Radiantly Good- Weekday Homily Video

Every family has one, a child who is simply, inexplicably, unreasonably good. Not perfect, but just genuinely, radiantly good. They do their chores without being asked. They share their stuff without being told. They comfort a crying sibling while everyone else is still arguing about whose fault it is. And the baffling thing is, nobody taught them to be this way. They just are. And even the parents look at them sometimes and think: where exactly did you come from? And if the early Church was a family, that child was Stephen.

In the early Church, Stephen was chosen to do the least glamorous job imaginable, distributing food to widows. He was essentially the Church's volunteer at the community kitchen. technically speaking, a waiter, one of seven men chosen to serve at tables so the Apostles could get on with preaching. Stephen was the Church's first catering staff. And yet Luke, who wrote Acts, cannot help himself. He piles up the superlatives like a proud parent at a school prize-giving: full of grace, full of power, performing wonders, winning every debate, irresistible in wisdom. Stephen was, to put it simply, the kind of person who makes everyone around him simultaneously inspired and also annoyed, because he makes the rest of them look bad simply by his existence.

The Blame Game

Now, in every family, there is always the moment when someone decides that the best response to someone else's excellence is not admiration, but sabotage. Parents know this dynamic well. You leave two children alone for five minutes. You return to a crime scene. And the guilty one is already pointing at the innocent one with absolute conviction, constructing a narrative of blame so elaborate and detailed, it could be published as fiction.

That is precisely what happens to Stephen. The people who cannot beat him in arguments go home, think about it, and decide: if we cannot defeat him with truth, we will defeat him with a very convincing lie. They hire false witnesses. They drag him before the Sanhedrin.

And Stephen stands there. Quietly. Calmly. Not sweating. Not rehearsing his defense under his breath. And every single person in that courtroom, accusers included, looks at his face and sees something they cannot explain; he is glowing. His face, Luke tells us, was like the face of an angel. The 18th-century commentator Matthew Henry noted that this was the same shining Moses carried down from Sinai, the overflow of someone who had spent so much time in the presence of God that the light simply leaked out. You cannot fake that. No amount of deep breathing or listening to motivational podcasts produces that look or glow in a courtroom.

But We all know what a guilty face looks like. Every parent in this room is nodding right now. You've seen it, the slightly too-casual expression, the eyes that go to the ceiling. You didn't need a confession. The face tells you everything.

The Peaceful Response Rooted in Christ

Stephen's face told everyone everything, too. Just in the opposite direction. It is the overflow of someone so deeply rooted in God that when the storm comes, there was simply nowhere for the fear to take hold. The peace was not on his face. It was in his bones.

And this is the question that Stepehen drops quietly into our laps today, the one that follows us home to our dinner tables and our difficult conversations with people: What are we rooted in? Because whatever it is, that is what will show on our faces when the pressure comes, is it anger? Fear? Arrogance?

Stephen was a table-server who glowed like an angel in a courtroom. Which means this kind of rooted, unshakeable, luminous peace is not reserved for saints in stained glass. It is on offer for every single one of us, including the ones who still haven't figured out whose turn it is to do the dishes.

• Today’s Readings
  
  
• Father Boby’s inspirational homily was recorded live during Mass at the Father Peyton Center today. You can watch the entire Mass on the Family Rosary Video streams channel on YouTube.
  
  
• Join the Rosary (11:30 am ET) and Mass (Noon ET) livestreams on the Family Rosary YouTube or Facebook page, Monday – Friday. Invite your friends and family to pray with you as well.