Artwork titled: The Triumph of the Holy Innocents by William Holman Hunt, 1883.
In the Catholic Church, on December 28th we pledge our devotion and commemoration of the Holy Innocents. These are the children who were slaughtered by King Herod as Jesus escaped the danger of Bethlehem. I have experienced my own brush with a holy innocent. I am honored and blessed to have been a witness to this miracle.
On my trip to Haiti in 2016, I remember the fun I, and the others in our group, had caring for the babies and toddlers at the school and convent there. As a preschool teacher, I had many tools to comfort, care for and entertain young children. We got to see a very different life; one filled with pain and hardship — but with the bright light of joy and faith in God. I was humbled every time I put on my (proverbial) rescue cap — then took it off again as I saw how the nuns cared for the children’s every need so capably, plus handled the added burden or our ” help”.
On the first day of my time in the after care hospital, I was given a three-month old infant – think starvation with distended stomach and scrawny limbs — i was ‘christened’ immediately as she emptied her bowels on herself and me. I quickly changed clothes and continued rotating among the thirty cribs in the infant room, circling back to this needy infant again and again. later in the day, after lunch, Josephina was crying, her tiny desperate whine. I picked her up and cradled her gently. I rocked and hummed a lullaby to her. The nun in charge suggested I try to feed the infant again with the syringe they used to feed her. She took some, then threw it up, so I just held her and walked around the room, smiling at the other infants and patting some of them dozing off to sleep. I kept humming to Josephina and silently saying a little prayer for her comfort.
Eventually, I notice Josephina had stopped breathing. I rubbed her back a little, but she did not respond. I went to the nun in charge and said, “She has stopped breathing.” A tear trembled at my eye lid, but I tried not to weep. The mother nun came in and took Jamesina. She confirmed the child had died and asked me if I wanted to watch as she tenderly cleaned and redressed the infant in a white gown. She wrapped her in a blanket, while she told me the story or this young child whose life had been only misery.
Jamesina was the seventh or eighth child of a woman who was a drug addict and by that time, mentally unstable. She was born without medical help in a filthy habitat that could not even be considered a home. The mother threw Jamesina (who had a rope tied around her waist), into a ditch and left her there to die. Jameina had been rescued and placed in the hospital. She was previously at the Sister’s after care facility, but grew ill and was returned to the hospital. Now, this beautiful child had died in the arms of me – a stranger who had the privilege of loving her and praying for her for a very small amount of time.
That trip opened my eyes to the gift of life and the gift of death, when that tiny child (Josephina Jameson) died in my arms, I grieved for her, for the loss of her potential and for the suffering she endured during her short life. God took care of her in life and brought her tiny soul to him in death. Yet, the joy that must be happening in heaven, for such a one is newly born as an angel.
I have contemplated this event often, prayed for Jamesina as her memory reappears. I wrote this poem for her and for the rest of us who can only try to be as worthy as she.
Who will cry for Jamesina Joseph?
How do you honor someone so tiny, so young, so vulnerable?
How do you give them their due, without making it about you?
Which words will work the magic needed to create a lasting image
of her tiny legs and arms, her large luminous eyes and solemn expression?
How do you share the devastation of her life while showing her strength in living one more day? In that way she did honor God.
She provided an example of sainthood just by being alive, by being willing to survive her street birth, the brutality perpetrated against her and the ongoing suffering from physical pain and abandonment.
Yet, she allowed mere strangers to provide comfort and nourishment to her three-month-old, ravaged and wasted body. Transforming broken into beauty, she became a receptacle for acts of mercy designed to offer graces to those who respond.
It is our gain to have been graced by her presence, to have had the opportunity to minister to her needs, to smile into her somber face.
—And, it becomes about us again.
Our take-away is that each and every day, we need to be the best version of ourselves in order to honor, to merit, to live up to, the caliber of this guiltless Haitian child.
Haiti, June 2018
Later that year, my spouse and I traveled to Israel on a pilgrimage with our priest and about twenty other people. Below the Church of the Nativity, it is possible to visit the Chapel of the Holy Innocents. I had not realized I carried that child with me the whole of the year — remembering and praying for her. It was in that chapel that our group held Mass and after, I stood with Jimmy Dunn and Barb Chirinos to pray and give up Jamesina’s spirit to God. May she rest in peace.
“The Massacre of the Holy Innocents is far from an easy topic, especially within art. But William Holman Hunt has given us a masterful rendition of this tragedy, uniting the martyrdom of these infants with the peace and glory of Christ. Join us, as we dive into this brilliant piece. ” ~ William Holman Hunt
Check out the Youtube below to hear more about the Holy Innocents.
Resources:
The Triumph of the Innocents, William Holman Hunt, 1883 Produced by Zac Brakefield Written & Narrated by Peter Gohn Music by Scott Buckley & Saverio Blasi. See: Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5sQoNPQqJU
The Chapel of the Holy Innocents, at: https://thecatholictraveler.com/the-chapel-of-the-holy-innocents-in-bethlehem/
William Holman Hunt art: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/william-holman-hunt-the-triumph-of-the-innocents-r1105610