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Thus saith the Lord: “A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping; Rachel, weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because they were no more.”
Today is the feast of the Holy Innocents – those children who were slaughtered by Herod’s men as they sought to kill the new-born King. Matthew uses it to show that the birth of Jesus is the fulfilment of the prophecy. Jacob’s wife, Rachel, died in childbirth on the road from Bethel to Bethlehem, and we know from the first book of Samuel that the sepulchre of Rachel was at Ramah, so the implication is that Rachel was weeping for the slaughter of the children in nearby Bethlehem. In Jeremiah, the Lord tells Rachel not to weep, for although her children will be taken into exile, they will return. We know from Jeremiah 40 that Ramah was the staging post from which the children of Israel were carried off into exile. In Matthew’s Gospel, it is the staging post for the return from exile of the Holy Family.
In our time, alas, there are all too many dead children over whom Rachel might weep, and we might take a moment in our prayers today to remember the countless victims of abortion – and their mothers who will not be. This is not a moment for criticising those women who feel they have to resort to abortion, and then who feel they have to defend their position; for them we must try to feel love, and for them we must pray. The plight of children in so many lands is no better than it was in Herod’s Judea, and for the grieving parents of Peshawar, Nigeria and Mosul, our hearts go out, and our prayers go up. The hearts of men are hard, and some must be broken before they are fit soil for the seed He scatters. Of the violence we hear much, but of the work of countless aid workers, we hear but little, and yet, foremost in so many places where grief rules, is to be found the Church.
The Lord tells Rachel not to weep, and not far from Ramah, in Bethlehem, the Light who would light the world came into it, although the world knew it not, and so many have not heeded the light. Yet, without it, what voice would be so strongly raised against the sin of abortion, and from whence would come the hands needed to work in the dark and dangerous places of this world? Against the Light the darkness will always struggle, and the darkness is of our doing. We might say our hands are innocent, but do we do what we might to help those who are doing the Lord’s work in the dangerous places? For us it may be more what we do not do than what we do, where the occasion of sins lies, but there, too, lies an opportunity to do more than we can now.
We can, all of us, do one thing every day, and that it to remember in our prayers the innocents who suffer, and the wonderful men and women who devote their lives to caring for them. Let us remember to offer all of these up in prayer before the merciful Lord who warned sternly against harming his ‘little ones.
Lord Jesus, comfort every Rachel and all who weep for their children who are no more.
All Along the Watchtower 
In Miami, Florida drive-by shootings are so common, many do not make it to the six o’clock news or morning paper. Most of the victims have been children at the wrong place wrong time. Another occurred last night. My children and grandchildren have survived 5 drive-by shootings although my daughter’s boyfriend almost bled to death in a related robbery from gunshot. Imagine the children running outside seeing father screaming in a pool of blood. I got lucky in an incident a the high at which I taught. About 50 bullets from Uzis against the wall at lunch. None off the kids were hit. I was safe as I was sneaking a cigarette in the back of the building. Who says smoking is bad for your health now? Children in my city grow up knowing they could be gunned down any day esp if they are black in a place with trigger happy police.
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“Trigger happy police?” Don’t tell me you have fallen into the MSM hype and political spin, Carl. I would like to see how many more would die if the police decided not to show up for work one day. The few that were killed by police (since the chances of getting gunned down by another black kid is the greatest threat to the life of a black child) is really small compared to the number of encounters and the number of deaths that occur at the hands of the police. It is black on black crime in communities that will not snitch on their own kind either for fear of retaliation or because, they too have a lifestyle that is at odds with lawful citizenship.
Pray that these deadbeat fathers start living up to their responsibilities to provide for their offspring and to actually marry the mothers of their sometimes astronomical number of children which they have sired by lust alone.
The family is under attack, Carl. The abortions were started by Margaret Singer to rid the world of blacks and the disabled. And now, more children are aborted by blacks than are born by a long shot. Many of the mothers are using the birth of children for financial betterment based on the foolish laws that we have passed that gives more money to the more illegitimate children that a woman can have.
The Jesse Jackson’s and Al Sharpton’s of this world view these people as a meal ticket and a road for personal power and prosperity. But what good has ever come to a community due to their help?????
The worst places to live in this country are those inner cities where a conservative has never been given a chance to be mayor. So with all the giveaways and the most money that has ever been given to each student by a society – their situation is worsening. It might be time to try something different if you ask me.
Most policemen that I have met are honorable men, usually ex-military, who see their job as a duty and a service for the rest of us. There are always a few bad apples but as a whole they are doing a job few of us would ever subject ourselves to. They risk their lives every single day that they put on the uniform – just our military members do. They deserve your thanks – not your admonition.
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EDIT: Margaret Sanger
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I would agree that the ideas you present about policemen as admirable guardians of our society and there would be anarchy without them. But quite different in Miami. 7 unrelated mortal shootings of young black men within 5 months. Under very implausable claims of probable cause threat. I am not a witness, have not seen police reports but from newspaper reviews I might give police benefit of doubt on 2. My real point of issue is that the incidents continue to be allegedly in house investigated with all public or independent review attempts blocked politically. THE SHOOTINGS OCCURRED 3 YEARS AGO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you are a black male in Miami, Florida the umbrella you are carrying “appears” to be an AK47 which is justifiable street execution. That’s trigger (very) happy in my book. I often ask why not shoot in arm or leg if feel in jeopardy but policeman friend told me they are trained to shot to kill with torso as target.
