Anglicans from all over Grenada will gather at the Church of the Holy Innocents, La Digue, St. Andrew this weekend for the Church’s Patronal Festival. The service will be held this Sunday (January 11, 2009) and begins at 3pm. It will be a service of Evensong, Procession, Benediction and the Blessing of Children and their toys. The Feast of Holy Innocents celebrates children and is rightly focused on them. The Anglican Church at La Digue, St. Andrew, is dedicated to the memory of these children who were slaughtered in the hunt for Baby Jesus. The resident Priest-with-oversight of the parish is the Rev. Canon Christopher Drakes, he is assisted by the former Archdeacon Clement Francis. The feast of Holy Innocents remembers the event in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago where all male children were killed in Herod’s attempt to destroy the baby Jesus. Jesus, as the Bible records, escapes this assassination attempt by being taken to Egypt by his parents who were fore-warned by an Angel. According to the Gospel of St. Matthew, when the Magi (popularly known as the "Three Wise Men") sought out the birth of Jesus, they first visited Herod the Great to ask if he knew the correct location. On hearing the Magi ask for ‘He that is born King of the Jews’, Herod, the Roman client king in Judea, feeling that his throne was in jeopardy, asked the Magi to find the child and return to tell him so that he may worship him, with the hidden intention of killing the identified child immediately. When the Magi, warned in dreams of the king's true intentions, returned home by a different route to avoid being forced to betray the child, Herod ordered the slaughter of all male children who were two years old and under. Fortunately, according to Matthew, Joseph, Mary and Jesus had fled to Egypt after they had been warned by an angel. INSIDE GRENADA NEWS