The day after Christmas is the Feast of St. Stephen, the Proto-Martyr and Archdeacon. The liturgical color for the Mass this day is red, not because it's a Christmas color but to remember the saint's shed blood.
Here the young Stephen wears a gold dalmatic, the vestment of his office. He holds the Divine Word in his right hand and the stones of his martyrdom in the left. Gathered around his neck and shoulders he wears an amice, the deacon or priest's linen vestment touched to the back of the head while praying for the expulsion of dark-cornered thoughts. "Everyone should wear an amice" a teenaged altar server said after hearing my explanation of the amice I'd just put on.
We read the account of Stephen's martyrdom in Acts of the Apostles 6-7, being told that while Stephen was being crushed under a hail of rocks, the righteous, religious zealot Saul (later Paul) stood holding coats and approving of the saint's death. This is perhaps the other side of the Stephen account: religion can kill.
We read the account of Stephen's martyrdom in Acts of the Apostles 6-7, being told that while Stephen was being crushed under a hail of rocks, the righteous, religious zealot Saul (later Paul) stood holding coats and approving of the saint's death. This is perhaps the other side of the Stephen account: religion can kill.
Some of us have been listening lately to proud Evangelical Christians interviewed in Alabama. A parishioner-friend said, "These people use religion to condemn anyone who isn't like them. Their religion is killing them, and they don't even know it."
I'm thinking of religion-referenced Dr. Laura some years ago on the radio. A religious woman phoned in with the dilemma of her grown daughter turning up pregnant and unmarried. She told Laura that she had an attic full of the clothes her own newborns wore when she was a young mother and, "Should I give all of this clothing to my now pregnant daughter?" In a heartbeat Dr. Laura answered, "No, pack up the clothes and give them to Good Will." Religion can kill, snuffing out compassion and love. How can we get it so wrong some times?
Not a few people have made of their Christianity an ethic, proposing to assess and judge everyone they consider "different," "other," "illicit," "illegal," "unwelcome," "uninvited." Saul, whose soul was blinded by his own pious observances, had to be knocked down on the Damascus Road and then enlightened by the voice of Jesus. The soon ending year of 2017, a year of sad bitterness often spawned by wrong-turned religion, needs a prayer.
Oh newborn Christ,
loosen up these knotted hearts of ours,
warm our winter-chilled assessing,
the icy condemnations,
the cold condescensions and
threatening exclusions.
Heal our hearts, clogged with dissatisfaction -
all the tysking,
having so much to say about everyone else,
the stinking other-ism that
vilifies, shames and kills.
Oh, new-born Child of Bethlehem,
give us new hearts,
but smiles too,
like your Mother's,
who called, "Come on in" to shepherds,
on no one's Christmas card list,
standing all breathless,
nerved out and shy.
shivering at the door of the cave.
Father Stephen P. Morris
