On Dec. 26, the universal Church commemorates the death of St. Stephen in 34 A.D., the first man to give his life in witness to the faith. He is sometimes referred to as the "protomartyr."
St. Stephen was a Greek Jew who had converted to Christianity and who was ordained by St. Peter as one of the first deacons in the early Church. The sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles states that Stephen was "a man filled with faith and with the Holy Spirit ... filled with grace and fortitude." The Bible also notes that Stephen was a gifted orator and that his logic was sound. The conversions of many people are attributed to him.
However, his outspokenness provoked the ire of some of his listeners, particularly the Sanhedrin, and he was accused of blaspheming against Moses and against God. He was brought before the high priest in Jerusalem, and many false witnesses testified against him.
Acts recounts that, in his defense, he gave an eloquent analysis of salvation history and the love and mercy of God. He also recounted Israel's repeated ungratefulness towards their God. However, it didn't sway his accusers, who proceeded to take him outside the city and stone him. One of those who participated in the stoning was Saul of Tarsus, who would later be converted and become the Apostle Paul.
As he was about to die, Stephen looked up to heaven and said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God." Then, as he was being stoned, he cried out, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
His last words, as the stoning had brought him to his knees, were "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."
In most Catholic art, Stephen is invested with a crown of martyrdom, holding three stones and a martyrs' palm branch. In Eastern Christian iconography, he is shown as a young beardless man with a tonsure, wearing a deacon's vestments, and often holding a miniature church building and a censer.
— Catholic News Agency
Take a closer look
Illustration: "The Martyrdom of St. Stephen," a fresco painted in 1324 by Bernardo Daddi, at Santa Croce in Florence, Italy
This famous Italian fresco (above) depicts the story of St. Stephen's martyrdom in two panels.
In the left panel, St. Stephen appears before the Sanhedrin judges, where they accuse him of blasphemy against Moses and against God. He is a young man, dressed in deacon's vestments and wearing a tonsure. As he defends the faith, he points heavenward and describes seeing "the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God" (Acts 7:55).
In the right panel, Stephen is being stoned outside the gates of Jerusalem. But it's not an act of mob violence; it's a death sentence ordered by law when someone had been convicted of blasphemy. Stephen has been thrown down to his knees, while the men who had testified falsely against him cast the first stones. They have thrown off their outer cloaks, to make throwing the rocks easier.
The character who holds one man's coat and cheers on the sidelines is Saul – the future Apostle Paul, but at this point he is still a severe persecutor of Christians.
Typically the bodies of those stoned to death would be left to be eaten by animals. But Acts recounts that "devout men," most likely including Gamaliel (a wealthy Christian who would become the teacher of St. Paul and St. Barnabas), secretly came and took St. Stephen's remains to be entombed at his estate about 20 miles outside Jerusalem. His tomb was forgotten to history until rediscovered in 415 A.D., when Gamaliel appeared in visions to a priest named Father Lucien.
— Source: "The Catholic Encyclopedia" (1912), online at www.newadvent.org
The Holy Innocents are the children mentioned in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 2:16-18:
“When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi. Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more.’”
The Greek Liturgy asserts that Herod killed 14,000 boys, the Syrians speak of 64,000, and many medieval authors speak of 144,000, according to Revelation 14:3. Modern writers reduce the number considerably, since Bethlehem was a rather small town. Some estimate the actual number around 15 to 20, 10 or 12, or even only 6.
This cruel deed of Herod is not mentioned by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, although he relates quite a number of atrocities committed by the king during the last years of his reign. The number of these children was so small that this crime appeared insignificant amongst the other misdeeds of Herod. Macrobius relates that when Augustus heard that among the boys of 2 years and younger Herod’s own son also had been massacred, he said: “It is better to be Herod’s hog, than his son,” alluding to the Jewish law of not eating, and consequently not killing, swine. The Middle Ages gave faith to this story, and French theologian and philosopher Peter Abelard inserted it in his hymn for the feast of Holy Innocents. But the “infant” mentioned by Macrobius is Antipater, the adult son of Herod, who, by command of the dying king, was decapitated for having conspired against the life of his father.
It is impossible to determine the day or the year of the death of the Holy Innocents, since the chronology of the birth of Christ and the subsequent Biblical events is uncertain. All we know is that the infants were slaughtered within two years after the apparition of the star to the wise men.
Some have disputed that they should be called martyrs since they did not submit freely for the sake of Christ but were “merely victims” of Herod. Nevertheless, the Church has long numbered them in her ranks of martyrs. St. Augustine says of them: “And while (Herod) thus persecutes Christ, he furnished an army (or martyrs) clothed in white robes of the same age as the Lord…. O blessed infants! He only will doubt of your crown in this your passion for Christ, who doubts that the baptism of Christ has a benefit for infants.
He who at His birth had Angels to proclaim Him, the heavens to testify, and Magi to worship Him, could surely have prevented that these should not have died for Him, had He not known that they died not in that death, but rather lived in higher bliss. Far be the thought, that Christ who came to set men free, did nothing to reward those who died in His behalf, when hanging on the cross He prayed for those who put Him to death. (Sermon 373, 3, quoted in the Catena Aurea).
The Latin Church instituted the feast of the Holy Innocents at a date now unknown, not before the end of the fourth, and not later than the end of the fifth century.
While the details are in dispute, the feast day remains an important one for the Church. Through our honoring of their sacrifice, and worship of God, we seek to atone for the many sins against human life, beginning with abortion, and including other forms of murder, and euthanasia, disregard for the safety and dignity of others, mistreatment and indifference to the plight of others, and all other sins against life.
— Catholic Encyclopedia, EWTN, Monsignor Charles Pope