The Fifth Day in the Octave of Christmas
T.S. Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral” tells of the Archbishop of Canterbury's (Thomas Becket, 1120-1170) defiance of the King (Henry II) as an example in the ongoing tension between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of the world, between the things that are God’s and those which are Caesar’s. It is not simply an accident that three martyrs' feasts (Stephen, the Holy Innocents, and Becket) are kept as the first feasts of the Christmas season. Even the vesture of the church startlingly transforms from the celebratory white/gold of the coming of Christ, who is all, to a martyr's blood red who gave all.
Yesterday was the feast of the Holy Innocents, a timely reminder that the innocent throughout time have suffered at the hands of worldly powers. The ultimate innocent victim is, of course, the crucified Christ. But the Holy Innocents serve as prophets of the doom that eventually awaited the Christ Child on the Mount of Doom we call Golgotha.
The nativity of our Lord points to his bloody sacrifice. The wood of the crib cannot be separated from the wood of the cross. The holy martyrs share in Christ’s victory as they had shared in his suffering. There’s good news here. We don’t mourn the passions of Stephen and Becket, but rather we ask for their intercession; we don’t grieve the demise of the Holy Innocents, then and now, because we know that they have been raised into the very heart of God.
This whole paradox is summed up in seven succinct lines from “The Holly and the Ivy,” a favorite Christmas carol. Why not sing or listen to this carol throughout the day?:
“The holly bears a berry
As red as any blood
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To do poor sinners good.
And Mary bore Jesus our savior to be
And the first tree in the green wood
It was the holly.”
In Christian lore, holly symbolizes Jesus's Passion: its sharp leaves represent the crown of thorns, the red berries signify his blood shed for all, and its evergreen nature stands for eternal life, incorporating pagan winter solstice traditions into Christmas celebrations. Holly offered protection, warding off evil, and was used to welcome Christ's birth, especially in medieval traditions.
Besides singing this ancient carol, this would be a most appropriate day to view Richard Burton’s 1964 film “Becket.”
—Timothy J. Cronin