St. Stephen's Day

Per multas tribulationes oportet nos intrare in regnum Dei.

Actus Apostolorum 14:21

The life of a church musician being unmitigated misery and self-loathing in the days leading up to Christmas, it really is quite a relief when the last note of music ceases to resound after the last Mass of Christmas Day. (Honesty compels me to admit that I exaggerate, slightly. But this year I anticipated Christmas Eve as the sinner anticipates the Day of Judgement: waiting to be consigned to the eternal fire, to eat nought but burning-hot coals and drink nought but burning-hot cola. I must somehow learn not to worry on behalf of other musicians, or I shall have to find some other vocation.)

Ah, but now, now it is Christmas, at least until Twelfth Night. (I have plans for Epiphany, as the Bishop is visiting, but preparing solo organ music inspires me with comparatively little dread.) And today is Boxing Day, or the Feast of St. Stephen the Protomartyr, if you prefer. Diplomacy was not Stephen's forte, to be certain. It takes a certain foolhardiness, or perhaps blissful unawareness, to, when facing a crowd quite ready to stone you, address them thusly:

Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.

It is curious that Christians should so honor a man who pretty clearly brought his martyrdom upon himself. There must be a line, somewhere, between willingness to profess one's faith and eagerness for martyrdom. Perhaps that is the same line I must learn to draw between doing one's job and suffering for one's job. Hmm.

In any case, permit me to wish you, dear reader, "a wonderful Christmastime" (as Paul McCartney so catchily and irritatingly put it).