26 December 2026 · Latin Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”” Acts 7:59–60
The day after Christmas the Church wears red. It can seem a sudden change, from the crib to the stones. But the Fathers saw the connection: “Yesterday Christ was born on earth so that today Stephen might be born in heaven” (St Fulgentius). The Child came to give his life; those who follow him may be asked to give theirs. Christmas is not sentimental; it is the beginning of a love that goes to the Cross.
Stephen, “full of grace and power”, was one of the seven deacons chosen to serve the poor (Acts 6:1–6). He also preached with wisdom no one could withstand, as Jesus had promised (Matthew 10:19–20). Accused before the council, he saw “the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God”. As he was stoned he prayed two prayers that echo Jesus' own on the Cross: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” and “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” The martyr is the perfect disciple: he dies like his Master.
Standing nearby, holding the coats of the stoners, was a young man named Saul (Acts 7:58). St Augustine said: “If Stephen had not prayed, the Church would not have had Paul.” Forgiveness is never wasted; it bears fruit we may never see.
Theme: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
Stephen, deacon and first martyr, dies like his Master, forgiving.
“Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.” Exodus 4:12
“When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” Matthew 10:19–20
Apply: Serve the poor during the Christmas octave.
“Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.” Psalm 31:5
“But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”” Acts 7:55–56
Apply: Pray “Into your hands I commend my spirit” tonight.
“Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Isaiah 53:12
“While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he died.” Acts 7:59–60
Apply: Pray by name for someone who hurt you.
The crib leads to the Cross, and the Cross to glory.
Forgive as Stephen forgave.
Take-home resolution: Reconcile with someone during the Christmas octave.
Dear brothers and sisters, yesterday we sang carols around the crib. Today the priest wears red, and we hear about stones and death. Why?
An ancient bishop, St Fulgentius, explained: “Yesterday Christ was born on earth so that today Stephen might be born in heaven.” The Child of Bethlehem came to give his life. Christmas is the beginning of a love that will go all the way to the Cross, and those who follow him are invited into that same love.
Stephen was a deacon, chosen to serve the poor widows at table. He was also full of the Holy Spirit and spoke with such wisdom that no one could answer him. When they dragged him out to stone him, he looked up and saw heaven open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
And listen to his last words: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” These are almost exactly the words of Jesus on the Cross. Stephen died the way Jesus died, forgiving.
Standing there, holding the coats of those who threw the stones, was a young man named Saul. He later became St Paul, the great apostle. St Augustine said: “If Stephen had not prayed, the Church would not have had Paul.” Forgiveness is never wasted.
So this Christmas, let us ask: is there someone I need to forgive? A family member, a neighbour, a colleague? Let us pray for them by name, as Stephen did. And let us remember the Christians who suffer for their faith today. The joy of Christmas is strong enough to face even this.
Before he was a martyr, Stephen was a deacon chosen to serve the widows (Acts 6:1–6).
📖 Exodus 18:17–23
📖 Acts 6:1–6
Apply: Serve someone in your family without being asked.
📖 Numbers 11:24–29
📖 Acts 6:8–15
Apply: Let your service speak before your words.
📖 Psalm 31:5
📖 Luke 23:34, 46
Apply: Forgive one person this Christmas season.
Stephen's martyrdom grew out of daily service and constant prayer.
The Christmas Child is the reason Stephen could forgive.
Take-home resolution: This Christmas season I will serve someone humbly and forgive someone fully.
Dear brothers and sisters, yesterday we celebrated the birth of Christ; today we celebrate the birth into heaven of the first martyr. But before Stephen was a martyr, he was a deacon who served at tables.
In the early Church in Jerusalem there was a complaint: the widows of the Greek-speaking Christians were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. The apostles asked the community to choose seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, to take care of this service. Stephen was the first named (Acts 6:1–6). His holiness began in a very practical task: making sure poor widows got their food.
Luke tells us that Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people, and that his opponents could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke (Acts 6:8–10). When he stood before the Council, his face was like the face of an angel (Acts 6:15). The man who served tables became a fearless witness. Faithfulness in small things prepared him for great things.
And when the stones began to fly, Stephen prayed with the words of his Master: Lord Jesus, receive my spirit; and kneeling down he cried out: Lord, do not hold this sin against them (Acts 7:59–60). He died as Jesus had died, entrusting himself to God and forgiving his killers. Among the witnesses was a young man named Saul, who would become the apostle Paul. Stephen's forgiveness bore fruit.
