On Sunday we heard the story of Stephen, the first martyr (Acts 7:54-60). We went so far as to call it "Stephen Sunday."
"They waxed valiant in fight" (Heb. 11:34).
By Richard Wurmbrand
Listen to the story of a hero of the faith.
His name was Florea. He died in the prison of Gherla (Romania). He had been beaten until both arms and both legs were paralyzed because he refused to do slave labor on the Lord's Day. He could only move his neck. It is bad enough to be in such a situation in a nursing home or with one's family, but he was in a prison cell where fellow inmates had no water, no sheets - nothing with which to help him.
We had to spoon-feed him, but where did we get a spoon? Yet he was the most serene and joyful among us. His face shone. When we prisoners sometimes sat around his bed brooding about our sorrows, moaning that our outlook was bad, he would reply, "If the outlook is bad, try the uplook. St. Stephen, surrounded by men who threw stones at him, abandoned by the other members of the church who did not stay with him in his moment of trial, nevertheless looked up and saw Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father. This comforted his heart; it will comfort yours also. Look up!"
After my release from prison, I spoke to his son, aged nine, and told him the story of his father's faithfulness. I added, "I hope that you will become a good man like him." He replied, "Brother, I would like to become a sufferer for Christ as my father has been."
There is no law that obliges Christians to be dull, lukewarm, half-hearted. Christianity can be heroic. The right spelling of the word "love" is "s-a-c-r-i-f-i-c-e."
