(Was a) Deacon's Blog

Upon entering the world, Christ brought salvation and founded the Church. The witness to the truth shone forth as well as those witnesses to such a great providence. The disciples followed their Teacher by following in his footsteps, for after Christ there came bears of Christ; after the Son of Justice, they illumine the world. Stephen was the first to flourish on our behalf, not from the thorns of the Jews, but he was the first fruit for the Lord from the Church’s fertility. The Jews placed a crown woven from thorns on the Savior’s head since the Cultivator of the vine considered their fruit to be evil. With regard to this the prophet says, “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the man of Judah is his pleasant planting. I have looked for grapes but behold, it produced thorns.” But the works of the evangelical truth are a foretaste of piety and offer to the Lord the holy man Stephen as the first fruits of what has been cultivated in the form of a crown from the harmony of many and various virtues. First this wonderful man bore witness to suffering and was chosen as a faithful man by the Apostles; he was filled with the Holy Spirit by whose power he became wise. He showed diligence for preaching the divine word, and great wonders of divine power confirmed his teachings. Scripture says, “Stephen, being full of faith and power, performed great signs.” He did not consider sufferings to be an impediment and did not hesitate to demonstrate zeal for his task; as a result, he became a great wonder and had the advantage of assuming hardship with a spirit of love. He endured sufferings, was concerned for souls, nourished them with bread, taught with words, offered bodily nourishment and set a spiritual feast because he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit. [Stephen] was sustained by the goodness of his will to serve the poor and curbed enemies by the Spirit’s power of the truth. Every [thought] ought to be rejected and every premeditation against the truth ought to be dispersed. As it is written, “he cast down arguments and every proud obstacle to the power of God.” Holy Scripture testifies to such power and mastery of speaking so that “no one can resist the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke.” — The Second Sermon.

“And she laid him in the manger.” He found man reduced to the level of the beasts: therefore is He placed like fodder in a manger, that we, having left off our bestial life, might mount up to that degree of intelligence which befits man’s nature; and whereas we were brutish in soul, by now approaching the manger, even His own table, we find no longer fodder, but the bread from heaven, which is the body of life. — Commentary on Luke II.

“To give light to them that sit in darkness, and the shadow of death.” For those under the law, and dwelling in Judea, the Baptist was, as it were, a lamp, preceding Christ: and God so spake before of him; “I have prepared a lamp for My Christ.” And the law also typified him in the lamp, which in the first tabernacle it commanded should be ever kept alight. But the Jews, after being for a short time pleased with him, flocking to his baptism, and admiring his mode of life, quickly made him sleep in death, doing their best to quench the ever-burning lamp. For this reason the Saviour also spake concerning him; “He was a burning and shining lamp, and ye were willing a little to rejoice for a season in his light.”

“To guide our feet into the way of peace.” For the world, indeed, was wandering in error, serving the creation in the place of the Creator, and was darkened over by the blackness of ignorance, and a night, as it were, that had fallen upon the minds of all, permitted them not to see Him, Who both by nature and truly is God. But the Lord of all rose for the Israelites, like a light and a sun. — Commentary on Luke I.

And thou, child, shalt be called Prophet of the Highest. Observe, I pray, this also, that Christ is the Highest, Whose forerunner John was both in his birth, and in his preaching. What remains, then, for those to say, who lessen His divinity? And why will they not understand, that when Zacharias said, “And thou shalt be called Prophet of the Highest,” he meant thereby “of God,” of Whom also were the rest of the prophets. — Commentary on Luke I.