So Stephen gives us a Christmas programme: serve humbly, witness boldly, forgive completely. Is there someone in your family you have not forgiven? This is the season to let go. The Child in the manger came to make forgiveness possible. Let us ask St Stephen to help us live what we receive at this Holy Mass.
Martyr means witness. Today let us understand why the Church honours martyrs so highly.
📖 2 Maccabees 7:1–2, 20–23
📖 Matthew 10:17–22
Apply: Thank God for the martyrs of our own land.
📖 Daniel 3:16–18
📖 Acts 8:1–4
Apply: Pray for persecuted Christians today.
📖 Isaiah 50:7
📖 1 Peter 3:13–17
Apply: Do not hide your faith at work or school this week.
Martyrdom is the supreme witness, and every Christian is called to bear witness.
The Church today is still a Church of martyrs.
Take-home resolution: This week I will pray for persecuted Christians and not hide my faith.
Dear brothers and sisters, the word martyr comes from the Greek word for witness. The Catechism says that martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith: it means bearing witness even unto death; the martyr bears witness to Christ who died and rose, to whom he is united by charity (CCC 2473).
A martyr is not someone who seeks death or uses violence. The martyrs of the Church never killed anyone. They freely accepted death rather than deny Christ, and they died forgiving. Stephen is the first of a long line: the apostles, the martyrs of the Roman persecutions, the martyrs of Japan, Uganda, Vietnam, Mexico, and in our own land the martyr Devasahayam and many others.
In the second century Tertullian wrote that the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians. After Stephen's death a severe persecution broke out and the believers were scattered, but those who were scattered went from place to place proclaiming the word (Acts 8:1–4). Persecution has never destroyed the Church; it has spread it. And today, more Christians suffer for their faith than at any time in history. Let us pray for them often.
Most of us will not be asked to shed our blood. But all of us are called to witness. The Fathers spoke of white martyrdom: the daily dying to self, fidelity in marriage and vocation, honesty when dishonesty would be easier, refusing to join in mockery of the faith. St Peter tells us always to be ready to give an account of the hope that is in us, yet with gentleness and reverence (1 Peter 3:15–16).
So on this second day of Christmas, let us thank God for the martyrs, pray for persecuted Christians, and ask for courage. The Child of Bethlehem was born to die for us; Stephen died for Him. At this Holy Mass let us ask for the grace to live for Him.
Children, today is the feast of St Stephen. He loved Jesus very much.
He helped poor people and told everyone about Jesus. Some people got angry and threw stones at him.
But Stephen did something amazing: he forgave them, just like Jesus did on the Cross.
Is there someone you need to forgive? Say: “Jesus, help me forgive.”
Grant, Lord, we pray, that we may imitate what we worship, and so learn to love even our enemies, for we celebrate the heavenly birthday of a man who knew how to pray even for his persecutors. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
The crib is hardly in place when the Church dresses in red. On the day after Christmas she remembers the first to die for the child she has just adored. The feast is not out of place: the Word became flesh so that he could give his life, and Stephen shows what his birth makes possible in a human being. He dies with the words of Jesus on his lips, and he dies forgiving.
Acts shows the promise of the Gospel coming true. Jesus had told his disciples that they would be handed over, and that the Spirit of the Father would speak through them. Stephen argues in the synagogue and stands before the council, and his opponents “could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke”. The reading ends with his prayer: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” The key words are witness and Spirit.
Setting.
As the Jerusalem community grows, a dispute arises over the care of the Greek-speaking widows. The apostles have seven men chosen, “full of the Spirit and of wisdom” (6:3), and Stephen is named first. He does far more than serve tables: he works wonders and argues in the synagogues of Greek-speaking Jews.
All of this takes place within Judaism. Stephen is a Jew arguing with fellow Jews about the Temple, the Law and the Messiah. He is brought before the council, and in the long speech the reading leaves out (7:2–53) he retells the story of Israel. When he calls his hearers resisters of the Spirit, the anger breaks out. The law against blasphemy prescribed stoning outside the camp (Leviticus 24:14). Scholars debate whether this was a legal sentence or the violence of a crowd; Luke's account reads more like the second.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.” (6:8)
What Luke said of Jesus (Luke 2:40; 4:14) he now says of a disciple. The life of the Lord is being lived again in his Church.
