The Feast of Holy Innocents

I spent a lovely forty-five minutes today with a friends five day old baby in my arms and I can't think of a better thing to do on the feast of innocents.  Those tiny hands and features.  The deep sleep of an infant.  So precious and vulnerable.  So beautiful.  

It made it so much harder to read Jeremiah and Matthew this evening with the boys.  To talk about Herod's evil plan to kill all the wee boys after introducing them to such a beautiful baby boy this afternoon was very appropriately difficult.  

I found Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals under the tree on Christmas morning and have been enjoying using it for morning prayer.  Each day's morning prayer is a perfect length for a mama who is trying with difficultly to carve out space and is at times interrupted.  We've been following the scripture readings listed through the feast days of Christmas as a family in the evening.  I'm really loving that I begin and end my day with the same scriptures.