Menologion of Basil II.\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0There\u2019s Saint Stephen, who just saw the Son of Man standing at the Right Hand of God, on his knees on the sand, bleeding from a head wound and supplicating for his murderers. There\u2019s the aforementioned Right Hand of God reaching down from above the firmament and receiving his spirit, or\u00a0perhaps sending down a blessing. Probably both: that\u2019s what always happens when a martyr\u2019s blood is shed.<\/p>\nOn the other side of Stephen are two devout Jews, suspiciously dressed and shaven as if they were Byzantine Christian noblemen from tenth century Constantinople where the Menologion was written and illuminated. They are pelting Saint Stephen with nice round white lozenges; one of them has bounced off the martyr\u2019s head and landed at the root of a dead tree. Maybe this tree was just drawn in for symmetry\u2019s sake, but I think it\u2019s symbolic. Like the nails and crown lying at the foot of the cross in any picture of the Descent and Burial, we have the instrument of martyrdom falling in the blood spray at the root of a dead tree. If we were to come back to this scene tomorrow, perhaps we\u2019d find that the tree had budded and borne fruit again. That\u2019s what happens, whenever a martyr\u2019s blood is shed.<\/p>\n
And who\u2019s that to the side of these zealous Palestinian Jews who look suspiciously like Constantinople\u2019s Byzantine Christians? Just under the fortress, sitting genii-like on top of a pile of fluttering garments? With a white rock in his hand that could just be a scroll of scripture?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s Saul, of course\u2013 Saul, who would one day be baptized as Paul. Saul, worst of sinners, a devout Jew and a Roman citizen, named after\u00a0the failed king who tried to kill King David, is sitting there watching\u00a0the cloaks of the Jews as they stoned the martyr who preached them the Gospel of David\u2019s Heir. We should never forget that\u00a0the first appearance of this great apostle was when he acted as coat check boy for a lynch mob. Truly, through the intercession of the holy martyrs, there is hope for all of us.<\/p>\n
Saul didn\u2019t stone Saint Stephen. Saul\u00a0wasn\u2019t part of any mob. Saul just watched, and approved of those who did. \u00a0Stephen had broken The Law, after all; he certainly sounded like a blasphemer. This is what happens to blasphemers, and Saul approved. But he didn\u2019t do it himself.<\/p>\n
Later, Saul would get involved in a more active way, and then he\u2019d be struck blind.<\/p>\n
Saul, why do you persecute Me?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nWho are you, sir?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nI am Jesus, who you are persecuting.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nWe all should pray for the grace to be struck blind and to be asked, \u201cWhy do you persecute me?\u201d and told \u201cI am Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because, the fact is, we all do.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t all join in the mob, but I\u2019ll bet every one of us has stood by the pile of cloaks, and approved.<\/p>\n
Saul was just\u00a0watching\u00a0people doing what they thought they ought to do, of course. You can imagine him watching the proceedings with a smile and a nod of approval. Yes, this is just. A little zealous, perhaps, but just, and satisfying to watch. Go ahead. I\u2019ll watch your coat for you. I\u2019m not going to do this, but I\u2019m going to stand here as a silent testament that this ought to be done. I\u2019m going to smile and nod when it\u2019s over. These people broke the law. They should have done X, but they did Y. Save your pity for someone else.<\/p>\n
And next thing we know, we\u2019re going to Damascus to lead our brothers away in chains.<\/p>\n
May the Lord\u00a0make it impossible to ignore\u00a0our blindness any longer.<\/p>\n
Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nWho are you, sir? When did I see you? When did I see you hungry or naked or alone? When were you preaching Your life-giving Word to me, and I watched you stoned to death? When were You bullied or abused or made to go away because You were different and not what I expected, and I was relieved that You were gone? When did you come to me crying in pain, and I sent You away for disturbing my prayers with too much noise?\u00a0When did I see you begging in the street or sleeping on a park bench, and I voted for the politicians who would pass laws making it a crime for You to do so? When did I see you crossing the border illegally as a refugee, and approve when you were arrested and sent back to die? When were You killed by a drone or a bomb or a bullet, and I said \u201cone less thug\u201d or \u201cone less Arab?\u201d When were You aborted, and I said \u201cone less Welfare leech\u201d or \u201cone less anchor baby\u201d or \u201cNext time, use a condom?\u201d<\/p>\n
Those zealous Jews were painted to look like tenth century Byzantine Christians, because they are all of us. We, today, stone martyrs; we, today, stand by their cloaks and watch.<\/p>\n
May God make our blindness manifest, before it\u2019s too late. I pray this through the intercession\u00a0of Holy Martyr Stephen and the Holy Apostle Paul.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday, the Western Church celebrated the martyrdom of Saint Stephen. Today, it\u2019s our turn in the East. Here, we see a tenth\u00a0century painting of the event, from the Menologion of Basil II.\u00a0\u00a0There\u2019s Saint Stephen, who just saw the Son of Man standing at the Right Hand of God, on his knees on the sand, bleeding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2694,"featured_media":1980,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1698,865,1738,2132,124,626,627,501,628,897,824,739,860,1642,1641,1869,2146,550,651,519,14,283,263,929,896,59,71],"tags":[61,2525,2526,2522,2518,2517,2520,2519,2516,2515,2523,2521,2524,2210],"class_list":["post-1979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abortion","category-abuse","category-america","category-art-review","category-bible-story","category-christian-idenitity","category-christianity-and-judaism","category-compassion","category-conversion","category-cry-of-the-poor","category-daily-saints","category-death","category-diaconate","category-eastern-catholicism","category-eastern-christianity","category-empathy","category-human-dignity","category-icon","category-interpretation-of-scripture","category-mourn-with-those-mourn","category-prayer","category-pro-life","category-saints","category-saints-and-celebrations","category-social-justice","category-spiritual-abuse","category-suffering","tag-abuse","tag-approval","tag-cloaks","tag-david","tag-holy-martyr","tag-protomartyr","tag-right-hand","tag-rock","tag-saint-stephen","tag-saint-saint-paul","tag-saul","tag-son-of-man","tag-stoning","tag-tree"],"yoast_head":"\n
