The Martyrdom Of St. Stephen Reflects Christ’s Own Humility And Victory Over Death!

 On the feast of St. Stephen, in the year of 2007, my dear mother passed away...

(Has it really been 18 years since her death??)

She was 92 years old and loved Our Lady to the end of her earthly life.

I remember -- on Christmas Day -- we, Kathy, James and I, visited her in the hospital...

We had a good time!

We laughed, played one of her favorite games, and I have to say, she was as "sharp as a tack"... No dementia for her!

I noticed on her little night table/tray, lay the Rosary, this, no doubt she prayed religiously -- all the way up to the end!  What a way to go to Our Lord!

As our visit ended, we said we'll be back on the 26th, but later on, Christmas night, the nurse called us about 10:30 or 11pm, stating that she had taken her last breath...

We weren't at her side, but she was in our prayers that night -- and always, to this present day...

I wanted to post an article from lifesitenews.com about the proto-martyr, St. Stephen, as my mom passed away on the feast of his great martyrdom.

Folks will recognize the author of the article: Dom Prosper Guéranger Fri Dec 26, 2025 - 12:01 am EST:  The martyrdom of St. Stephen reflects Christ’s own humility and victory over death - LifeSite

"(LifeSiteNews) — St. Peter Damian thus begins his sermon for this feast:

We are holding in our arms the Son of the Virgin, and are honoring, with our caresses, this our Infant God. The holy Virgin has led us to the dear Crib. The most beautiful of the Daughters of men has brought us to the most beautiful among the Sons of men, (Psalm 44:3) and the Blessed among women to Him that is Blessed above all. She tells us … that now the veils of prophecy are drawn aside, and the counsel of God is accomplished … Is there anything capable of distracting us from this sweet Birth? On what else shall we fix our eyes?

… Lo! while Jesus is permitting us thus to caress him; while he is overwhelming us with the greatness of these mysteries, and our hearts are riveted in admiration – there comes before us Stephen, full of grace and fortitude, doing great wonders and signs among the people. (Acts 6:8) Is it right that we turn from our King to look on Stephen, his soldier? No – unless the King himself bid us do so. This our King, who is Son of the King, rises … to assist at the glorious combat of his servant … Let us go with him and contemplate this standard-bearer of the martyrs.

The Church gives us, in today’s Office, this opening of a sermon of St. Fulgentius for the feast of St. Stephen:

Yesterday, we celebrated the temporal Birth of our eternal King: today, we celebrate the triumphant passion of his Soldier. Yesterday, our King, having put on the garb of our flesh, came from the sanctuary of his Mother’s virginal womb, and mercifully visited the earth: today, his Soldier, quitting his earthly tabernacle, entered triumphantly into heaven. Jesus, while still continuing to be the eternal God, assumed to himself the lowly raiment of flesh, and entered the battlefield of this world: Stephen, laying aside the perishable garment of the body, ascended to the palace of heaven, there to reign forever. Jesus descended veiled in our flesh: Stephen ascended to heaven amidst the shower of stones, because Jesus had descended on earth midst the singing of Angels.

Yesterday, the holy Angels exultingly sang, Glory be to God in the highest; today, they joyously received Stephen into their company … Yesterday was Jesus wrapped, for our sakes, in swaddling clothes: today was Stephen clothed with the robe of immortal glory. Yesterday a narrow crib contained the Infant Jesus: today the immensity of the heavenly court received the triumphant Stephen.

 Thus does the sacred liturgy blend the joy of Our Lord’s Nativity with the gladness she feels at the triumph of the first of her martyrs. Nor will Stephen be the only one admitted to share the honors of this glorious octave. After him, we shall have John, the Beloved Disciple; the Innocents of Bethlehem; Thomas, the Martyr of the Liberties of the Church; and Sylvester, the Pontiff of Peace.

But the place of honor amid all who stand round the crib of the newborn King belongs to Stephen, the protomartyr, who, as the Church sings of him, was “the first to pay back the Savior, the death suffered by the Savior.” It was just that this honor should be shown to martyrdom; for martyrdom is the creature’s testimony, and return to his Creator for all the favors bestowed on him: it is man’s testifying, even by shedding his blood, to the truths which God has revealed to the world.

