Lessons From St. Steven and St. John

There are many good reasons why you should pay attention to the homily at Mass or Sunday service when you go to listen to Lord speak through the minister of his word. One particular reason is so you can be instructed in how to live a good Christian life. Another reason to pay close attention, if you’re a writer, especially if you’re a Catholic or Christian writer, is that you can gain good material for your blog.

While attending morning mass after Christmas on the feast of Steven, I was happy to hear such a good homily that captured the essence of the feast day and the rest of the Christmas season. Seeing that the priest had written his homily down, I was going to ask him if I could get his copy so that I could use it for a blog post. Every Friday after 8:00 AM Mass at St. Mary’s in Cranston R,I, the priest celebrating has adoration and hears confessions after Mass.

So, I didn’t have a chance to ask him. I had asked him previously for a copy of a homily that he was going to give me at a later date, but I never did follow up on it. Seeing he wasn’t around to ask I took a picture of the pages of his homily with Kristin’s phone and then dictated it into my phone, edited it, added and expanded stuff to it. Here are the first few points he made about the feasts of St. Steven and St. John. If time permits amongst running around visiting people during the rest of the Christmas season, I’ll include the rest of the insights he gave.

Christmastide
Twelvetide
(Twelve Days of Christmastide).

Day 0 – Christmas Eve- December 24: St. Charbel of Lebanon a Mystic and Hermit who Loved the Eucharist. Our friend who converted to the Catholic church is now an postulant in a Marionette order that has a special devotion to this saint.

At the Commemoration of the Martyrs and Witnesses of the Faith of the 21st century  Mass on September 14, 2025, Pope Leo said this.

We are convinced that martyria unto death is “the truest communion possible with Christ who shed his Blood, and by that sacrifice brings near those who once were far off (cf. Eph 2:13)” (Encyclical Letter Ut Unum Sint, 84). Today too, we can affirm with John Paul II that, where hatred seemed to have permeated every aspect of life, these courageous servants of the Gospel and martyrs of the faith clearly demonstrated that “love is stronger than death” (Commemoration of the Witnesses of Faith in the Twentieth Century, 7 May 2000).

Many brothers and sisters, even today, carry the same cross as our Lord on account of their witness to the faith in difficult situations and hostile contexts: like him, they are persecuted, condemned and killed.  It is of them that Jesus says: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Mt 5:10-11).

They are women and men, religious, lay people and priests, who pay with their lives for their fidelity to the Gospel, their commitment to justice, their battle for religious freedom where it is still being violated, and their solidarity with the most disadvantaged. According to the world’s standards, they have been “defeated.” In truth, as the Book of Wisdom tells us: “though in the sight of others they were punished, their hope is full of immortality” (Wis 3:4).

The Feast of John the Evangelist reminds us that second responsibility of the Christian is evangelization.

It is what we call the church militant. These are two words are modern society fears. Militant and Evangelist. The reason is because these words have been associated with extremism and the way some Christians advertise their faith online this is an easy conclusion to come to.

“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” – Brennan Manning.

To be the church militant we must be evangelists. To be an evangelist we must be willing to share our faith with others. This is not an option. This is a requirement of the faith. To be an evangelist we must be willing to witness to God with our words and our lives. So, if we profess Jesus is Lord on our tongues at morning Mass every day and then gossip about our neighbors in the lunchroom at work, we have failed in our duty to be an evangelist.

The Joy of Theology

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. – John 1:1

The prologue of the fourth Gospel is itself a hymn, with the Word of God as its protagonist. The “Word” is a word that acts. This is a hallmark of God’s Word: it is never without effect. Indeed, many of our own words also have effects, sometimes unintended. Yes, words “act.” Yet here is the surprise that the Christmas liturgy presents to us: the Word of God appears but cannot speak. He comes to us as a newborn baby who can only cry and babble.

“The Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14). Though he will grow and one day learn the language of his people, for now he speaks only through his simple, fragile presence. “Flesh” is the radical nakedness that, in Bethlehem as on Calvary, remains even without words – just as so many brothers and sisters, stripped of their dignity and reduced to silence, have no words today. Human flesh asks for care; it pleads for welcome and recognition; it seeks hands capable of tenderness and minds willing to listen; it longs for words of kindness. -Pope Leo –Solemnity of Christmas – Holy Mass during the Day (25 December 2025)

Final Thoughts

You gain all types of knowledge and material for writing when you look around, stop and listen and pay attention to the world around you. To give up our lives for Christ is demonstrated very clearly in the Christmas season with the lives of St. Stephen and St. John.