7th. Sunday of Eastertide, (Year C)
(Acts of the Apostles
7:55-60; Revelation 22:12-20; St. John’s Gospel 17:20-26)
Our readings today began with the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, the first Christian to die for witnessing to Jesus as Lord and Saviour, and ended with Our Blessed Lord’s most solemn prayer for Christian unity, through the knowledge and love of God being inspired into the hearts and minds of all true believers by Jesus’ gift of His Most Holy Spirit:
When the Advocate
comes, Whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds
from the Father, He will testify to Me. And
you also testify.
Our reading from the Acts
of the Apostles told us that:
Stephen, filled with
the Holy Spirit, looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God, and
Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
Saint Stephen was ‘filled
with the Holy Spirit’ for two reasons:
that he, Stephen, might have the courage and strength to give such
heroic testimony to Jesus, and that the Holy Spirit might perfect Stephen in
the likeness of his Lord and Saviour: for, battered, bruised, and bloodied, with
stones for testifying to Jesus, he breathed his last uttering words like Jesus’ own last words:
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit; do
not hold this sin against them.
The Holy Spirit, having
gradually formed Stephen in the likeness of Jesus enabled and allowed him to say
his, Stephen’s own version of Jesus’ ultimate prayer, as handed down to us in
the Gospels: (Luke 23: 46; John 19:30; Mt. 27:50)
Father, into Your hands I
commit My spirit.
Jesus bowed His head
and gave up His spirit.
Jesus yielded up
His spirit.
There we have, dear
People of God, the most perfect compendium of the work of the Holy Spirit in
Mother Church for Jesus: teaching and forming His disciples, her children, in the
likeness of their Lord and Saviour, Who Himself witnessed with incomparable
wisdom to the beauty of divine Truth, and died most sublimely for Love both
heavenly and humble-beyond-all-measure.
And the very first model we have of the Spirit’s artistry is
exemplified in Saint Stephen, the first martyr of Mother Church; Stephen, whose
very name witnesses to truth and beauty: a garland for Mother Church and
resplendent crown among witnesses to Jesus.
Again, dear People of God, notice how Paul of Tarsus learnt from that martyrdom of St. Stephen which he, a young and most fervent Rabbi-in-training, and ardent persecutor of Christians, witnessed and approved of. For, after his personal conversion when he himself was a prisoner in Rome for witnessing world-wide to Jesus, he wrote to the Christian converts at Colossae saying (3: 1-2):
If then you were
raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right
hand of God. Think of what is above, not
of what is on earth.
Which is exactly what he, years ago, had witnessed Stephen doing, for which very reason Stephen had been stoned to death.
And notice particularly what Paul as a Christian
apostle, taught those Colossians:
(Through baptism) you
have died, and your (true) life is hidden with Christ in God.
St. Paul the Christian
Apostle to the Nations, believed that that was what had ultimately happened to
Saint Stephen, for Stephen had indeed died witnessing to Jesus with God, in
heaven!
How the memory of that
incident had lodged itself in Paul’s own heart and mind: he was now praying that,
by the grace of God, the very same love and commitment would also come to blaze in the hearts
and minds of those Christian converts at Colossae:
You have died (to the world), and
your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Dear People of God, what sort of person was Stephen? I will give you a short summary of what led up to his martyrdom that you might judge for yourselves.
The Twelve called
together the community of the disciples and said, “It is not right for us to
neglect the word of God to serve at table. Brothers, select from among you seven
reputable men, filled with the Spirit and wisdom, whom we shall appoint to this
task, whereas we shall devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the
word.” The proposal was acceptable to the whole community, so they chose
Stephen, a man filled with faith and the holy Spirit, and six others. They presented these men to the apostles
who prayed and laid hands on them. The word
of God kept on spreading in Jerusalem, and Stephen, was performing great
wonders and signs among the people.
Stephen was brought --
on trumped-up charges -- before the Council, and he delineated for them
Israel’s spiritual history, ending with these words:
Which of the prophets
did your ancestors not persecute? They put to death those who foretold the
coming of the righteous one (Jesus), Whose betrayers and murderers you have now
become. You received the law as transmitted by angels, but you did not observe
it.” (Acts 7:52–53)
Stephen had his own
particular vocation from God, but all that we today are called to
imitate is his zealous commitment to his vocation. As regards his martyr’s witness to
Jesus, however, we are all called to want and hope to imitate such
Christian witness if that were to be God’s will for us.
Finally, there is this
aspect of Stephen’s relationship to and with Jesus of which we heard in our
second reading:
I John heard a voice saying
to me: Behold, I am coming soon. I bring with Me the recompense I will give to
each according to his deeds. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the
last, the beginning and the end.” Blessed
are they who wash their robes so as to have the right to the tree of life and
enter the city through its gates.
My dear friends in Christ, we know that Stephen has received his recompence from Jesus because we now know him as Saint Stephen, canonized by Holy Mother Church as one who followed Jesus most faithfully, little though he was in the original community in Jerusalem: just one of six chosen to serve at tables. That is truly encouraging and inviting for all disciples: for it means that everyone can be eligible as future witnesses to Jesus, because all that they will need are God’s gifts guaranteed for those who ask with the right dispositions: sure faith in and confirmed obedience to Jesus; firm confidence in His Spirit, our Advocate and Strength; full commitment to and love for the Father: Jesus’ Father, our (in Jesus) Father; and the Source from which proceeds the Most Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Strength, and God’s great Gift.