In order to understand this, let us consider what is the plan of God, in the salvation He has given to man. The Son of God is sent to instruct mankind; He sows the seed of His divine word; and His works give testimony to His divinity. But after His sacrifice on the cross, He again ascends to the right hand of His Father; so that His own testimony of Himself has need of a second testimony, in order to its being received by them that have neither seen nor heard Jesus Himself.

Now, it is the martyrs who are to provide this second testimony; and this they will do, not only by confessing Jesus with their lips, but by shedding their blood for Him. The Church, then, is to be founded by the Word and the Blood of Jesus, the Son of God; but she will be upheld, she will continue throughout all ages, she will triumph over all obstacles, by the blood of her martyrs, the members of Christ: this their blood will mingle with that of their Divine Head, and their sacrifice be united to His.

The martyrs shall bear the closest resemblance to their Lord and King. They shall be, as He said, like “lambs among wolves.” (Luke 10:3) The world shall be strong, and they shall be weak and defenseless: so much the grander will be the victory of the martyrs, and the greater the glory of God who gives them to conquer.

The Apostle tells us that Christ crucified is “the power and the wisdom of God”; (1 Corinthians 1:24) – the martyrs, immolated, and yet conquerors of the world, will prove, and with a testimony which even the world itself will understand, that the Christ whom they confessed, and who gave them constancy and victory, is in very deed the power and the wisdom of God. We repeat, then – it is just that the martyrs should share in all the triumphs of the Man-God, and that the liturgical cycle should glorify them as does the Church herself, who puts their sacred relics in her altar stones; for thus the sacrifice of their glorified Lord and head is never celebrated without they themselves being offered together with Him in the unity of His Mystical Body.

Now, the glorious martyr-band of Christ is headed by St. Stephen. His name signifies the Crowned – a conqueror like him could not be better named. He marshals, in the name of Christ, the white-robed enemy, as the Church calls the martyrs; for he was the first, even before the apostles themselves, to receive the summons, and right nobly did he answer it.

Stephen courageously bore witness, in the presence of the Jewish Synagogue, to the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth; by thus proclaiming the truth, he offended the ears of the unbelievers; the enemies of God became the enemies of Stephen and, rushing upon him, they stoned him to death. Amid the pelting of the blood-drawing missives, he, like a true soldier, flinches not, but stands (as St. Gregory of Nyssa so beautifully describes it) as though snowflakes were falling on him, or roses were covering him with the shower of their kisses.

Through the cloud of stones, he sees the glory of God – Jesus, for whom he was laying down his life, showed Himself to His martyr, and the martyr again rendered testimony to the divinity of our Emmanuel, but with all the energy of a last act of love. Then, to make his sacrifice complete, he imitates his divine master, and prays for his executioners: falling on his knees, he begs that this sin be not laid to their charge.

Thus, all is consummated – the glorious type of martyrdom is created and shown to the world, that it may be imitated by every generation to the end of time, until the number of the martyrs of Christ shall be filled up.

Stephen sleeps in the Lord, and is buried in peace – in pace – until his sacred tomb shall be discovered, and his glory be celebrated a second time in the whole Church by that anticipated resurrection of the miraculous invention of his relics.

Stephen, then, deserves to stand near the crib of his King, as leader of those brave champions, the martyrs, who died for the divinity of that Babe, whom we adore. Let us join the Church in praying to our saint, that he help us to come to Our Sovereign Lord, now lying on his humble throne in Bethlehem. Let us ask him to initiate us into the mystery of that divine Infancy, which we are all bound to know and imitate.

It was from the simplicity he had learned form that mystery, that he heeded not the number of the enemies he had to fight against, nor trembled at their angry passion, nor winced under their blows, nor hid from them the truth and their crimes, nor forgot to pardon them and pray for them. What a faithful imitator of the Babe of Bethlehem! Our Jesus did not send His angels to chastise those unhappy Bethlehemites, who refused a shelter to the Virgin Mother, who in a few hours was to give birth to Him, the Son of David. He stays not the fury of Herod, who plots His death – but meekly flees into Egypt, like some helpless bondsman, escaping the threats of a tyrant lordling.

But it is under such apparent weakness as this that He will show His divinity to men, and He the Infant-God prove Himself the strong God. Herod will pass away, so will his tyranny; Jesus will live, greater in His crib, where He makes a king tremble, than is, under His borrowed majesty, this prince-tributary of Rome; nay, than Cæsar Augustus himself, whose worldwide empire has no other destiny than this – to serve as handmaid to the Church, which is to be founded by this Babe, whose name stands humbly written in the official registry of Bethlehem."

