During the octave of Christmas the Church celebrates the memory of the small children of the neighborhood of Bethlehem put to death by Herod. Our Christmas joy is tempered today by a feeling of sadness. The thought of the Church goes principally to the glory of the children of these innocent victims, whom she shows us in heaven following the Lamb wherever He goes. Sacrificed by a wicked monarch these innocent lives bear witness to Christ who was persecuted from the time of His birth by a world which would not receive Him. It is Christ Himself who is at stake in this mass-murder of the children; already the choice for or against Him is put clearly before men. But the persecutors are powerless, for Christ came to perform a work of salvation that nothing can prevent; when He fell into the hands of His enemies at the time chosen by God it was to redeem the world by His own Blood.