St. Nicholas

The historical evidence about St. Nicholas is relatively scarce. He is said to have been bishop of Myra (in what is present-day Turkey) in the fourth century. His body was moved to Bari, Italy in 1087 by Italian sailors and merchants and is still venerated there today. He is reputed to have been at the Council at Nicaea in 325 and to have confronted the heretic bishop Arius, although the evidence for this is less solid.

Nicholas was bishop of Myra during a time of famine. At one point, things got really grim, and the people were starving. This meant equally grim times for the local butcher, who had no source of meat. According to the story, he killed three young boys, pickled them, and put them in a vat. Or, in a version we have made into a play that the children of the parish love to perform, he kills the boys and runs them through his sausage machine to serve to his customers. Nicholas arrives on the scene just in the nick of time, and reverses the crank of the machine, sending the fresh sausage backwards and miraculously restoring the boys to life. Here, we see Nicholas as the patron saint of children.

The Holy Innocents

These are the children mentioned in St. Matthew, ii, 16-18:
"When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what hed been spoken throught the prophet Jeremiah: 'A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.'"

All we know is that the infants were slaughtered within two years following the apparition of the star to the Wise Men. The Church venerates these children as martyrs; they are the first buds of the Church killed by the frost of persecution; they died not only for Christ, but in his stead. In connection with them, St. Matthew recalls the words of the Prophet Jeremiah speaking of the lamentation of Rachel. At Rama is the tomb of Rachel, representative of the ancestresses of Israel. There the remnants of the nation were gathered to be led into captivity. As Rachel, after the fall of Jerusalem, from her tomb wept for the sons of Ephraim, so she now weeps again for the male children of Bethlehem. The lamentation of Rachel after the fall of Jerusalem receives its eminent completion at the sight of the downfall of her people, ushered in by the slaughter of her children.