Pope in prayer and communion with Jesus, the strength to face the persecution
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Nourished by Scripture and communion with Jesus and his Church, prayer enables one to face life's difficulties and even persecution. This is the teaching that comes from "the witness and prayer" of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, which Benedict XVI today offered 40 thousand people in St. Peter's Square for the general audience.
Stephen,
"one of the seven chosen for the service of charity", the Pope
recalled, was brought to court, before the Sanhedrin, accused of having said
that Jesus would destroy the temple
of Jerusalem, and
subverted the customs handed down by Moses . Jesus
had actually spoken of the destruction of the temple, which he would rebuild in
three days, but "he was speaking of his body."
"Stephen's
discourse before the court, the longest of the Acts of the Apostles develops
from this prophecy of Jesus, who is the new temple, who inaugurates the new
cult and replaces the ancient sacrifices with the offering of himself on Cross.
Stephen wants to show how unfounded the accusation made against him of having
subverted the law of Moses and illustrates his vision of the history of
salvation, the covenant between God and man. He thus re-reads the biblical
narrative, the itinerary contained in the Holy Scripture, to show that it leads
to the "place" the ultimate presence of God, which is Jesus Christ,
especially His Passion, Death and Resurrection. In this perspective, Stephen
also reads his being a disciple of Jesus, following him to
martyrdom. "
His meditation
on Sacred Scripture allows Stephen to understand his present reality. "In
his speech Stephen begins with the call of Abraham, a pilgrim to the land indicated
by God and which was only a promise; he then passes to Joseph sold by his
brothers, but assisted and freed by God, to arrive at Moses, who becomes an
instrument of God to free his people, but who also on several occasions
encounters the rejection of his own people. In these events narrated in Sacred
Scripture, which Stephen religiously listens to, God, who never tires of
encountering man despite often finding stubborn opposition, always emerges.
"
"In
all this he sees a foreshadowing of the story of Jesus, the Son of God made
flesh, who - like the ancient Fathers - encounters obstacles, rejection,
death." In
his meditation on the action of God in salvation history, Stephen highlights
the perennial temptation to reject God and his action and says that "Jesus
is the Just announced by the prophets; in Jesus, God himself is present in such
a unique and definitive way:
Jesus is the true place of worship. "
Stephen,
therefore, does not deny the importance of the temple, "but stresses that
God does not dwell in houses made by human hands. The new temple in which God
dwells is his Son, who took on human flesh, it is the humanity
of Christ, the Risen One who gathers the people and unites them in the
Sacrament of his Body and his Blood. "
"The
life and discourse of Stephen is suddenly interrupted by his stoning, but his very
martyrdom is the fulfillment of his life and his message: he becomes one with
Christ." Before
he died, he asks for Jesus to receive his spirit, and like Jesus asks God
"not to
hold
this sin"
against
those
who stoned him.
The testimony of
St. Stephen offers us some indications to our prayer and our lives. The
first is that St. Stephen drew the strength to face his persecutors to the
point of the gift of himself "from his relationship with God" and
"meditation on the history of salvation, from seeing the action of God, which
in Jesus Christ came to
the summit. " So
"our prayer must be nourished by listening to the Word of God."
The
second is that the martyr "sees foreshadowed, in the history of the relationship
of love between God and man, the figure and mission of Jesus He - the Son of
God - is a temple" not made with human hands " where
the presence of God the Father came so close as to take on our flesh to bring
us to God, to open up the gates of Heaven to us. Our prayer, then, must be the
contemplation of Jesus at the right hand of God, of Jesus as Lord of
our, of my daily, existence. In him, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we
too can turn to God - concluded the Pope - with the trust and abandonment of
children who turn to a Father who loves them infinitely
".
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