14 - Stephen gets stoned: The First Martyr of the Church

Stones flew, but the loudest sound was mercy. We unpack Stephen’s fierce clarity before the Sanhedrin, his sweeping retelling of salvation history, and the charge of being “stiff‑necked” that still lands today. As a deacon formed in daily service, Stephen learned to die to himself long before he faced a hail of stones, which is why he could answer violence with forgiveness and truth with tenderness. That union of conviction and charity—rooted in the Eucharist—turns a courtroom into a pulpit and a martyrdom into seed for the Church.

We walk through who Stephen was, why the apostles chose deacons, and how the early Church balanced preaching with practical charity. Then we press into the heart: what does it mean to have an uncircumcised heart and ears, and how do we move from outward signs to interior conversion? Along the way, we read the symbols—stones that cry out, a loaf of bread atop a martyr’s burden—and connect them to Jesus’ mercy toward the woman caught in adultery and his own words from the cross that Stephen echoes with his last breath.

Most of us won’t face red martyrdom, but white martyrdom meets us daily. Losing reputation, choosing integrity over applause, offering up small sacrifices, and serving when no one notices—all of it trains us to stand steady when it counts. If you’re hungry for a faith that is honest, courageous, and merciful, this conversation offers practical steps and deep encouragement to live the Gospel in public without losing your soul. If it resonates, share it with a friend, hit follow, and leave a review to help others find the show.

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Jordan Whiteko, Father Andrew Hamilton, Father Christopher Pujol, Vincent Reilly, Cliff Gorski, John Zylka, Sarah Hartner

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_03 (00:01):
You're listening to the Catholic Act of the podcast.
We discussed the acts that Jesusperformed that stunned his
disciples.
Great to be back, Jordan.

SPEAKER_01 (00:09):
You don't know us by now, you're never gonna know.

SPEAKER_03 (00:12):
I'm Jordan Waco here with Father Hamilton and Father
Poojal.
And we're both stunned.
Okay, today's topic is StephenGets Stoned.
Now, Jordan, remember that's inthe biblical sense.
Right, right, right, right.
But Stephen is one of the sevendeacons ordained by the apostles
and begins to preach the name ofJesus.

(00:34):
And he's such a good preacherthat the Acts of the Apostles
tell us that Stephen was filledwith grace and power and was
working great wonders and signsamong the people.
In other words, he spoke withsuch boldness that the people
responded with rocks.

SPEAKER_02 (00:49):
I know, because imagine on a Sunday we're
preaching and someone's like,This is the best homily ever,
and then you get stoned todeath.

SPEAKER_01 (00:56):
That's like George W.
Bush when they threw that shoeat him.
He dodged it, he had thosereflexes.

SPEAKER_03 (01:02):
So many shows like did like a reenactment of that,
like really where they throw apie or something at like a
speaker.
But yeah, so you know if youguys want to expand upon that a
little bit.
What's this one word, theSanhedrin?
Sanhedrin, George.
Sanhedrin.

SPEAKER_02 (01:18):
They're one of the groups of the Jewish authorities
at the time.

SPEAKER_01 (01:21):
Like the they're like the magisterium of the of
the Jews.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:25):
Okay, so we just taught him a new word.
The Sanhedrin.

SPEAKER_03 (01:30):
The Sanhedrin saw that his face was like the face
of an angel.
Can you guys tell me who wasStephen?
What's his backstory?

SPEAKER_01 (01:37):
Yeah, so Stephen, we just heard about it as the
church continues to grow intheir need.
So Stephen's one of the seventhat is then ordained a deacon
to go and take care ofespecially the needs of the
early church and the poor andthe outcast and uh the goods,
the physical, tangible goods ofthe church.
But also, as you mentioned, he'spreaching.
And so Stephen is learning fromthe apostles how to preach and

(01:59):
what we talked about before withcharygma.
And he's really convicting thosethat are listening to him.
There's others that come up andtry to challenge him, but he has
too much wisdom and wit andability as he's spurred on by
the Holy Spirit.
And so eventually he's hauled inbefore the Sanhedrin.
We remember the Sanhedrin fromthe time of Jesus' own trial,
that these are the Jewishleaders of whether that be the

(02:22):
rabbis, but also part of thatwould be the Sadducees or the
priests of the temple.
Those are in a Jewish authoritystructure.
And so as they called Christbefore them, they took Christ up
upon the charges of what?
Blasphemy, right?
That he's blaspheming God bysaying that he is the Son of
God, that he has a divinenature, and so on and so forth.

