[Officium]
Octave of St. Stephen

[Oratio]
O Almighty and everlasting God, Who hast dedicated the first-fruits of Thy Martyrs with the blood of the Blessed Stephen; grant, we beseech Thee, that the same may pray for us also, who prayed even for his murderers to our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son:
$Qui tecum

[Lectio1] (rubrica tridentina)
Lesson from the Acts of Apostles
!Acts 7:51-54
51 You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do you also.
52 Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them who foretold of the coming of the Just One; of whom you have been now the betrayers and murderers:
53 Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
54 Now hearing these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed with their teeth at him.

[Lectio2] (rubrica tridentina)
!Acts 7:55-58
55 But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looking up steadfastly to heaven, saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. And he said: Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
56 And they crying out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and with one accord ran violently upon him.
57 And casting him forth without the city, they stoned him; and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man, whose name was Saul.
58 And they stoned Stephen, invoking, and saying: Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

[Lectio3] (rubrica tridentina)
!Acts 7:59; 8:1-2
59 And falling on his knees, he cried with a loud voice, saying: Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep in the Lord. And Saul was consenting to his death.
1 And at that time there was raised a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all dispersed through the countries of Judea, and Samaria, except the apostles.
2 And devout men took order for Stephen's funeral, and made great mourning over him.

[Lectio4]
From the Sermons of St. Augustine, Bishop (of Hippo.)
!2nd on St. Stephen.
Even after the glory of yesterday, bright with the splendour of Christ our Saviour's Birth, this day findeth itself an illumination of its own from the crown of the blessed Martyr Stephen. The whole earth knoweth how manfully he fought and conquered for he suffered at the very fountain-head of the Church, that is to say, in Jerusalem. It was in the Church there that he ministered as a Deacon and in the youthful springtime of life dyed with his blood the lily of his purity. His Passion is very glorious, and many ways wonderful, and when we read it in the Acts of the Apostles, we seem rather to see than to hear.

[Lectio5]
Christ, the Captain of the Martyrs, hath first suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps, (i Pet. ii. 21.) And truly, Blessed Stephen followed them, when, having confessed Christ, he was stoned to death by the Jews, and obtained the crown which his name had foreshown. For the meaning of the Greek name Stephanos is a crown. Already he had a crown for his name, a foreshadowing of the martyr's palm which he beareth in heaven.

[Lectio6]
Then they stoned him he did not rejoice at the thought that God would take vengeance on his persecutors. On the contrary, he prayed that they might be forgiven. For he remembered the word of the Lord, that saith Vengeance belongeth unto Me, I will recompense, saith the Lord, (Heb. x. 30,) and again: Say not thou; I will recompense evil to mine enemies, but wait on the Lord, and He shall save thee. (Prov. xx. 22.) The Lord God biddeth us also be patient, knowing that in the great day of retribution, we, as well as His holy martyrs, shall be righted.

[Lectio7]
From the Holy Gospel according to Matthew
!Matt 23:34-35
In that time, Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees: Behold I send to you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them you will put to death and crucify. And so on.
_
Homily by St. Jerome, Priest (at Bethlehem.)
!Bk. iv. Comment, on Matth. xxiii.
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the Prophets. The Jerusalem that killed the Prophets was not the material stone and houses, but they that dwelt therein. He wept over her with a father's love, as also it is written in another place that, when He saw the city, He wept over it. (Luke xix. 41.) How often would I have gathered thy children together. Here observe that Christ avoweth that He had been the Sender of all the former Prophets. Even as an hen gathereth her chickens under her wings. A similar figure is found in the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy, xxxii. II, As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, and beareth them on her wings.

[Lectio8]
Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. God had already spoken these things once before, by the mouth of Jeremiah, where He saith I have forsaken Mine house, I have left Mine heritage; Mine inheritance is become unto Me like an hyaena's den. (xii. 7.) The house of the Jews, which was to be left unto them desolate, is that Temple, whose splendour they loved only too well, when they slew the Owner of it for the sake of it, and said of Christ, This is the heir; come, let us kill Him, and the inheritance shall be ours. ( Matth. xxi. 38.)

[Lectio9]
I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Here He speaketh to Jerusalem and to the Jewish people. The words, Blessed is He That cometh in the name of the Lord, were indeed spoken by babes and sucklings when the Saviour entered Jerusalem in triumph, and they that went before and they that followed, cried, saying, ' Blessed is He That cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest,' ~(Mark xi. 9,) but they are originally taken from Psalm cxvii. 26. -Which Psalm is all evidently written in honour of the coniing of our Lord.
&teDeum

[Lectio93] (rubrica divino)
From the Sermons of St. Augustine, Bishop (of Hippo.)
!2nd on St. Stephen.
Christ, the Captain of the Martyrs, hath first suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps, (i Pet. ii. 21.) And truly, Blessed Stephen followed them, when, having confessed Christ, he was stoned to death by the Jews, and obtained the crown which his name had foreshown. For the meaning of the Greek name Stephanos is a crown. Already he had a crown for his name, a foreshadowing of the martyr's palm which he beareth in heaven. Then they stoned him he did not rejoice at the thought that God would take vengeance on his persecutors. On the contrary, he prayed that they might be forgiven.
&teDeum