From Silent Night To Silence

The most abrupt and shocking transition in the Roman Catholic Church's liturgical calendar occurs from December 25th to 26th, when the Church pivots from celebrating the birth of Jesus to marking the brutal stoning of St. Stephen. This liturgical mood swing between "mercy mild" and monstrous martyrdom is reinforced by the Church's memorial of the Holy Innocents massacred by Herod on December 28 and the murder in the Cathedral of the 12th century St. Thomas Becket on December 29.
Nothing seems more distant from "God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay" than the hatred and homicidal savagery directed against those who resemble or revere the Babe in swaddling clothes.

But we know that the same prophets who foretold that the "Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall name him Emmanuel" also prophesied that that Messiah would be a Suffering Servant who would be pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.