AI translation

After Christmas, Holy Church pays homage to the first martyr, a witness of the Catholic faith, who by blood will testify to love and faithfulness toward the true God: the holy deacon Stephen. The red of the liturgical vestments, the reading from the Acts of the Apostles describing the martyrdom of Deacon Stephen, shatter the magical atmosphere of the holidays and remind us of how true the words of Saint Bede the Venerable, one of the Fathers of the Church, are: "Their crib always stands in the shadow of Christ’s cross." Verily, this is something that modern man, the modern world, does not want to remember. We are somehow able to accept the infant in the manger, who does not speak, but God forbid that the Lord Jesus should begin to instruct us, begin to tell us how we are to live.

My beloved, as Catholics, we should perfectly understand why the Lord Jesus came into this world: that this infant lying in the manger is to be a propitiatory sacrifice for our sins. We should perfectly understand that it is no error, mistake, or malice on the part of the Church that immediately after Christmas we celebrate the Dies Natalis, the day of the birth of Saint Stephen. You may ask, how can it be the day of birth, since we are contemplating his death? But that is precisely how in the first centuries of the Church the day of a martyr's death was defined: it is the Natalis, the Day of Birth for heaven. From this Dies Natalis of Saint Stephen, we were to draw a triple lesson from his martyrdom.

The First Lesson: Fortitude and Grace Firstly, my dear ones, we should not fear or wonder what will happen if God chooses to grant us the grace of martyrdom. We see this, after all, in the example of Saint Stephen—with what fortitude he carries the palm of martyrdom, with what fortitude he speaks to the Jews, with what fortitude he explains to them on the basis of Holy Scripture that behold, all the Old Testament prophecies have been fulfilled in the person of the Lord Jesus; that the Messiah has come. That there is nothing left to wait for. The Messiah has come and by Jєωιѕн hands was sentenced to death. We see, my dear ones, how great is the wisdom with which Saint Stephen speaks. A wisdom that does not come from him. A wisdom that comes from the Holy Spirit. We can be certain that if God decides to call someone to martyrdom, He simultaneously gives all the strengths and graces needed to accept this martyrdom. It is not as if he who suffers for Christ is alone, that God abandons him. God gives strength to offer one’s life for the faith. Humanly speaking, it would be impossible, unfeasible. The instinct of self-preservation is so strong that a man of sound mind does what he can to save his life. So let us not worry, let us not ponder too much what tomorrow will bring, when God’s punishment will arrive, what persecutions are before us. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," says Holy Scripture. And whatever God, by His will or permission, desires us to experience, will come. But along with the suffering, along with the persecution, will also come the grace to endure this persecution, suffering, and hardship.


The Second Lesson: The Hatred of the World The second lesson we were to draw from the martyrdom of Saint Stephen: that the true followers of the Lord Jesus were, are, and always will be hated. "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you," said the Savior. And we see in the Acts of the Apostles how the Jews react when Saint Stephen expounds the truth to them, when he tries to show them they are in error, when he indicates that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Savior. When the Jews hear the words of truth, then, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, they were cut to the heart and gnashed their teeth at him; and further, "crying out with a loud voice, they stopped their ears and rushed together upon him." Such is the reaction of the sons of this world, the sons of the devil, to the truth. We cannot expect that this reaction will be different. The devil hates the truth of the true God. Therefore, the devil also hates those people who desire to serve the true God, who do not want to agree to lies and propaganda, who persevere in the true religion despite all pressures and lies.

How much the devil hates those who remain faithful to the Lord Jesus—and we experience this, after all, on our own skin every day. Perhaps we are not yet being murdered, perhaps we are not yet being locked in prisons, but after all, each of us has tasted what it means to be a Catholic in the modern world, a godless world. How much resentment, more or less hidden hatred from the sons of this world: malicious comments, remarks, perhaps tapping the forehead, jokes, perhaps some rolling of the eyes, treating us like madmen or fools because we are not like everyone else, because we desire to belong to Christ. Wherever a Catholic is a Catholic—a true Catholic, not an "asymptomatic" Catholic—but where a Catholic is truly a Catholic, where he lives Catholically, thinks Catholically, says something Catholically, he must encounter a reaction from hell, smaller or larger, but some attack, resistance, or resentment. Those who serve the devil are unable to accept the truth. They hate the truth. We must therefore, my dear ones, be aware of this and ready for it. There is no friendship between a Catholic and the sons of this world; there is not and cannot be. If we do not encounter any resentment from godless people or pseudo-Catholics, then we should ask ourselves: what is wrong with my Catholicism, what is wrong with me, what is wrong with my faith?