To read the remainder of Dom Guéranger’s reflection on the Feast of St. Stephen, see the Ecu-Men website HERE.

This text is taken from The Liturgical Year, authored by Dom Prosper Guéranger (1841-1875). LifeSiteNews is grateful to The Ecu-Men website for making this classic work easily available online.

End of wonderful article...

Please say a prayer for my dear mother... and thank you!

Viva Cristo Rey!  Bl. Fr. Miguel Pro, Fr. Emil Kapaun and Fr. Vincent Capodanno, pray for us...

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle...

St. Joseph pray for us!!

Gene DeLalla

Racing To Irrelevance: Our Bishops Continue To Offer Stones To The Faithful Who Are Simply Asking For Bread.

 From crisismagazine.com and written by Fr. John A. Perricone December 23, 2025: Racing to Irrelevance - Crisis Magazine

"One by one, as though on a conga line for the Democratic National Committee, our bishops last November recited a scripted Instagram paean to illegal immigration. Moreover, at the end of their recent November meeting, it was reported that they also, by overwhelming majority, huffed and puffed: “We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of peoples.” 

For greater effect, they should have hired a better costume director. Except for one or two, they looked like unmade beds. Of course, this is part of the episcopal Spirit-of-Vatican-II look: casual, unkempt, pedestrian. All of which contributes to their “we have nothing important to say” message, joined to “we are simply here to listen to you.” The unspoken caveat: “you are listened to if you are the right you.”

Seems as though our good bishops have perfected the art of irrelevance.

Their view on illegal immigration reeks of an inverted Holy Charity: a regimen of good feeling, a happy indulgence of the zeitgeist married to soggy sentiment. This is galaxies away from true Charity, which C.S. Lewis describes as “severe” in his Four Loves, or, the 12th-century Richard of St. Victor, with his “violence of love” in his classic On the Four Degrees of the Violence of Love. Their view on illegal immigration reeks of an inverted Holy Charity: a regimen of good feeling, a happy indulgence of the zeitgeist married to soggy sentiment. Charity has nothing to do with emotion but all to do with truth.

Charity has nothing to do with emotion but all to do with truth. It rips away at the comforts of feelings to make way for the glories of sacrifice.

This episcopal echo chamber of the DNC is a deadly serious matter. Souls hang in the balance. For many Catholics may gather the impression that this is the settled teaching of the Church, binding all Catholics in conscience. It is not. It is the opinion of a number of individual bishops. Making such a widely distributed Instagram message will most definitely leave many Catholics misinformed. The imitable Fr. Pokorsky clarifies,

The content of the (episcopal) statement raises questions about the appropriate boundary between moral teaching and political intervention. Deportation may be immoral by intention or circumstance, but it is not intrinsically evil. The term “indiscriminate” is morally uncontroversial: few would defend capricious deportation practices violating the fundamental dignity of human beings. However, it is more likely that most will perceive the statement as a critique of U.S. immigration enforcement, presumably failing to correspond with the USCCB policy position.

He concludes: 

Only those who reject fundamental Church teaching in matters of faith and morals are dissident Catholics. Blurring the distinction between the authority of Catholic principles and the broader latitude of prudential judgments is unjust. The ambiguity allows doctrinally dissident Catholics to accuse doctrinally orthodox Catholics of infidelity if they disagree with the USCCB political statements.

Intelligent Catholics have every right to ask the good bishops some sharp questions. Mr. Gerard Nadal framed them pointedly in a Facebook post:

• Do all the poor people of the world have a right to free and unfettered entry into the United States?…What are your inclusive and exclusive criteria? What moral and economic calculus has gotten you to the numbers that define their answer? What is the number where you draw the line?
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• What is the limit of government-funded support of the illegal migrants that you find acceptable? Should the American people be compelled to pay for food, shelter, and medical care for all who choose to just walk in under the umbrella of your blessing? Would you care to set a dollar limit on that? The three-year cost to New York City is in the range of $12 BILLION. Are the bishops saying that New Yorkers have a gospel imperative to pay this, plus however much more from a limitless number of illegal immigrants to follow.

• Why have the bishops not made a distinction between those here legally, who must show evidence of economic self-sufficiency as a condition of entry, and illegal immigrants who have cost American taxpayers well in excess of $100 Billion? Why have they deliberately conflated the two realities?

