During this week of celebration, the Church remembers and marks the memory of two important people in the life of the church and the slaughter of children two and under by King Herod.

Tuesday, December 26th Today, the church remembers Stephen, a deacon of the infant Christian church and the first to give his life as a martyr as recorded in Acts, chapters 6 &7.  Acts 6 records Stephan’s appointment as a deacon to serve the needs of the growing Christian community in Jerusalem. His witness as a Christian soon provoked the Jewish authorities and Stephen was killed by stoning with Saul (later known as Paul) as one of the observers. 

Wednesday, December 27th On this day, the Church commemorates John, the son of Zebedee as an apostle and Evangelist. John, along with his brother, James, and Peter were fishing when Jesus called them to be his first disciples and they witnessed the light of the transfiguration. Tradition has attributed the authorship of the fourth Gospel and the three Epistles that bear his name to the apostle John. John is the saint for Christmas through his proclamation that the Word became flesh and lived among us, that the light of  God shines in the darkness and that we are to love one another as Jesus Christ has loved us.

Thursday, December 28th On this day, the church remembers the Holy Innocents.  King Herod after being tricked by the Magi was so angered and worried about the threat to his reign by the birth of Jesus that he decreed that all children two years and under in and around the town of Bethlehem to be killed. Augustine called these innocents who were killed “buds killed by the frost of persecution the moment they showed themselves.”