The life of each child, cut short at birth, does not matter; the pain of their mother, father, and siblings does not matter.
On December 28th, we remember the Holy Innocents, the unwilling protagonists of the tragedy known to the world as the “Massacre of the Innocents.” During the reign of King Herod the Great, the Magi arrived in Jerusalem searching for the "King of the Jews," just born. Upon learning of the birth of the Messiah, Herod asked the Magi to inform him of his exact location, pretending he too wanted to worship him – but actually planning to eliminate him. However, the Magi never returned to him with the requested information, having been warned in a dream of the danger. The Gospel of Matthew continues the account of what happened after the "betrayal" of the Magi by the king:
“Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more’” (Matthew 2:16-18).
The Massacre of the Innocents tells of the slaughter of dozens of innocent children with no political role, killed by the power-hungry thirst of a king whose blind greed knew no bounds. It tells a sadly timeless story: the bloody history of political balances that, when held by figures filled with hatred toward any possible obstacle to their plans for domination, crush without remorse under their strategies hundreds and thousands of innocent lives, with civilians – and especially children – being the terrible emblem.
Herod, in order to preserve his power, must kill “the King of the Jews” who has been born and poses a threat to his hegemonic role in the region; to do so, he shows no qualms about condemning all children of his age to death, to ensure he does not let the child slip away. The single life of the children, cut short at birth, does not matter; the pain of their mother, their father, their siblings does not matter.
In the grand strategic plan involving the greatest international powers, the cry of Mohamed Abuel-Qomasan does not matter. On August 13, 2024, he went to register his newborn twin children at the registry office, only to return in time to witness the massacre of his family in the rubble of Gaza. The wishes and dreams of the four children who died under an airstrike in the Deir al-Balah refugee camp along with their mother do not matter, nor do those of all the children who fell under bombs that struck several school-shelters in the Strip.
In Deir al-Balah, another child screams in pain: Rahab weeps for her mother and sister, but no one hears her voice, drowned out by the speeches of international leaders; we do not hear the voice of Adnan, who at eight years old has learned in Tyre the sound of bombs and breaking glass from a house exploding, nor that of Shireen, who fled Kafra to Beirut and still sees the darkness and fear in her dreams.
Yet these small voices deserve to be heard: the innocents of our time deserve to be seen, to be mourned, and to help us with their fragile strength to recognize hope even when it seems so small that it is almost impossible to recognize. We at Pro Terra Sancta have met children so strong they seem older, older than the immense tragedies surrounding them every day: children who have taught us that despair is never a true option for those who live every day in situations so terrible they seem, for those privileged enough not to know them firsthand, inconceivable, impossible.
Yet for many, they are reality: the only one they know, the only one they have to cultivate dreams, desires. For Maria, playing on the Terra Sancta College football team in Aleppo is not an incredible act of courage and rebellion, but it is her daily life, her way of living her passions and her youth. For Layla, learning to swim in the pool at the Hogar Niño Dios is not a private revolution, but a small personal achievement, just as the verses Rahab composes to process her pain are.
And it is precisely this naturalness that makes each of these children an example of hope, each of their actions a true revolution: one of those that rise from the ground, unaware of their historical and human significance, and for this reason profoundly sincere, powerful, and unstoppable.