Mr. Nadal’s questions plunge a dagger into the heart of the robotic parroting of the USCCB.

Would it not have been wiser for the good bishops to speak about St. Thomas Aquinas’ Ordo Caritatis: the right ordering of charity that commences with the obligations to God; then man’s immortal soul; next, to those nearest to us in blood; followed by those of the Household of the Faith; then, those who share with us our native patria. This unmistakable clarity would have unmasked the gauzy blather of the “stranger” so romantically invoked by those who have long been left unmoved by the irrevocable tenets of the Catholic Faith.

Interesting, isn’t it, that most singing off this page have long abandoned a perfect obedience to Catholic moral teaching. Many of these are the same folks who have been peddling a laissez-faire Catholicism which makes very few claims on the human person. A great number of them are the clan that have wreaked havoc on the Catholic liturgy, the principal conveyance of fidelity to Catholic teaching.

Catholics love their bishops.

They pray that they would begin to speak out on issues that speak directly to their path to Heaven and their place in the world. They would rejoice to hear them call every institution of Catholic learning—primary, secondary, and university/college—to a perfect fidelity to Catholic teaching, as Pope John Paul II did in his Ex Corde Ecclesiae. Finally, perhaps, these engines of an etiolated Catholicism might be brought to a halt.  

How their hearts would race if the bishops reined in Georgetown University for hiring a new president, Eduardo M. Peñalver, who has a history of supporting LGBTQ+ rights, having publicly criticized opposition to gay marriage and defended a gay teacher fired by a Catholic school while at Cornell and Seattle University.

How heartened Catholics would be to hear the bishops speak out against runaway contraception, whose use among Catholics now exceeds the general population. Rather than illegal immigrants congesting our cities, the sounds of happy Catholic families bursting with children would make their presence felt.

What applause the bishops would enjoy if they framed a joint statement calling for a true return of reverence to the Blessed Sacrament, in the hope that this joint pressure would put an end to some bishops waging war on Eucharistic piety.

Good Catholics pray daily that their bishops would speak out unequivocally for nothing more than what is taught in the Catechism of the Catholic Church promulgated by Pope John Paul II. Now that would create a sea change worthy of a thousand Instagram messages.

Catholics are crying out for an Olympian Catholicism which roars the Faith rather than a sandbox one which only speaks in whimpers.

Couldn’t our dear bishops heed the words of Étienne Gilson in his The Intelligence in the Service of Christ the King:

One of the greatest evils from which Catholicism suffers today is that Catholics are no longer proud enough of their faith. …instead of confessing in all simplicity what we owe to our Church and to our faith, instead of showing what they bring to us and what we would not have without them, we believe it good politics or good tactics, in the interests of the Church itself, to act as if, after all, we distinguish ourselves in no way from others. 

The Instagram kick-dance of the bishops after their last November conference was profoundly disheartening to the Catholic people. It evoked the sad indictment of Jacques Maritain in his elegiac Peasant of the Garonne, “kneeling before the world.”

Catholics simply wish that every Successor to the Apostles acts apostolically. Catholics only want the Faith of their Fathers spoken clearly, heroically unambiguously.

Now, that’s not too much to ask, is it?"

Author

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  Fr. John A. Perricone

  Fr. John A. Perricone, Ph.D., is an adjunct professor of philosophy at Iona University in New Rochelle, New York. His articles have appeared in St. John’s Law Review, The Latin Mass, New Oxford Review and The Journal of Catholic Legal Studies. He can be reached at www.fatherperricone.com.

End of very revealing article...

Pray for strength and honor!

Viva Cristo Rey!  Bl. Fr. Miguel Pro, Fr. Emil Kapaun and Fr. Vincent Capodanno, pray for us...

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle...

St. Joseph pray for us!!

Gene DeLalla

Just In Time For Christmas!! "...A Chilling Reminder...The Chinese Communist Party Fears The Light Of Christ...When It Shines Brightest."

 From lifesitenews.com and written by S.A. McCarthy Tue Dec 23, 2025 - 11:11 am EST: Communist China arrests hundreds of Christians just days before Christmas - LifeSite

"(The Washington Stand) — Hundreds of Christians in China will likely spend Christmas in jail this year, according to a recent report. Starting on December 13, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mobilized “more than a thousand police officers, SWAT units, anti-riot forces, and firefighters” in the Zhejiang Province’s Yayang Town in Wenzhou City, raiding churches and conducting mass arrests of Christians, ChinaAid reported Friday.