(02:43):
And Jesus talks about the Son ofMan riding upon the clouds as an
allusion back to the OldTestament of the prophecy of
Daniel.
And then what do they do?
They rip their garments, rendtheir garments, and then they
condemn him right there, andthen hand him over to Pilate, of
course, the Romans, for Jesus tobe crucified.
Who who was he though?
Where did he come from?

SPEAKER_02 (03:00):
He would have responded to the charygma, one
of those first groups.
And what's interesting too withStephen, before we get into the
whole story, is also we have tolook at when the church
celebrates Stephen.
And so the feast of SaintStephen is celebrated the day
after Christmas.
And so we celebrate the birth ofChrist who came to save the

(03:21):
world.
And the very next day wecelebrate the first martyr, who
ha, as we celebrate his birthinto glory, his birth into
heaven, who gave his life justas Christ would.

SPEAKER_03 (03:32):
The Acts of the Apostles contains a long
discourse from Stephen to theJewish Sanhedrin that gives a
summary of salvation history,starting with Abraham through
the Exodus accounts of Moses tothe building of the temple,
proclaiming the glory of God,and that despite all of these
things, the people did notlisten.

SPEAKER_01 (03:49):
So more or less, Stephen's just roasting them.
He's going back in salvationhistory and saying, this is how
God has shown his glory and hispromise, and this is how the
people of Israel continuallyrejected it.
Time of even before Israel,Abraham, down through Moses,
especially Moses in the desert.
And at the end of all thissalvation history, the building

(04:09):
of the temple and the people notnoticing the glory of God, which
is manifest in Jesus' coming asthe Messiah and the one that
they should believe in, he talksabout the people there being
stiff-necked people, which is adirect allusion back to Moses.
And the entire irony of that isthey are charging Stephen, the
Sanhedrin is charging Stephenwith blaspheming against God and

(04:31):
against Moses.
Whereas really Stephen'supholding the tradition that
Moses himself challenged thepeople because they didn't
accept the fullness of therevelation of God.

SPEAKER_02 (04:41):
And Stephen's reminding the people that Christ
came for the Jewish peoplefirst, for the chosen people.
And we see that even early onwith the disciples.

They discuss (04:52):
do we preach to the Gentiles?
Do we do we go out and bring theGentiles in?
And yes, they do, because eventhe ones who Christ came for
first rejected him.
And so Stephen is reminding thepeople of that, which is a
terrible reality.
But again, it goes back to oneof our former episodes where we

(05:13):
talk about the need to challengeothers and to speak the truth.
And Stephen was not afraid to doso.

SPEAKER_03 (05:20):
Picking up on what you say, the full quote Stephen
calls them is stiff-neckedpeople who are uncircumcised in
heart and ears, just like theirancestors.
Why does he say that to them?
Like he has to realize that thisis going to be a bad idea.

SPEAKER_01 (05:36):
He's saying to them, too, that they have an outward
sign for following God,circumcision, which is from the
Old Testament and the Leviticallaws.
But what circumcision was alwaysabout is not just an outward
show of faith, but an interiorconversion.
This is where we're getting backto that charisma that they're
stiff-necked, they're notwilling to turn, to change, to

(05:57):
look to anything else as God'strying to lead them, and that
they're not circumcising theirhearts, giving all of themselves
to God.

SPEAKER_02 (06:04):
Opening your heart, opening your ears to be able to
listen and realize that whatyou've done is because you're so
closed off, they've missed thepoint, they've missed the
message.
And it's not simply just aboutfollowing the laws of the Old
Testament, but it's abouthearing the law of love and then
acting upon it.
And so Stephen recognizes thatin himself because he was in

(06:29):
that situation not that longbefore he's preaching.

SPEAKER_03 (06:33):
And he just was such a truth giver that he he wanted
to tell them.

SPEAKER_01 (06:37):
Yeah, very convicted.
I mean, you don't have to be themost eloquent speaker sometimes,
but with conviction.
As we know from this podcast.
Yeah.
No offense, Father Chris.
I know.
Thanks, Stephen.
I appreciate that.
I'm too busy writing Father'shomilies.
We're throwing stones, but it'sokay.
They don't hurt too bad.
Yeah.
Topical.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (06:57):
You know, there's a great painting of Saint Stephen,
and he's in his Dalmatic, andit's stained with blood, right?
So it's obviously showing theviewer that he was a deacon, he
was martyred.
But what's interesting isthere's a pile of stones at his
feet, but at the top of the pileof stones, there's this one
stone that looks odd.

