4/21/2015 – Tuesday of the 3rd week of Easter - Acts 7:51-8:1a

       Stephen is stoned to death in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, dying a martyr’s death with dignity and respect.  He is the first martyr recorded in Sacred Scripture by the Early Church after the death and resurrection of Jesus.  We as modern believers know that there are many other martyrs that will die for the faith in those first centuries.  Stephen kept his faith, telling the Lord not to hold this sin against the people.   God’s grace was working within Stephen until the very end.

        Stephen gave his life for the faith. St Anselm, the saint we celebrate today, also gave his life to God and for the faith.  Anselm was a Benedictine monk in Normandy, France in the 11^th century who was named as the Archbishop of Canterbury in England at the age of 60.  Even though Anselm was a monk and abbot, he is now remembered as one of the great theologians of Western Christianity.  Anselm is known as the Father of Scholasticism, a method of learning and reason that was employed in philosophy and theology for hundreds of year.  Anselm spent many years in exile while serving as Archbishop of Canterbury trying to defend the faith against kings who tried to overrule him and assert their own will.  I remember writing a paper on the proofs of God’s existence that Anselm put forth in a course I took in medieval philosophy.  Here is a quote from St Anselm that reflects his steadfastness in the faith: “0 Lord: my heart is made bitter by its own desolation; sweeten it by Your consolation. I beseech you, O Lord, that having begun in hunger to seek You, I may not finish without partaking of You. I set out famished; let me not return unfed.”

        We have so many wonderful examples of faith in the community of the saints; St Anselm and St Stephen are just two of them.  May they inspire us on our own journeys and may their prayers and intercession help us in the challenges and trials we face in life.