The Catholic Calendar for Tuesday, December 26, 2000
St. Stephen, the first martyr of the Church
Details: www.christdesert.org/public_texts/martyrology/
Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Acts 6:8-10;7:54-59
Psalm 31:3-4,6-8,17,21
Matthew 10:17-22
Full text: http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/index.htm
A Reflection on Today's Scripture:
How fitting that the day following the Feast of the Incarnation, we
should celebrate the feast of the first Christian martyr, the Deacon,
Stephen. Within an hour of a special vision of Jesus Christ in glory
with the Father, Stephen sees Jesus "in the flesh" in the presence of
the Father and the Holy Spirit. This is a startling linkage of
innocence with violence, and of pain with joy. How inseparable they
are!
St. Paul must have been haunted by that radiant face of Stephen,
reflecting the light of Truth and Beauty. Perhaps even then there was
an unexplainable deepening of Paul's own longing for Truth that would
culminate in the flash of Light which blinded his physical eyes, but
gave clear vision to the eyes of his soul.
Stephen's martyrdom set off a wave of persecution for Christians. It
were as though the face of Christ was mirrored a thousand times in
the joy-filled faces of His followers going to their deaths. "The
blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians", Tertullian wrote. May
the present-day persecution, imprisonment, and deaths of hundreds of
Christians be the seed of a renewal of faith in Christ throughout
2001!
--Msgr. Paul Whitmore ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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