The Feast of the Holy Innocents, also called Childermas or Innocents’ Day, is the Christian feast that marks the massacre of young children in Bethlehem by King Herod the Great in his attempt to kill the infant Jesus (Matthew 2:16–18).
Different cultures have come up with different symbols and meanings, including playing practical jokes and pranks on anyone to this day, punctuated often by laughter.
On this day it is custom for instance in Mexico to give the youngest child in the household the power to rule the day: From what to eat, where to go, and what to do.
On this day, the Catholic Church honors the first martyrs: The children of Israel killed by King Herod, appointed king of Judea in 37 BC, in his quest to find baby Jesus.
Let’s honor the sacrifice of the Holy Innocents and celebrate the children in our lives today.
The Massacre of the Innocents is the incident described in the nativity narrative of the Gospel of Matthew in which Herod the Great orders the execution of all male children who are two years old and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem.
Estimating by the size of Bethlehem, including its surroundings, there could not have been more than 25 baby boys two years old or younger at any given time. The feast of the Holy Innocents has been remembered by the Church since the fifth century.
According to the New Testament, Holy Innocents’ Day was the massacre of some 20,000 boys, two years old and below.
It was ordered by a furious King Herod more than 2,000 years ago, after he learned that he was tricked by the Three Kings, whom he asked to drop by at his Palace in Bethlehem so he would go with them to visit the newly born child, Jesus Christ.
The feast is observed by Western churches on December 28 and in the Eastern churches on December 29.
The slain children were regarded by the early church as the first martyrs, but it is uncertain when the day was first kept as a saint’s day.
It may have been celebrated with Epiphany, but by the 5th century it was kept as a separate festival. In Rome it was a day of fasting and mourning.
It was one of a series of days known as the Feast of Fools, and the last day of authority for boy bishops.
Parents temporarily abdicated authority. In convents and monasteries the youngest nuns and monks were allowed to act as abbess and abbot for the day.
These customs, which were thought to mock religion, were condemned by the Council of Basel (1431).
In medieval England children were reminded of the mournfulness of the day by being whipped in bed in the morning; this custom survived into the 17th century.
The day is still observed as a religious feast day and, in Roman Catholic countries, as a day of merrymaking for children.
Some churches omit both the Gloria and the Alleluia of the Mass in honor of the grieving mothers of Bethlehem, unless the feast falls on a Sunday.