Merry Christmas to all!
Today begins the Childermas Octave ("childer" being an archaic form of "child" and a cognate of the German word "kinder"), commemorating the martyrdom of the Holy Innocents. Cardinal Gasquet wrote about how St. Philip used to greet the students of the Venerable English College in Rome with the first line of the Lauds hymn of the Holy Innocents, Salvete flores martyrum ("Hail ye flowers of the martyrs!"). This was of course referencing the sweet fate of many English priests, who obtained the martyr's crown during the persecutions in Elizabethan England.
Proud indeed must be every son of the Roman Alma Mater at the thought of the heroic sufferings and deaths of so many of the old students of the Venerabile, and of the fact that the very foundations of the College were washed, as it were, by the blood of the many martyrs who went forth as priests from its walls to help to preserve the Catholic religion in England. They were true heroes in every sense of the word, knowing as they did that they were preparing themselves in their college life for certain persecution and possible death, in the exercise of their ministry in England. This is why the sweet St. Philip, who lived close to the College, on meeting them in the streets was wont to salute them with the words of the hymn for the feast of the Holy Innocents, Salvete Flores Martyrum.
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