We see, my dear ones, since the time of the Vatican II anti-council, constant attempts to reconcile Catholicism with the world. This cannot be reconciled. Either you belong to Christ, or you belong to the devil; either you serve the true God, or the devil. Think, for instance, of the funeral of John Paul II. All the top brass of the powerful of this world flocked to the Vatican, they sat at the funeral ceremonies; applause, praise. That already should give us something to think about: that something was wrong with this man. If all these scoundrels, bandits, and criminals flock to his funeral, applaud him, and praise him to the heavens, then that, my dear ones, is already a signal that something was wrong with this man. And compare the funeral of John Paul II with the funeral of Pius IX, the great Pope of the 19th century, enemy of liberal Catholicism, Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ, and modernism. When the procession with the coffin of Pius IX passed through Rome, Masonic militias attacked the procession, pelted it with stones, and wanted to seize the body and throw it into the Tiber. And that is a sign that we were dealing with a true Catholic Pope. Hence the hatred from the enemies of the Lord Jesus: the Jews and the Freemasons. This is how a faithful servant of Christ can be recognized: that he will encounter hatred or at least resentment from non-Catholics.

The Third Lesson: The Fruit of Martyrdom And finally, the third lesson we were to draw from the martyrdom of Saint Stephen: the blood of a martyr is never shed in vain. Suffering brings fruit. In the first centuries of the Church, it was said that the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christianity. And indeed, it is so. The blood of a martyr always yields an abundant harvest. This was also the case with the first martyr, Saint Stephen. We read in the Acts of the Apostles that those who stoned the holy deacon laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. This is that Saul who will soon be converted and, from a fierce persecutor burning with hatred for Christians, will become a faithful—the most faithful—follower of Jesus Christ, His servant, the Apostle of the Gentiles, who will dedicate his whole life to leading people to the true God. This is a specific, great fruit of the martyrdom of Saint Stephen.

When we think of the history of the Church, when we think of the first three centuries, full of persecutions, full of Catholic blood, we should realize that this blood was necessary—that without this blood, it would not have been possible to convert pagan Rome. Proud Roman soldiers, seeing Christians—men, women, children, the elderly—who calmly, with a song on their lips, underwent cruel tortures and death, clutched their heads and asked: "Who is this God who gives these people strength, who gives them such peace?" The blood of martyrs converted pagan Rome 2,000 years ago. Most likely, the blood of martyrs—Catholic martyrs—is needed today to convert pagan Rome, and pagan Brussels, and pagan Warsaw, and the entire modern world plunged in the darkness of paganism.

Dear faithful, how very grateful we should be to Saint Stephen for the example he gave us. He is called the protomartyr, the model, the prototype of all martyrs. This triple lesson, which we wish to draw today observing his martyrdom, has after all resounded through the 2,000 years of the Church's history—a history of the Church that is filled with martyr's blood, which is filled with suffering, but suffering offered to the Lord God, suffering that yielded wonderful, great fruits. We must, my dear ones, learn to appreciate the suffering, the hardships, and the crosses that God sends us in life. Not every one of us—God grant that even one soul from among those present here today might attain this honor—will be able to shed his blood for the Lord Jesus. But let us learn to offer every day all kinds of suffering, hardships, and unpleasantness that we experience from other people, often those closest to us: family and friends. Let us learn to offer all this to the Most Holy Trinity as reparation for our sins and those of others, our neighbors. In particular, my dear ones, also for those who are our enemies, who hate us, who persecute us, who are criminals—criminals murdering bodies and souls. After the model of Saint Stephen, we must pray for their repentance and for their conversion.



Original Polish



Saint Stephen, pray for us.