THE HOLY INNOCENTS, MARTYRS (Feast) Red

First Reading: 1Jn 1:5-2:2; Psalm: 124 R. v. 7ab; Gospel: Mt 2:13-18

THE EVIL OF UNBRIDLED AMBITION

BY FR VALENTINE NNAMDI EGBUONU, MSP

The story of the Holy Innocents reminds us of how cruel the heart of man can be. The length we can go to achieving our selfish ambitions. In this story, we see the evil of achieving a goal by all means. And at the end of the day, the innocent suffers for what they know nothing about. If King Herod wasn’t power drunk or too ambitious to retain the throne uncontested, these babies wouldn’t have been killed in this gruesome manner. Couldn’t Herod have thought of other ways to handling his ambitious appetite? Why go this way of evil?

The personality of Herod, his mentality of leadership workings and the machineries he employed to implementing his plans mirrors the style of operation adopted by some political leaders of our world today. Thuggery, killings, arson, bribery and several other evil means are usually the familiar patterns followed by most political leaders today in retaining or getting to power. The poor innocent citizens at the end of the day become victims of circumstance. When we are overly ambitious, we become exposed to doing the unthinkable.

Often times, the evil paths we toe to achieving our ambitious goals end up failing. What then do we gain? Herod failed in his mission to kill the baby Jesus. Sometimes we also fail in achieving our selfish goals after committing all sorts of atrocities. And we would have to live with the evil we committed for rest of our lives. Taking of human life is the greatest evil. And we shall all pay for every evil we commit if we do not repent from them. God calls us today to desist from evil as we pursue our individual goals because the cry of the innocent reaches his ears.  

PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Lord God, may we see in each other a reflection of ourselves so that we may love and care for one another as we ought to. Amen.