Daily Reflections ...

The Feast of the Holy Innocence commemorates the death of all of the children in Israel who were killed by Herod in his attempt to kill the baby Jesus.

This tragedy is a sign of the incredible depth of evil in our world. Human beings are capable of some of the most atrocious crimes, even the genocide of innocent babies, crimes which we still see today.

Yet, it is not as if there are certain people who have this incredible potential for evil and others who don’t. As broken as King Herod was, he had just as much potential for good as he did for evil. And as holy as many of the Saints were, they had just as much potential for evil as they did for good. We are not born with a particular disposition. We have free will.

The advantage that we have in modern times is that we can look back on the different patterns of history and see what good has been done and what evil has been done, and their effects. Our free will is informed in a way that no other generation has been informed, yet still evil and war persist.

God desires for us to live in the fullness of goodness, beauty, and truth, but it is our free will decision as to whether we want to embrace those gifts.

Today, let’s consider in what ways, we might be resisting the good that God wants us to choose in our own lives. How can we do more? How can we learn to embrace what is right and have the courage to choose it?

Today we pray for God’s grace to always keep us on the right path, as individuals, and as a society. Amen.

by David Kruse