Word to the Wise
Wednesday, December 26, 2007 - St. Stephen, first Martyr
[Acts 6:8-10; 7:54-59 and Matthew 10:17-22]You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved.
The day after Christmas is a rather sober one (in more than one way)! The feast of the first Christian martyr is celebrated. The implications of belief in the Word Made Flesh become clear. Both the Acts of the Apostles (relating the martyrdom of Stephen) and the Gospel of Matthew (warning the early community of persecution and trials) call us to attention. If we proclaim the Good News of Jesus' birth, we can count on it being "bad news" or at least threatening to some folks. In a couple of days we will see how threatening it could be when we read about the slaughter of the Holy Innocents (Dec. 28). Belief in the merit of martyrdom (some modern day Islamic suicide bombers hold this view) led enough early Christians to "turn themselves in" to the authorities that St.Polycarp had to admonish them not to do it lest the community be wiped out! St. Thomas Aquinas holds that martyrdom must be an act of love or it makes no sense at all. It is more than an act of courage. There are plenty of modern day martyrs: Archbishop Romero, Franz Jaegerstatter, the Maryknoll Sisters in El Salvador, the recent martyrs of the Spanish Civil War - so we cannot consign martyrdom to some ancient past. It is a matter of ultimate love. St. Paul says that a person might be willing to die for someone very worthy, but Christ died for us while we were sinners. Stephen had to believe that the faith was worth dying for. How much do we value it? That's a very sobering thought! AMEN
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