’s mode of life.’ Pope Leo XIII, Quod Apostolici Muneris
Image: Wikimedia Commons