“But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke.” (6:10)
Exactly what Jesus had promised: “a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand” (Luke 21:15).
“But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.” (7:55)
Psalm 110 and the Creed say that Christ is seated. Why standing? The text does not say. Many have read it as the Lord rising to receive his witness, or to stand as a witness for him.
““Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”” (7:56)
Almost the only time in the New Testament that someone other than Jesus uses the title “Son of Man”. Before this same council Jesus had said that the Son of Man would be seated at God's right hand (Luke 22:69). Stephen reports that it is true.
“the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.” (7:58)
A small detail on which the future turned. Saul approves (8:1); he will one day confess it himself (22:20).
“While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”” (7:59)
This is one of the earliest prayers addressed to Jesus. The disciple prays to him as to God, in the moment of death. Luke shapes the story so that the passion of the disciple matches the Passion of the Master: the council, the word about the Son of Man at God's right hand, the giving up of the spirit, the forgiveness of the killers (7:60; Luke 22:69; 23:34, 46).
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism calls martyrdom “the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith” (CCC 2473), and Vatican II says that by it the disciple is made like his Master (Lumen Gentium 42). On the forgiveness of enemies, see CCC 2844.
In a sermon read today in the Office of Readings, St Fulgentius of Ruspe says that yesterday our King was born in a robe of flesh, and today his soldier left the tent of the body and went in triumph to heaven; love was Stephen's weapon (in substance). A saying long attributed to St Augustine adds that if Stephen had not prayed, the Church would not have Paul. In his City of God Augustine himself tells of healings in Africa through Stephen's relics, which were found in 415 and spread widely.
Setting.
Chapter 10 of Matthew is the second of Jesus' great discourses, the sending of the Twelve. It begins with the mission to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” and widens to the whole future of the Church. Today's verses look past the first mission to the governors and kings of the Gentile world. Parallel words appear in Mark 13:9–13 and Luke 21:12–19.
When this Gospel was written, Jesus' disciples, most of them Jews, were already living with conflict inside their own synagogues and families, and also with Roman power. These words were not given to stir up hostility toward anyone. They were given to strengthen those who suffered.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues;” (10:17)
The Greek says “beware of people” in general (so POC). The warning concerns those who persecute, and it is not aimed at any one nation. Christians and Jews alike have suffered persecution for their faith.
“do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say;” (10:19)
This is not a promise for lazy preachers. It is a promise for those standing before a judge.
“for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” (10:20)
“The Spirit of your Father” is a rare expression in Matthew. The disciple on trial is a child of the Father, not an orphan.
“But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” (10:22)
“To the end” can mean to the end of a person's life, and to the end of the age. Stephen's end is both a defeat in the world's eyes and the victory the verse promises.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism lists this passage among the places where Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who helps his disciples in the witness they must bear (CCC 728). Service of and witness to the faith are necessary for salvation, it teaches, quoting Lumen Gentium 42 (CCC 1816).
Tertullian wrote in his Apology that the blood of Christians is seed. The Church has seen this in every century, and in our own time.
Why a martyr's feast on the day after Christmas?
It is not a sudden change of mood. The wood of the crib and the wood of the Cross belong together. The feast is very old, and ancient calendars already placed it directly after Christmas. Its meaning is that the same Lord who was born for us gives us the strength to give our lives for him.
Was Stephen a deacon?
Acts does not use the noun “deacon” for the Seven, but the verb “to serve” appears for the work they are chosen to relieve (6:2). St Irenaeus already speaks of Stephen as chosen for the diaconate, and tradition honours him as the first deacon and the patron of deacons. In Acts he also preaches, as the deacons of the Church are called to do (CCC 1570).
Did “the Jews” kill Stephen?
Those who killed him and Stephen himself were all Jews, as were Paul and the first Christians. A group in Jerusalem acted that day; a people did not. The Church teaches that Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, and she deplores all hatred and persecution of them (Nostra Aetate 4; CCC 597–598).
The Mass is in red, the colour of martyrs. It falls within the Octave of Christmas, so the Preface is the Preface of Christmas. Tomorrow is the Sunday of the Holy Family; white returns.
On this day we also remember those who suffer for their faith now. The Latin Church in India has her own witnesses, among them St Devasahayam, the lay martyr of South India canonized in 2022, and we may remember them in the prayer of the faithful.