Patrick Comerford
On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me … ‘two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree’.
Christmas is not over; this is the second day of Christmas and today is Saint Stephen’s Day, the feast of Saint Stephen the deacon and first martyr. This is also the second day of Hanukkah this year.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Matthew 10: 17-22 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 17 ‘Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. 19 When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; 20 for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21 Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; 22 and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.’
Today’s Reflection:
The Gospel reading in the lectionary for the Eucharist today tells us nothing about the martyrdom of Saint Stephen. Instead, the story of his martyrdom is found in one of the other readings (Acts 7: 51-60).
It is more than 50 years since I was training to be a chartered surveyor with nd Jones Lang Wootton and the College of Estate Management in Reading University. One day, a file for an investment or development property in Dublin went missing. It was an important portfolio, and ought to have been filed under ‘S’ for ‘Saint Stephen’s Green.’
Eventually, the file was found under the letter ‘G’.
‘I filed it under ‘G’ for Green,’ the person who did the filing explained.
But for many Dubliners, it is probably not Saint Stephen’s Green, but ‘Stevenses Green,’ as in ‘Dr Stevenses Hospital’ and ‘Stevenses Day.’
I find it hard to call today ‘Boxing Day.’ For me, 26 December is always going to be Saint Stephen’s Day.
Stephen is a family name: my grandfather, father, eldest brother and a nephew were all baptised Stephen. But my reasons for insisting on retaining the name of Saint Stephen’s Day is not some quirky genealogical sentimentality or some displaced filial loyalty.
It is theologically important to remind ourselves on the day after Christmas Day of the important link between the Incarnation and bearing witness to the Resurrection faith.
Saint Stephen’s Day today [26 December], Holy Innocents’ Day (28 December), and the commemoration of Thomas à Beckett on 29 December are reminders that Christmas, far from being surrounded by sanitised images of the crib, angels and wise men, is followed by martyrdom and violence. Close on the joy of Christmas comes the cost of following Christ. A popular expression, derived from the leading 17th century Quaker William Penn, says: ‘No Cross, No Crown.’
Saint Stephen the Deacon is the Protomartyr of Christianity. The Greek word or name Στέφανος (Stephanos) means ‘crown’ or ‘wreath’ and the Acts of the Apostles tell us that Saint Stephen earned his crown at his martyrdom when he was stoned to death around the year 34 or 35 CE by an angry mob encouraged by Saul of Tarsus, the future Apostle Paul.
Stephen was the first of the seven deacons chosen in the Apostolic Church in Jerusalem. While he was on trial, Saint Stephen experienced a theophany: But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’ (Acts 7: 55-56).
The Lion’s Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem is also known as Saint Stephen’s Gate because of the tradition that Saint Stephen was stoned there. In 415 CE, a church was built in Saint Stephen’s honour in Jerusalem to hold his relics. The relics were later moved to Constantinople. Today, those relics are said to be buried under the altar of the Church of San Lorenzo fuori le Mura in Rome.
The ‘Feast of Stephen’ is inextricably linked with Christmas through the English carol Good King Wenceslas, although during my recent visits to Prague, I have been aware that the Czechs have a far better claim than the English to Good King Wenceslas.
Today is a public holiday in the United Kingdom as Boxing Day. But as Saint Stephen’s Day, today is still a public holiday in Ireland and many other countries, including Australia, Austria, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, and parts of France, the Philippines and Spain. In the Orthodox Church, Saint Stephen’s Day is celebrated on 27 December, and is known the ‘Third Day of the Nativity.’
Saint Stephen Walbrook, a Wren church in the heart of the City of London, has been listed by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as one of the 10 most important buildings in England. A stained-glass window in Lichfield Cathedral, depicting the martyrdom of Saint Stephen.
Saint Stephen’s Church in Mount Street Crescent, Dublin – popularly known as the ‘Pepper Canister Church’ – is one of the last churches built in the classical style in Dublin. Saint Stephen’s, which opened in 1824, was designed by John Bowden and Joseph Welland. The tower and portico were modelled on three elegant monuments in Athens: the Erechtheum on the Acropolis (the portico), the Tower of the Winds (the campanile), and the Monument of Lysicrates (the cupola). But the Victorian apse, which was added in 1852, owes its inspiration to the Oxford Movement.
However, the most impressive church I have visited that is named after the first martyr is the Stephansdom, the Cathedral of Saint Stephen, in Vienna, which dates back to 1147.
I first visited the Stephansdom many years ago, while I was a panellist at a seminar organised by the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna in 2002, and have I returned to visit the cathedral a number if times since then.
A memorial tablet there recalls Mozart’s relationship with the cathedral. This was his parish church when he lived at the ‘Figaro House’, he was married there and two of his children were baptised there. He was named an adjunct music director in the Stephansdom shortly before his death, and his funeral was held in the Chapel of the Cross in the cathedral in 1791.
The Stephansdom has 23 bells, and it is said Beethoven realised the full extent of his deafness when he saw birds flying from the bell tower and realised he could not hear the bells toll.
I have also visited Saint Stephen’s House, the theological college in Oxford popularly known as ‘Staggers,’ which is firmly rooted in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, maintaining high standards of liturgy and intellectual rigour.
Saint Stephen’s House was founded in 1876 by leading Anglo-Catholics members of the Anglo-Catholic Movement, including Edward King, then Regius professor of Pastoral Theology at Oxford and later Bishop of Lincoln.
King was one of the outstandingly holy men of his time. Other founding figures included Henry Scott Holland, one of the leading figures in the development of the Christian social teaching of the time. It was he who suggested the name of the house.
Saint Stephen’s has moved since its foundation, and since 1980 has been located at Iffley Road in East Oxford in the former monastery of the Cowley Fathers, where it is said Dietrich Bonhoeffer decided to return to Germany where he met with martyrdom.
Bonhoeffer’s martyrdom illustrates how none of this architecture or grandeur, nor the extension to the Christmas holiday provided by this saint’s day, would have any meaning today without the faithful witness of Saint Stephen, the first deacon and first martyr, who links our faith in the Incarnation with our faith in the Resurrection.
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 26 December 2024, Saint Stephen’s Day):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Love – Advent’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections by the Revd Lopa Mudra Mistry, Presbyter in the Diocese of Calcutta, the Church of North India (CNI).
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 26 December 2024, Saint Stephen’s Day) invites us to pray:
Father God, as we bask in the joy of your coming may we remember at this time of year that many are lonely and suffering. Be with them O Lord.
The Collect:
Gracious Father,
who gave the first martyr Stephen
grace to pray for those who took up stones against him:
grant that in all our sufferings for the truth
we may learn to love even our enemies
and to seek forgiveness for those who desire our hurt,
looking up to heaven to him who was crucified for us,
Jesus Christ, our mediator and advocate,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Merciful Lord,
we thank you for the signs of your mercy
revealed in birth and death:
save us by the coming of your Son,
and give us joy in honouring Stephen,
first martyr of the new Israel;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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