Feast of Saint Stephen, first martyr

 Lectionary: 696

When they hand you over,
do not worry about how you are to speak
or what you are to say.
You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
For it will not be you who speak
but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

The Catholic translation of the Bible (NABRE) helpfully assigns cross references to the Lord's prophecy about how we should speak and what we might say: 

We read in Exodus of Moses' reluctance to approach the Pharaoh with God's demand,  

Moses said to the LORD, “If you please, my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and tongue.” 

The LORD said to him: Who gives one person speech? Who makes another mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go, I will assist you in speaking and teach you what you are to say.

Secondly, we read that Jeremiah, from within his mother's womb, objected to the Lord's prophetic commission, 

“Ah, Lord GOD!” Jeremiah said,
“I do not know how to speak. I am too young!"
But the LORD answered,
Do not say, “I am too young.”
To whomever I send you, you shall go;
whatever I command you, you shall speak.

And then we have this comical story from the Book of Numbers: 

When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD there, she lay down under Balaam. Balaam’s anger flared up and he beat the donkey with his stick. Then the LORD opened the mouth of the donkey, and she asked Balaam, “What have I done to you that you beat me these three times?" 

“You have acted so willfully against me,” said Balaam to the donkey, “that if I only had a sword at hand, I would kill you here and now.”

But the donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey, on which you have always ridden until now? Have I been in the habit of treating you this way before?” 

“No,” he replied.

Then the LORD opened Balaam’s eyes, so that he saw the angel of the LORD standing on the road with sword drawn; and he knelt and bowed down to the ground.

In the same story, we find Balaam imitating his donkey, 

The LORD put an utterance in Balaam’s mouth, and said: Go back to Balak, and speak accordingly.

On this second day of Christmas, the Church recognizes the Spirit speaking through the prophet Stephen as he faced an angry mob in Jerusalem. Joyful, confident, rambunctious, he could not help but recount the history of Israel in the light of Jesus's resurrection. 

Clearly the Protomartyr did not worry about how he was to speak, or what he might say, but he was given at that moment what he had to say. And only a pile of stones could stop him!

During this confusing era in human history, assailed by unprecedented technologies, social and political confusion, and climate catastrophe, we hardly know what to say to our contemporaries. Our religious tradition seems unprepared to address critical issues. And so we ask God to give us Stephen's spirit, wisdom, courage, and irrepressible joy. And then we speak.