December 26 – St Stephen, First Martyr (Feastday)

Antiphons at Lauds - Sunday of 1st Week

1. My soul adjoins yours, my God; my body was stoned for your love.

2. Stephen saw heaven open: he saw it open and entered therein: blessed is this man for whom heaven opened.

3. I am seeing heaven open, and Jesus on the right hand of God.

It is not right that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, choose from among yourselves seven men of good repute, full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word. These words pleased the whole multitude.

Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people. Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke. Then they induced men to give false evidence and they said: "We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses, and against God." And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council, and set up false witnesses who said: "This man does not cease speaking blasphemous words against this Temple and the Law: for we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this Temple, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us." And all that sat in the council, looking stedfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.

Then the high priest said: "Are these things so?" Stephen said: "Men, brethren, and fathers, listen to me. Our fathers had the Tabernacle of Witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking to Moses, that he should make it in the form he had seen. Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers, to the days of David, who found favour before God, and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built him a house. However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says: ‘Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will you build me, says the Lord, or where shall I rest? Have not all these things been made by my hand?’

"You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you have always resisted the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so are you also doing. Who of the prophets have your fathers not persecuted? They have slain those who prophesied before of the coming of the Just One, whom you have now the betrayed and murdered. Indeed you, who have received the Law by the disposition of the Angels, and have not kept it."

When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. But Stephen, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly towards heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. And he said: "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul. And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." And he knelt down, and cried with a loud voice, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." And when he had said this, he gave up his soul.

Saul was fully consenting about his death.

The Church was still in her infancy when Stephen, renowned for his virtues, received from the Apostles the mission to organise the meals where the poor were fed in common. He worked such great wonders and signs among the people that the Jews from five different synagogues became alarmed and summoned him before the Sanhedrin.

Jesus had chided the Jews for having killed and stoned the prophets; Stephen in his turn, addressing his judges declared that in crucifying Christ they had shown themselves worthy of fathers who put to death the messengers of God. The holy deacon then lifting his eyes to heaven said that he saw the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God. This is indeed a splendid testimony to the Divinity of this Child now being venerated in the crib.

On hearing these words the Jews with one accord ran violently upon Stephen and stoned him. Falling on his knees, he commended his soul to Jesus and asked pardon for his executioners.

Stephen is the first of the witnesses of Christ: it is therefore only right that he should appear first in the glorious procession of saints who surround the cradle of the Saviour. It is a tendency noticeable in Greek martyrology of the 4^th century to connect the greatest of the New Testament saints with the feast of the Nativity. Following after the example of Stephen, may we love by charity those who wrong us and be ever ready to surrender our life for Christ.

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