Saint_Stephen

Saint Stephen was one of the very first deacons in the Catholic Church. His name in Greek means “crown”. A crown was later found inscribed on his tomb. Stephen was a really wise man and gave very good speeches about Jesus. The Jews in Jerusalem did not like how he spoke to people about God and everything. One day they plotted against Stephen to try to get him in trouble by asking him a lot of questions so that he might say something wrong and he could be tried. Stephen only spoke wisely and gave good solid answers. The Jews were mad that their plan did not work out so they hired people to lie to the court and tell the court that Stephen was speaking words of blasphemy against Moses and God. The court believed them and Stephen got tried. When he got to the temple where he was going to be tried, he told the people that Jesus was going to burn down this place for accusing him of nothing. This made many people angry. During his trial the court asked him if everything he was doing was true. He said nothing and kept preaching and praying. After he was found guilty he was dragged out to the town’s center to be stoned to death. Before the stoning Stephen looked up to the sky and claimed to see the gates of heaven opening with God and Jesus sitting at the right hand of God. Stephen then started to get stoned but before he died he prayed that the people who were killing him would be forgiven by God. Stephen died in the year 35 A.D.. His tomb got lost and was not found until the year 415 when a priest named Lucian found it in a city called Caphar Gamala just north of Jerusalem. There now is a Saint Stephen’s day on December 26th right after Christmas commemorating him as the first martyr of Christianity. After a long time of researching and deciding I had finally made a decision to choose Saint Stephen to be my confirmation name. One reason why I chose Saint Stephen to be my confirmation name is because I too have the same name as him just spelled differently. After doing further research about my namesake I found other things that connected me with Saint Stephen. He was one of the first Deacons of the church and I think that it would have been pretty interesting to be the very first Deacon of the very first church. He was a very nice and wise man and I aspire to be a very nice and wise man when I grow up. Another reason I chose him was because he preached about God and Jesus a lot and I thought that it would be cool to see what it is like to give nice, good preaches like he did and what would happen if he said something wrong about God or Jesus. My next reason of why I chose him is because he was liked by many people and I thought that if he was liked by so many people then he might have some interesting stories about friends and stuff like that. Also, right before he died he told God to not sin the people who were stoning him. I relate to this because say someone killed my friend by running them over with the car. I would ask God not to sin that person because maybe it was an accident and accidents happen. The next reason why I chose Saint Stephen is that right before he died he forgave everyone who was betraying him. I can also relate to this one because one of my friends has betrayed me before, whether it was by telling on me or just not having my back, but they betrayed me and I forgave them for what they did and we were back to being friends. Also I have this reason because I believe that everyone has good in them and they should not be punished but forgiven. The last reason why I chose Saint Stephen for my confirmation name is because he is celebrated the day after Christmas and Christmas is my favorite holiday. I chose Saint Stephen to be my confirmation name and these are my reasons why I chose him to be that.