Not having grown up Catholic, I never understood the beginning of the carol “Good King Wenceslas.” If you remember, it starts out- “Good King Wenceslas looked out/On the Feast of Stephen…” It’s a lovely carol about the “good” king reaching out to help a poor man on a cold winter’s night. Kind of diaconal in its way. My main memory of the tune, however, is from a Sprite commercial about the soda's taste being “crisp and clear and even” and being like a “limon.”
In those days, I had no idea what the Feast of Stephen was, only that it was in the winter around Christmastime. This was the result of the Sprite commercial. Of course, for me then, Christmas was a day, not a season. Even as a fairly small child, Christmas always resulted in an anticlimax. As it turns out, Santa Claus is pretty thin gruel.
As a priest friend of mine humorously likes to say, "Today is throw a rock at a deacon day."
It's beautiful to celebrate Christmas as a season. While celebrating the birth of our Lord, it's nice to observe several beautiful feasts. The first of these is today’s feast, the Feast of Stephen. Along with Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, Stephen is revered by the Church as one of her first deacons.1
The twofold criteria set forth by the apostles for those to be set apart for service was that they be filled with the Holy Spirit and with wisdom.2 So, the primitive Jerusalem community, before it was dispersed due to persecution, selected these seven men. Their immediate charge was to ensure the just distribution of resources to the widows, who were dependent on the community.
Of the seven men named in the sixth chapter of Acts of the Apostles, we only subsequently hear about two of them. Philip, who relocated to Samaria because of persecution, and Stephen. Philip continued preaching the Gospel, baptizing those who believed, and casting out evil spirits and healing in Jesus’ name.3
Stephen, “filled with grace and power,” we are told, worked “great wonders and signs among the people.”4Like Philip, he continued to boldly bear witness to Jesus Christ. Unlike Philip, he didn’t flee Jerusalem and faced the full force of persecution.
The Stoning of Saint Stephen, Rembrandt's first signed painting, 1625
One has to ask, “Did God save, or rescue, Stephen?” The answer is “Yes.” Stephen grasped the teaching of Jesus that urges those who would be his followers not to fear those who can destroy the body but not your soul.5 As a result, at the instigation of one Saul of Tarsus, a very zealous Pharisee, Stephen became the first Christian martyr.
Like our Lord himself, far from condemning those who killed him, he pleaded for God to be merciful to them. This is set forth beautifully in the Collect for today’s feast:
Grant, Lord, we pray,I often wonder what role Stephen’s witness played in Saul’s conversion. For it was this same Saul, whose first appearance in scripture is at the stoning of Stephen, who later, under his Roman name and the office given him because of his encounter with the risen Lord, came to be known as Paul, the apostle.
that we may imitate what we worship
and so learn to love even our enemies6
I often wonder what role Stephen’s witness played in Saul’s conversion. For it was this same Saul, whose first appearance in scripture is at the stoning of Stephen, who later, under his Roman name and the office given him because of his encounter with the risen Lord, came to be known as Paul, the apostle. It bears recalling that the apostle himself would die a martyr’s death in Rome.
Please permit me a personal note on this feast. My middle name from birth is Stephen. Stephen is my father's name. Therefore, when I converted, I didn’t feel I needed to take a saint’s name. As far as I was concerned, I already had not only a Christian name, but a wonderful Christian name. I suppose this may also have been an indication of my own vocation, though at that time it did not even enter my mind.
In Greek, martyr simply means “witness.” Among Ukrainian Catholics, a small community of whom I was privileged to serve over the course of a few years at the Cathedral, everyone who attends a baptism is given what is called a “martyr’s pin.” These pins, which you put on your lapel, feature a blue and gold ribbon. You are given this because, being present at someone’s paschal death, burial, and resurrection, you are a witness, like Stephen was a witness, like Paul was a witness, to the saving power of God. Baptism is the sacrament of Christian life.
I started by quoting a carol and so I will end by quoting one. My ending citation, the chorus of well-known hymn, is one that urges us to bear witness, one that exhorts us to proclaim the Gospel of the Lord and to glorify him by our lives:
Go, tell it on the mountain
Over the hills and everywhere
Go, tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born!
1 Acts 6:5.↩
2 Acts 6:3.↩
3 See Acts 8:4-38.↩
4 Acts 6:8.↩
5 Matthew 10:28.↩
6 Roman Missal, Proper of Saints, 26 December, Saint Stephen, the First Martyr.↩
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