Saint Stephen
By Father Scott Archer December 26, 2021 The prose interlude of T.S. Eliot’s verse drama, Murder in the Cathedral , is a homily given by the character Saint Thomas Becket on Christmas day, 1170, four days before his martyrdom. He preaches, “Not only do we at the feast of Christmas celebrate at once Our Lord’s Birth and His Death, but on the next day we celebrate the martyrdom of His first martyr, the blessed Stephen. Is it an accident, do you think, that the day of the first martyr follows immediately the day of the Birth of Christ? By no means. Just as we rejoice and mourn at once, in the Birth and Passion of Our Lord; so also, in a smaller figure, we both rejoice and mourn in the death of martyrs. We mourn, for the sins of the world that has martyred them; we rejoice, that another soul is numbered among the Saints in Heaven, for the glory of God and for the salvation of men.” In the Mass of Christmas, we have the crib, the cross, and the crown united in one unique celebrati...