Catholics are blessed to apply these Bible Words from St. Stephen, The First Catholic Martyr after Jesus, to ourselves! Today’s Reading from Acts 7:51-8:1 begins with a “Hidden Prophecy” predicting the nature of those who would hate Catholics for the next 2,000 years:
“Stephen said to the people, the elders, and the scribes: ‘You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always oppose The Holy Spirit; you are just like your ancestors.”
Stephen was speaking to those who resented the Church-Creating Word of God that He Who Fulfilled the Messianic Prophecies had Spoken to His First Catholic Pope:
“And I say unto you thou art Peter and on this rock I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I give you the keys to The Kingdom of Heaven.”
Stephen put the anti-Catholics who were attacking him in Historical Perspective with a simple question! “Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute?”
He answered with this “Hidden Prophecy” of their fate! “They put to death those who foretold the coming of The Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.”
Then! Every anti-Catholic in the past 2,000 years is described in one sentence: “You received the law as transmitted by angels, but you did not observe it.”
How should Catholics react when attacked by the usual “elders, people, and scribes” who are “infuriated and grind their teeth at us” because they hate Catholic Teachings that threaten their livelihoods? We learn from The First Catholic Martyr after Jesus:
“But Stephen, filled with The Holy Spirit, looked up intently to Heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and Stephen said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
The next “Hidden Prophecy” predicts what lost souls would do when they see Catholics who love God more than they do: “They threw him out of the city and began to stone him.”
Then, Stephen made two requests to Jesus! (1) “As they were stoning Stephen, he called out, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ (2) Then, he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice: ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.'”
Today’s Catholic Reading then refers to the Prophecy that predicted Stephen, and every Catholic Martyr’s death in Psalm 31:3-8, 17, 20: “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit”!
Then, something odd! In Today’s Alleluia, Jesus tells us where and how to find the strength to resist self-serving people in John 6:35, “I am the bread of life, says The Lord; whoever comes to Me will never hunger.”
That is a “Hidden Prophecy”! It foretells that all who obey the call to Catholic Communion would “never hunger” because they would receive the gift of “eternal life” that Jesus Personally Promised when He repeated 14 times: “If you do not eat My Body and drink My Blood, you do not have life in you.”
Stephen had “life in” him because he had received The First Catholic Communion that Jesus gave His Life to leave to His First Catholic Pope, Bishops, and those Ordained for the next 2,000 years as Living Links with Jesus at The Last Supper.
May we all be as blessed as Stephen! There is no surer way to get to Heaven than to “Stay Catholic”, despite every evil’s perpetual persecution of our Faith.
Jesus concludes Today’s Catholic Reading with another call to Catholic Communion from John 6:30-35. Again, Jesus tells all those blessed to actually listen to Him: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to Me will never hunger, and whoever believes in Me will never thirst.”
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Today’s Simple Rhyme: “Catholics find union / in Catholic Communion / with God.”
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