December 28 marks the Feast of Holy Innocents. We don’t celebrate this day; we commemorate it. Herod ordered the slaughter of boys (Christianity’s first martyrs) aged two years and younger when he realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi. The eternal king who was prophesied by Jeremiah was still alive and a threat to the evil Herod.

And here we are over two thousand years later, and the innocence is still being stolen from our children. Humanity as a whole never learns anything. In 2024, only rare individuals think like the “Three Wise Men” to protect our children, our Holy Innocents.

So on this somber day, when I mourn innocence lost in a continuum that has never been broken, I crochet a toy mermaid for an Innocent because she loves mermaids and claims to be one herself. And I pray for her, that she can hold on to the innocence of childhood a little while longer. That the Magi in her life will protect her with their wisdom.

It’s my prayer, and I place my faith On High because humans have failed the Innocents since time immemorial.

God bless you, little girl. God bless you and all the children of the world.