Mt 10,17-22 – Saint Stephen, First Martyr – Feast
The day after Christmas the liturgy leads us abruptly from the sweetness of the cave to the blood of Stephen’s martyrdom. It seems like a violent contrast, yet it is precisely here that the Gospel becomes true. The Church reminds us that the Child born in the night did not come to decorate our life, but to give it direction. And Stefanо is the first to show us where this direction leads: to love lived to the end. “They will hand you over… you will be hated…” says Jesus in today’s Gospel page. These are words that, when compared to Christmas, seem out of place. But Stefano shows us that there is nothing wrong: the light that yesterday we contemplated in the manger today we see shine in a man who, while being killed, still manages to love. Christmas without Stefano risks being reduced to an emotion; Stefano without Christmas would become madness. Together they tell us that God became man to make us capable of a new measure. Stefano is not a hero, he is a martyr. It is the Spirit who gives him words, as Jesus promised. And he is given not only what to say, but how to love. The moment he is rejected, Stefano does not respond with resentment, but with forgiveness. It is the logic of Christmas taken to its extreme consequences: the logic of a God who saves not by destroying his enemies, but by transforming them. Christmas fills our eyes with light; Stefano shows us that this light asks to be chosen, preserved, imitated. The perseverance of which the Gospel speaks is not a stoic heroism, but a radical trust: believing that Love is stronger than evil, even when it seems to lose. Like Stefano we must realize that salvation does not lie in winning external battles, but in not allowing ourselves to be taken away from our hearts. Christmas begins to become real when we understand that the light we adore in the cave is the same one that must shine in our lives, especially in moments when it would be easier to turn it off. They can’t take away a light like this even if they kill you.
