BROKEN

 INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Broken.”

It hit me, here it is, just one day after Christmas, and the church hits us with the horrible feast of St. Stephen.

Couldn’t they have waited another week at least?

But no, here’s the feast of St. Stephen, killed for being a follower of Jesus, and it’s put just the next day after the sweet peace of Christmas day.

We hear in today’s gospel about the horrors of  brother handing over brother - and a father a child - because of Jesus. [Cf. Matthew 10: 17-22.]

And on Wednesday we have the feast of the Holy Innocents…..  baby boys killed because of Christ.

And we turn on the evening news - Christmas eve or Christmas night - and we hear of a shooting on the streets of Washington, Baltimore or many a big city.

BROKEN

The title of my homily is “Broken.”

The nice neat toy - the kid opens up the box and goes, “Oooooh” over it -  on Christmas morning - and then the toy is broken by 4 PM and the kid goes “Aaaagh!”

And we sit there with family on Christmas afternoon  after a great meal and we hear good news - accomplishments - about different members of the family -  but we also hear of a broken marriage or drugs or drinking. And our “Oooh” changes to “Aaagh.”

MESSAGE FROM STEPHEN

And the great message from the feast of St. Stephen is forgiveness.

The great message from the life of Stephen is that he got the message of Jesus from the cross and from the life of Jesus. Brokenness happens. Horror happens. “Aaaagh” and dread happens.

There’s a wisdom statement from Jesus that is hitting more and more - the older I get.

He said: what’s so great about being nice to those who are nice to us? Everyone can do that.  It’s when things are going wrong - when we are hurt - and we deal well with those hurts - brokenness  - it’s then we grow. Then we rise. Then we know how to deal with life better.

CONCLUSION

So a message from Stephen is that things break - people throw stones - people get hurt - and a hope is that we can be like Stephen and stop the cycles of hell hurts - by forgiveness and acceptance - and let the beginning of a better next start with us. Amen.

OOOOOOO

Painting on top: The Stoning of Stephen by Rembrandt Harmesz van Rijn 1609-1665