Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Merry X-mas !


Unique Christmas Comments

Saint Stephen



Saint Stephen

Jesus had twelve apostles. An apostle is someone with a special mission, who is sent out to do a special job. Jesus chose His apostles to build His Church. The apostles lived with Jesus, learned from Him and traveled with Him around the countryside as He went from town to town teaching about His Father.

Jesus also had many disciples, people who came to learn from Jesus. The Bible tells us there were 72 disciples.

After Jesus ascended into Heaven, the apostles began to preach to the people themselves, and to start the Catholic church. There was a lot of work to do. People came to them with gifts, others came asking for healing, or food. Soon, the apostles were so busy organizing the people that they had no time to teach them anymore.

So, they asked the disciples to choose seven men to take care of the poor and the organizing. These seven men were the first deacons of the church. The apostles ordained them as deacons by praying and placing their hands on the heads of the deacons.

Saint Stephen was one of the first seven deacons. He began to serve the poor and preach to the people about Jesus. More and more people joined the Christians. The high priests of the temple were jealous of Saint Stephen's successes, and accused him of blasphemy, which means telling lies about God.

They took him in front of a judge, just like they did to Jesus. At the trial, Saint Stephen kept on teaching about Jesus. He told the judges that they were hard-hearted murderers of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. When the crowd heard this, everyone became so angry that they stopped the trial, dragged Saint Stephen outside and threw rocks at him.

Saint Stephen forgave the people who were stoning him, and asked God not to punish the people. Then he said, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." and died. Saint Stephen was the first Christian martyr, the first person to die because he loved Jesus so much that he wouldn't stop talking about Him.

You could read more about Saint Stephen – here -

I want to wish to All those are named Stephen or one of his derived names my warm and honest, HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!




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