The Martyrdom Of St. Stephen<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yesterday, the Western Church celebrated the martyrdom of Saint Stephen. Today, it's our turn in the East. Here, we see a tenth\u00a0century painting of the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/12\/martyrdom-st-stephen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Martyrdom Of St. Stephen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yesterday, the Western Church celebrated the martyrdom of Saint Stephen. Today, it's our turn in the East. Here, we see a tenth\u00a0century painting of the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/12\/martyrdom-st-stephen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steel Magnificat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-12-27T19:45:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/664\/2016\/12\/512px-Menologion_of_Basil_039.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"512\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"349\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mary Pezzulo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mary Pezzulo\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/12\/martyrdom-st-stephen\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/12\/martyrdom-st-stephen\/\",\"name\":\"The Martyrdom Of St. Stephen\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-12-27T19:45:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-12-27T19:45:42+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#\/schema\/person\/eefd606fd6f98b01cd46b38fcead458b\"},\"description\":\"Yesterday, the Western Church celebrated the martyrdom of Saint Stephen. Today, it's our turn in the East. Here, we see a tenth\u00a0century painting of the\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/12\/martyrdom-st-stephen\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/12\/martyrdom-st-stephen\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/12\/martyrdom-st-stephen\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Martyrdom Of St. Stephen\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/\",\"name\":\"Steel Magnificat\",\"description\":\"Everything is grace\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#\/schema\/person\/eefd606fd6f98b01cd46b38fcead458b\",\"name\":\"Mary Pezzulo\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b65a50a237f24be80481c3e40cdc1c15?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b65a50a237f24be80481c3e40cdc1c15?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Mary Pezzulo\"},\"description\":\"Mary Pezzulo received her BA in English at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio. She came to Steubenville to earn a Master's degree in philosophy and Catholic bioethics from Franciscan University and had finished most of her course work before she suffered a chronic illness that derailed her university career. Since then, she's been learning from the school of hard knocks. Her essays on politics, faith, religious trauma, and life in Northern Appalachia, have been published in the Catholic Herald, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Convivium Journal, and the Feinschwarz theology blog. She has delivered lectures on the Uncanny in the field of aesthetics at the Power of Beauty Conference at Franciscan University, and the Terra Incognita Literary Gathering. Mary is the author of Stumbling into Grace: How We meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy, published by Ave Maria Press, which was awarded second place in Catholic Social Teaching from the Catholic Media Awards. She has also written Meditations on the Way of the Cross and The Sorrows and Joys of Mary for Apocryphile Press.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/author\/mpezzulo\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Martyrdom Of St. Stephen","description":"Yesterday, the Western Church celebrated the martyrdom of Saint Stephen. Today, it's our turn in the East. Here, we see a tenth\u00a0century painting of the","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/12\/martyrdom-st-stephen\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Martyrdom Of St. Stephen","og_description":"Yesterday, the Western Church celebrated the martyrdom of Saint Stephen. Today, it's our turn in the East. Here, we see a tenth\u00a0century painting of the","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/12\/martyrdom-st-stephen\/","og_site_name":"Steel Magnificat","article_published_time":"2016-12-27T19:45:42+00:00","og_image":[{"width":512,"height":349,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/664\/2016\/12\/512px-Menologion_of_Basil_039.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Mary Pezzulo","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Mary Pezzulo","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/12\/martyrdom-st-stephen\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/12\/martyrdom-st-stephen\/","name":"The Martyrdom Of St. Stephen","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-12-27T19:45:42+00:00","dateModified":"2016-12-27T19:45:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#\/schema\/person\/eefd606fd6f98b01cd46b38fcead458b"},"description":"Yesterday, the Western Church celebrated the martyrdom of Saint Stephen. Today, it's our turn in the East. Here, we see a tenth\u00a0century painting of the","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/12\/martyrdom-st-stephen\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/12\/martyrdom-st-stephen\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/12\/martyrdom-st-stephen\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Martyrdom Of St. Stephen"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/","name":"Steel Magnificat","description":"Everything is grace","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#\/schema\/person\/eefd606fd6f98b01cd46b38fcead458b","name":"Mary Pezzulo","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b65a50a237f24be80481c3e40cdc1c15?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b65a50a237f24be80481c3e40cdc1c15?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Mary Pezzulo"},"description":"Mary Pezzulo received her BA in English at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio. She came to Steubenville to earn a Master's degree in philosophy and Catholic bioethics from Franciscan University and had finished most of her course work before she suffered a chronic illness that derailed her university career. Since then, she's been learning from the school of hard knocks. Her essays on politics, faith, religious trauma, and life in Northern Appalachia, have been published in the Catholic Herald, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Convivium Journal, and the Feinschwarz theology blog. She has delivered lectures on the Uncanny in the field of aesthetics at the Power of Beauty Conference at Franciscan University, and the Terra Incognita Literary Gathering. Mary is the author of Stumbling into Grace: How We meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy, published by Ave Maria Press, which was awarded second place in Catholic Social Teaching from the Catholic Media Awards. She has also written Meditations on the Way of the Cross and The Sorrows and Joys of Mary for Apocryphile Press.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/author\/mpezzulo\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2694"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"512px-Menologion_of_Basil_039\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/664\/2016\/12\/512px-Menologion_of_Basil_039-300x204.jpg\")
<\/p>\n