9781644135945

The Light of the World
who wishes to celebrate Christmas in the proper spirit must become like St. Stephen, a
man of faith and wisdom, a man of grace and fortitude in the Holy Spirit. He must place
his life and his strength at the service of the Son of God and, becoming an apostle of Christ,
dedicate himself to the salvation of the souls of his fellow men. For it will come to pass
that the Christian, too, will come “unto his own, and his own received him not” ( Jn 1:11);
then he will have acquired the spirit of Christ. The Christian, too, must become a martyr
for Christ, for Christ came, not to bring peace, but the sword (Mt 10:34). Christ will and
must be a king. He turns away resolutely from the old man, from all that is worldly and all
that is sinful. “He that is not with Me is against Me” (Lk 11:23). Those who accept Christ
completely will themselves soon experience that which was written of the Son of God, “His
own received Him not.” This repudiation has been the experience of the Church, and it will
be the experience of each faithful Christian. This is the idea which St. Stephen personifies
in the liturgy of today.
“Princes sat and spoke against me, and the wicked persecuted me. . . . [But] I see the heavens
opened and Jesus standing on the right hand of the power of God” (Gradual). Stephen is a
type of the Church and the true Christian. “The torrent of stones was sweet to him” (Antiphon
at Lauds). Stephen is a symbol of the Church, for his spirit is in her and in all true Christians.
In the Offertory of the Mass we bring forward our gifts of bread and wine; we bring to the
altar our body and soul, our heart and our life, and we say as other Stephens: “Lord Jesus, receive
my spirit.” Take all that I am and all that I have, O my King and my God.
In the Communion today we identify ourselves with Stephen. We await the second coming
of Christ at the moment of our death with the words, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Take from
me everything, that I may live only to Thee.
Prayer
Grant us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, so to imitate what we revere that we may learn to love
even our enemies; for we celebrate the day of his birth to immortality, who could plead with
our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, even on behalf of his persecutors. Who with Thee liveth and
reigneth world without end. Amen.
December 27, St. John the Apostle
Today at the side of the newborn King we find, with the Virgin Mother, the virgin apostle, John,
adoring in the house of Mary in Bethlehem — the stational church of St. Mary Major.
John is the living expression of the blessings that have been brought to us by the redemption.
John is a man of virginal purity, the man who rested on the breast of the Master, who
is filled with divine wisdom. “In the midst of the Church the Lord opened his mouth and
filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding; He clothed him with a robe of
glory” (Introit). His life is absorbed in Christ, the incarnate Wisdom. “She will meet him
as an honorable mother. With the bread of life and understanding she shall feed him, and
give him the water of wholesome wisdom to drink. And she shall be made strong in him,
and he shall not be moved; and she shall hold him fast, and he shall not be confounded;
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