Two Less Lonely People
Homily on the Feast of St. Stephen; 2nd Day in the Octave of Christmas, 26 Dec 2024, DBPH Chapel
Merry Christmas to all of you! The joy of Christ’s birth remains in the air and his light continues to radiate from our hearts.
Today is the second day within the Octave of Christmas. And while we continue to kneel down in adoration before the crib of the Baby Jesus, we also honor St Stephen, the first of the disciples who shed his blood for the longed for Messiah.
It may be assumed that St. Stephen was born from a devout Jewish family because he knew his Scriptures very well. But nothing more is known about his previous life. What we know about him comes from the Acts of the Apostles. In this New Testament writing, he was mentioned as one of the seven deacons who were ordained by the Apostles for the ministry of distributing food and charitable aid to the poorer members of the community.
And so, having been filled with the Holy Spirit, Stephen began to exercise his ministry diligently, even way beyond anyone’s expectation. He did not only help in distributing food and other donated goods to the poor but he also started teaching God’s Word zealously and performing extraordinary signs and wonders in the midst of the people.
The crisis, however, came when certain members of the Synagogue felt uneasy, perhaps insecure, about the active presence of Stephen in their Jewish community, that they challenged him to a debate. Feeling humiliated and fuming mad because they could not defeat the wisdom of the holy man, they presented false accusations against him, thus dragging him to the Sanhedrin, and then eventually executing him to death by stoning.
Isn’t that so tragic? While we are still supposed to be celebrating the human birth of the Giver of Life, we are at the same time being made to recall the violent death of St Stephen, venerated today as the protomartyr of Christianity. I guess this is the irony of it all. While each and every one of us is born in this world to live, Jesus alone was born in order to die… die for our redemption from eternal death. Therefore, each of us, who had been reborn in Baptism, is also called to lay down our life for Him.
But the good news is this, that every time one Christian dies for Jesus Christ, our Savior, God is glorified, and many other sinners are born to new life in Him, thus making the Church, the mystical Body of Christ, grow stronger and bear fruit more abundantly. St. Stephen’s untimely death might have cut his amazingly beautiful ministry shorter than expected. But providentially, it led to the surprising conversion of the angry Pharisee named Saul into Christianity. He is the one who will later be known as St Paul, the apostle to the gentiles and the inspiring author of many epistles in the New Testament Bible.
Last night, at the end of the day, while sipping our freshly brewed coffee in the dining room, Fr Mario and I remembered one short line from a popular song: “two less lonely people in the world.” We were actually reviewing the day, reminiscing how we made two people happy on Christmas day, namely, Fr Tas who was left alone in Don Bosco Balamban, and the recently widowed Mam Dalen, a Salesian Cooperator who invited us for a dinner at their residence in Tisa. We realized how Christmas can truly turn people’s sadness into joy if only we make of ourselves a “present” or a gift to them.
We pray, therefore, in this Holy Mass that we may continue to receive devoutly in our hearts through Holy Communion God’s surpassing gift of Jesus, who in turn makes us become God’s amazing gift to others, especially to the lonely and the needy. GiGsss!
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