...not one more December tragedy

Lully, lullay, thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay:
Lullay, thou little tiny Child, 
By by, lully, lullay.
---Robert Croo, 16th cent.

The bleak midwinter reveals a rock-hard core once again. At its base--- under the sleigh bells. and snowflakes, and merriment ---it seems,  lie loss and mourning. Buried in the Christmas story in Matthew is the violent subplot of King Herod's slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem. In his burning jealously over guarding his throne against usurpers, Herod sent his soldiers out to murder all the boys in Bethlehem whose births fit the Magis' calculations. In The Coventry Carol, featured in a 1534 pageant on the birth of Christ, mothers were shown rocking their babes, singing one last lullaby as Herod's army approached.

The grief of a mother over the loss of a child is, perhaps, our true picture of grief. Think of Michaelangelo's Pieta, with a diminutive Mary cradling her full-grown, newly-crucified son in her arms. Think of Jeremiah's prophecy, quoted in Matthew's gospel:
"A voice is heard in Ramah, 
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more."

It seems we would have learned, through the years, the centuries, to quit killing our children, to quit breaking our mothers' hearts. But we continue to observe our December tragedies, to see bleak midwinter run bleaker still at the point of a sword, the trigger of an assault rifle, the detonator of an IED. Terror looks like Herod's soldiers in Bethlehem, like Adam Lanza and a Bushmaster in Newtown, like the Pakistan Taliban in Peshawar.

If we've got a hope in this world, it is that, when God came to us, it was as one of us, flesh to flesh. As if to say, "Your lives can be holy, and the way you live in this world can be holy. Watch me."

Because we can. Not one more December tragedy.