Catholic Activity: Celebrating the Holy Innocents

DIRECTIONS

Coventry Carol was sung in the fifteenth century Pageant of the Shearman and Tailors by the women of Bethlehem, just before Herod's soldiers came to slaughter their children:

Lulla, lulla, thou little tiny child,
By by, lully lullay.
Thou little tiny child,
By by, lully lullay
. . . Herod the king in his raging,
Charged he hath this day
His men of might
In his own sight,
All young children to slay. . . .

A seventeenth century Italian carol, Herod Dead, is again in keeping with the feast as is the lovely traditional German carol, Maria on the Mountain.

A birthday cake in honor of the birthday into heaven of the little saints would make a timely dessert. Mrs. Berger tells us that

German cooks created a Bavarian cream with either a strawberry or cherry sauce to symbolize the blood spilled. They felt that blanc-mange would be suitable for little children and grownups after too much Christmas feasting.

Activity Source: True Christmas Spirit by Rev. Edward J. Sutfin, Grail Publications, St. Meinrad, Indiana, 1955