Immediately after the festivities of Christmas the Church celebrates the martyrdom of St. Stephen. It seems like an odd sequence to us who are amazed when “bad things happen to good people.” If God is on our side, shouldn’t only good things happen to us? That was certainly not the expectation of Jesus nor of his early followers. You will be hated by all because of my name, Jesus said. The Biblical perspective is that everything that happens, good and bad, will be used by God to bring about the divine kingdom of peace and justice. This is not very consoling when you see innocent suffering, when you lose a loved one to cancer, when elements of society seems permanently opposed to one another. Reflecting on martyrdom in the days after Christmas serves as a reminder that Jesus was born into the total reality of human life — the joys and the griefs. With the eyes of faith we learn to see the presence of God in all aspects of our life as well.