“Belongings of relevant individuals were illegally confiscated, roads leading to the church were completely blocked by police, and Christians in Yayang Town were unable to enter the Yayang church. The operation lasted nearly five days, yet no public statement was issued by officials,” the outlet noted. “Within just the first two days, several hundreds of people were taken away for questioning. On December 16 and 17, at least four more individuals were detained.”

Two local Christians, 58-year-old Lin Enzhao and 54-year-old Lin Enci, were labeled “principal suspects of a criminal organization” by the CCP, with locally-posted wanted posters charging the two with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” which ChinaAid noted is a “commonly used charge” by the CCP against religious and political dissidents. Over the past several years, CCP officials in Yayang Town have attempted to forcibly destroy church property, including symbols such as crosses, and install CCP propaganda and imagery, such as the five-star Red Flag and the CCP’s constitution. Enzhao and Enci were key figures in opposing the CCP’s efforts.

Chen Yixin, director of China’s Ministry of State Security, is a native of the province and has led efforts to demoralize the Christian community there, including by initiating a program to destroy crosses in 2014 and install the national flag, the Constitution, laws, and socialist core values in Christian spaces and promote the “localization” and “politicization” of religious activities. However, the Christians of Yayang Town have resisted the CCP’s efforts for over a decade, hosting rallies and demonstrations and even confronting state police when necessary.

READ: Dozens of NFL players urge Trump, Congress to protect Nigerian Christians from persecution

Following the mass arrests this month, the CCP hosted an “Elimination of Six Evils” demonstration, with SWAT officers and riot police deployed en masse “to demonstrate force, intimidate local Christians, and create an atmosphere of fear, framing the earlier law enforcement actions as ‘results of the anti-organized crime campaign,’” by which the government means the crackdown on Christians. According to ChinaAid, police have stationed vehicles at the homes of known Christians, “disrupted” communications among Christians in the area, and have even gone “door-to-door” questioning church members and asking them to denounce Enzhao and Enci.

“Government-driven public opinion campaigns are spreading defamatory rumors portraying Christians as ‘unpatriotic’ or belonging to a ‘cult,’” ChinaAid reported. “This approach aligns with China’s recent trend of criminalizing certain religious activities. On September 29, China’s leader reiterated in a speech the need to ‘systematically advance the Sinicization of religion.’ Earlier, mass arrests at Beijing Zion Church saw pastors and church members detained on fabricated charges of ‘fraud.’”

In comments to The Washington Stand, ChinaAid founder and Senior Fellow for International Religious Liberty at Family Research Council Bob Fu said, “The massive pre-Christmas assault on churches in Wenzhou is a chilling reminder that the Chinese Communist Party fears the light of Christ most when it shines brightest. To raid churches days before Christmas is not only an attack on Christians — it is an assault on human dignity, conscience, and the hope that faith brings to a wounded world.” He continued, “History teaches us that no regime has ever succeeded in extinguishing faith through force. These pre-Christmas attacks will only strengthen the resolve of China’s house churches and further expose the moral bankruptcy of state-sponsored persecution.”

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and other religious liberty watchdogs have repeatedly warned that China’s totalitarian regime is enacting human rights abuses against religious groups within the nation’s border. A USCIRF report late last year detailed mass arrests and the destruction or removal of church property, part of CCP President Xi Jinping’s “sinicization of religion” policy. Religious groups and leaders who do not register with the official government-approved religious organizations are often arrested, imprisoned, and forced into “anti-cult” programs to “de-program” Christians. Earlier this year, USCIRF called on President Donald Trump to designate China as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) due to the CCP’s brutal oppression of Christians and other religious dissidents.

(This article is reprinted with permission from the Family Research Council, publishers of The Washington Stand at washingtonstand.com."

End of article...

This Christmas, we should all thank God for our freedom to worship Him -- and pray too for those faithful Chinese Catholics/Christians who no longer have that freedom!

Viva Cristo Rey!  Bl. Fr. Miguel Pro, Fr. Emil Kapaun and Fr. Vincent Capodanno, pray for us...

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle...

St. Joseph pray for us!!

Gene DeLalla