The
2nd day of Christmas is the Feast of Saint Stephen, deacon and first
martyr of the Church. Stephen's last words before he died were a prayer for
those who were stoning him, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (see Acts 7:54-60). Thus, he
proved himself a worthy servant of Jesus Christ who commanded, "But I say
to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those
who curse you, pray for those who abuse you" (Luke 6:27-28) and who
himself prayed from the cross, "Father, forgive them; for they know not
what they do" (Luke 23:34).
As
we celebrate the coming of the Prince of Peace and sing of peace on earth, good
will to all, let us serve him as Deacon Stephen did by embracing the daily
witness/martyrdom of peaceableness. Here is something along those lines from
Gregory of Nyssa (335-386):
He is our peace, who has made both one. Since
Christ is our peace, we shall be living up to the name of Christian if we let
Christ be seen in our lives by letting peace reign in our hearts. He has
brought hostility to an end, as the apostle said. Therefore, we must not allow
it to come back to life in us in any way at all but must proclaim clearly that
it is dead indeed. God has destroyed it in a wonderful way for our salvation.
We must not, then, allow ourselves to give way to anger or bear grudges, for
this would endanger our souls. We must not stir up the very thing that is well
and truly dead, calling it back to life by our wickedness.
But as we bear the name of Christ, who is peace,
we too must put an end to all hostility, so that we may profess in our lives
what we believe to be true of him. He broke down the dividing wall and brought
the two sides together in himself, thus making peace. We too, then, should not
only be reconciled with those who attack us from without, we should also bring
together the warring factions within us, so that the flesh may no longer be
opposed to the spirit and the spirit to the flesh. Then when the mind that is
set on the flesh is subject to the divine law, we may be refashioned into one
new creature, into a man of peace. When the two have been made one we shall
then have peace within ourselves.
The definition of peace is that there should be
harmony between two opposed factions. And so, when the civil war in our nature
has been brought to an end and we are at peace within ourselves, we may become
peace. Then we shall really be true to the name of Christ that we bear.
When we consider that Christ is the true light
far removed from all falsehood, we realize that our lives too should be lit by
the rays of the sun of justice, which shine for our enlightenment. These rays
are the virtues by which we cast off the works of darkness and conduct
ourselves becomingly as in the light of day. Then, when we refuse to have
anything to do with the darkness of wickedness and do everything in the light,
we ourselves shall also become light and our works will give light to others,
for it is in the nature of light to shine out.
But if we look upon Christ as our sanctification,
then we should keep ourselves free from all that is wicked and impure both in
thought and in deed and so prove ourselves worthy to bear his name, for we
shall be demonstrating the effect of sanctification not in words but in our
actions and in our lives.
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