Saint Stephen was the church’s first martyr—“witness”—the first of those to “wash their robes,” in the words of the Book of Revelation, to die because they held to their faith in the face of hostility.

World Communications Day annually exploits the feast of Saint Francis de Sales, the patron saint of journalists, writers, and educators. For the last 47 years on this day church leaders have wondered how best to use burgeoning media resources to fulfill the gospel mandate to bring the Good News of Jesus to the ends of the earth.

HISTORIANS believe that one of the reasons Christianity kept spreading in the Roman Empire long after the first generations had died was an act of Christian love: care for the sick. Plagues were not uncommon. In those terrifying times Christians were known to attend to those stricken with disease regardless of their beliefs.

Like you, O Lord, your first martyr Saint Stephen called on God to forgive his persecutors. Today we pray for that same forgiveness.

The call is both an invitation to and a plea for salvation. Jesus, saying yes, invites into the love of God the ones who seek life—the “tree of life” and life-giving water.

THE SPIRIT and the bride say, “Come.” Let the hearer say, “Come.” These words suggest those spoken at early Christian eucharistic celebrations both as a call to participate in the sacrament and to Jesus to come.

Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never of the correctness of a belief. —Arthur Schnitzler, Austrian playwright (1862-1931)