I am esp sensitive to the issue because three of my grandchildren are half white/half black. They are 6, 11 and 13 and I fear for their lives as they get older . No one can relate to how I felt when my granddaughter asked me “Grampa, are they going to shoot me because I am part black?” Oh dear child, that would be the end of the world.
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I’m sorry that your children have been conditioned to have such thoughts in their mind. Of the 3 blacks killed by police that were not questionable, how many white’s were killed by the police in the same time frame. Yet the criminal numbers are quite high in the black neighborhoods due to the lack of families. Here in the south we had good, tight knit families until the gangsta culture took over – it started in places like NYC, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and LA.
I used to drive a cab in NYC and in Boston. I cannot tell you how many times that my life was put into jeopardy – and it wasn’t while driving little old lady’s to the grocery store. I had friends stabbed, robbed and beaten by young black males and I don’t know of a single one of those crimes that was ever solved nor anyone who was arrested. If I had possessed a gun, I fear that I would have probably been a bit more trigger happy than most of the police who have a lot more self control than I do. I cannot, for the life of me, understand how one can put up with the stress and anxiety of dealing with such people on a daily basis and lasting more than a year. I think it is similar to how nurses just burn out emotionally after seeing so much death and suffering. Living in constant fear would burn me out in a few months. Accidents happen and also some simply flip out. The suicide rate for policemen and ex-miltary are quite a bit higher than most people and for very good reason.
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Unfortunately your assessment is accurate. These realities make it very hard for me not to be an old cynical pessimist. Yes, the policeman must be burned out too facing a daily possibility of his own death. The alcoholism and divorce rate is very high for them. It Miami there have been 18 drive-by shootings in the last two weeks. All black on black. Al and Jesse are not here railing about that ! For this and other reasons, father and I are leaving Miami and headin’ up to Greensboro, NC. I understand your observations. 33 years as high school teacher inner city minority schools have left me a completely drained and exhausted shell of my former self. Those heart attacks were the best thing that ever happened to me – I got out. I think one more day of it might have driven me to flip out crazy too. On the other hand, Maranda became a teacher for mentally disabled, Alex got to Harvard and Thomas became a policeman and David became a corrections officer. .
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Sounds like you got out just in time Carl and also sounds like you did a good job with your children.
I hope you and father have a nice time in Greensboro, Carl. I prefer this part of the country rather than the hustle bustle of a Miami.
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Further in terms of total number of police shootings, black represent a third of those compared to two thirds who are white.
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Precisely. I wonder how those who point the finger would respond when their life is in danger constantly. These are not angels that are being shot; drug users, thugs and robbers and they all seem to have one other thing in common: they will not do what the police ask them to do. They resist their directives or they resist arrest; not to mention that in Ferguson it seems the punk fought the policeman for his gun. Now they want to turn him into some innocent poster boy of sorts. Shameful.
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I agree 100% with this. Yes, in the incident to which you refer it seems the thug did attempt to grab the gun and in a very recent one the thug aimed a gun at the cop before he was shot. Justifiable. But on Staten Island where they accosted the unarmed man for selling cigarettes on the corner( illegal) they knocked him down and the cop larynx choked him to death with night stick – clearly murder and unwarrented.
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The man did not voluntarily surrender himself and the police used a technique of takedown that is taught in the academy. Accidents happen. How are they to know that the man had health problems which included asthma. I’m sure 99% of those who are taken down by the use of this technique do not die or suffer any long term problems. Again, we single out a belligerent individual because he refused to submit to the police and then died because they took him down. I’m sure they are sorry that they did not believe him when he said he could not breathe, but this is common complaint when one is being taken down with a choke hold.
The Navy Seals and the elite units of the military undergo training that often has the men saying that they are going to die – and they push them beyond that threshold. However, every now and then a soldier dies in training but it is the exception and not the rule.
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Unfortunately , also accurate observations.
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Perhaps, but blacks are only 16% of US population, not 33%.
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And responsible for what percentage of crime, Carl?
People that don’t commit crimes really don’t matter in this area. Is it the policeman’s fault that more blacks commit crimes than whites? They need good nuclear families and good moral values imparted by their culture to end the unequal arrest rates. We had that before the rise of the Black Panthers, the Jesse Jackson’s and the Al Sharpton’s et al.
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Yes, the dysfunctional and unfortunate circumstance and lack of healthy family environment corrupts all ethnicities.
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Sadly, we all ethnicities are catching up as we see family life falling apart almost everywhere.
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Carl, as to shooting someone in the leg or arm instead of the centre of mass, the torso, remember the cop has but a split second o make the decision to shoot or not shoot. In a high stress situation, shooting someone in the leg would be by pure accident.
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No argument with this point.
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Very nice and thoughtful post.
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