All children young

From the beginning of the Russian war on Ukraine, the invading forces have targeted civilian institutions: apartment blocks, schools, hospitals. One of the earliest stories I read was about a maternity hospital in Kyiv that had been hit by Russian missiles; all those mothers, babies, doctors and nurses carrying on in darkness and rubble.

I think about that in this season, which—after all—is preparation for the birth of a child. Mary was far from home and the support of family, when her time came. Not only that, she wasn’t even in a house after days or weeks of traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem—she and Joseph pitched up at a stable. First pregnancy: unfamiliar surroundings, no relatives nearby; just animals and some random strangers.

That must have been incredibly weird, no?

So today we’re having a lullaby—a rather dark lullaby, because it’s about the Slaughter of the Innocents, in which Herod ordered the murder of all male infants under the age of two in Bethlehem. Vladimir Putin and Herod would have got along great; they have a common approach to maintaining power at any cost.

Because it’s a lullaby, I think “The Coventry Carol” is best sung by women, and the Irish group Anúna’s rendering fits that bill.

May mothers and babies around the would be spared the raging of madmen with weapons.