Stephenmas

St. Stephen, First Martyr and Deacon (Dec 26)

It is telling that immediately after the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Dec 25), the Church chooses to remember and honor St. Stephen Protomartyr.

Why is that? Well, just as the First Martyr's day follows Our Lord's First Day, so we must be prepared to follow our Lord into martyrdom if we wish to honor His life and death.

A glance at the Rembrandt I've uploaded with this post, or at the biblical account of the martyrdom (Acts 6 & 7) reminds us of a young man named Saul. He held the cloaks of Stephen's murderers so that they would not get bloodied along with their hands. He approved the execution of the saint, and never really felt fully rehabilitated for his part in the crime. But he did convert when our Lord appeared to Him. The Bible doesn't say so, but it isn't farfetched to imagine that Stephen's peaceful, even eager, embrace of a holy death haunted Saul. Christ's blood, mediated through Stephen's bloody witness, brought about Saul's redemption, conversion into Paul, and sanctification into St. Paul.

As we witness and remember the birth of Our Lord in these eight days of His octave, let our witness transform us, and by His grace transform those who witness us.

St. Stephen, servant of the Gospel and first to lay down your life for it, pray that like thee, we might be blessed to lay down our lives daily in service to Christ. Amen.