Friday, 28 December, 2007
4th Day in the octave of Christmas (II)
The Holy Innocents, Martyrs
“It is because Herod believed the words of the Magi and of the high priests whom he consulted that he sees a rival in the Infant of Bethlehem and with jealousy pursues the Child, born King of the Jews. It is this God-King that the Innocents by dying confess. Their passion is the exultation of Christ.”

Collect: O God, whose praise the martyred Innocents on this day confessed, not by speaking, but by dying: destroy in us all the evils of sin, that our life also may proclaim by deeds Thy faith which our tongue professes. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end.
Lesson: From the Book of the Apocalypse of the Bl. Apostle John, 14:1-5.
Gospel: Continuation of the holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, 2:13-18.

Remarks are abstracted from The Daily Missal and Liturgical Manual, from Editio Typica of the Roman Missal and Breviary, 1962
(Baronius Press Limited, London, 2004, in conjunction with the Fraternal Society of St. Peter, www.baroniuspress.com)