(07:18):
And that stone is actually aloaf of bread.
And so it's a tie between thecharity of the office of the
deacon, bringing food to thepoor, but also the fact that he
had the strength of theEucharist in his life to be able
to proclaim and to be able tosay what needed to be said.
And so, and in that, he nevertook off his diaconal vesture,

(07:40):
his diaconal garments ofservice.
And so it's reminding us thatwhen we step into these roles,
when the Lord puts us in theseroles, and even as lay people,
we have clear roles in thechurch.
Each one of us are called tospread the gospel.
And that doesn't mean that weremove ourselves from our
situation in life, but rather wefind a way to preach in that

(08:03):
way, whether we're at work,we're at school, or, you know,
you're sitting here behind yourcomputer.

SPEAKER_01 (08:08):
I can't help but thinking with all that pile of
stones and so forth, and as weenvision this as happening in
the Acts of the Apostles, fromearlier in Jesus' life, Palm
Sunday, whenever he goes intoJerusalem triumphantly, there
they're laying palms down beforehim, and the Pharisees and the
different leaders of the Jewishpeople come up and say, Rebuke

(08:28):
your disciples for all of thisshow and fanfare and so forth.
And Jesus essentially says, Ifthey don't cry out, the stones
will.
And so in Stephen's own story,what is crying out to heaven?
Well, the stones, the martyrdomof Stephen, the great witness of
the truth of the gospel, whichis I'm not backing off of this.

(08:51):
I stand right here.
This is Calvary, this is thetruth, and I'm willing to die
for it, which always makesconverts.
When you see somebody like that,what did he have to gain from
that?
Really in the way of the world,nothing.
But in everything with the Lord.
And so he looks to heaven and hesees Jesus there.
Getting stoned to death ispretty brutal.

SPEAKER_03 (09:13):
Pretty brutal.

SPEAKER_02 (09:14):
It's it's it's hard to imagine, but and and they
didn't use massive stones.
They would use smaller stones sothat it would be dragged out
because you don't want to knockthe person unconscious quickly.
Right.
Well, and so you would usesmaller stones that then would
break bones little by littleuntil you collapsed, and then

(09:35):
they would continue to pound youwith them, and eventually then
you would succumb to thoseinjuries.
Father Andrew had said thatmartyrdom means to witness.
And so these first witnesses ofthe faith remind us of what
we're called to do.
And it doesn't mean that eachone of us are going to be
martyred in this bloody manner,but the church has that great

(09:58):
phrase of white martyrdom versusred martyrdom.
Red meaning you're giving youractual blood and your entire
life.
But each one of us have momentsof martyrdom, white martyrdom,
little things that we can offerto God, right?
Our school teachers would alwayssay offer it up, just like these
new chairs.
You know, we said, gotta offerit up.

(10:19):
Those pains.
But what does that mean?
It means to nobody's gonna knowwhat we're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 (10:24):
Not at all.

SPEAKER_02 (10:25):
Not at all.

SPEAKER_03 (10:27):
The chair he they're complaining about our new
chairs, they're uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_02 (10:30):
We're really offering it up, you know.
We're saving souls.

SPEAKER_01 (10:35):
But the martyrdom You could keep going.
I just wasn't white whitemartyrdom.
One of the ways in which in themodern culture, white martyrdom
is a reality is losingreputation.
For example, whenever I kind ofcame back to my own faith from
being agnostic and thenaccepting Catholicism again and
then deciding to go off to be apriest, a lot of the people that

(10:58):
were around me that were myfriends, we had different
values.
And I lost a reputation for whoI was and they wanted me to be
for what I was going to do.
It's not easy to follow Christin the midst of the world today
to say, well, I'm gonna livethis disciplined life of a
disciple, or I'm giving up maybesome of the goods of this world
or what people think are thegoods of this world to live for

(11:20):
the next.
And so your reputation can beharmed by that, but that's a
small white martyrdom that we'recalled to do, even as we have to
go along with other agendas ofthe world that don't fit our
Christian teaching and practice.

SPEAKER_03 (11:32):
So that kind of tells us, you know, what
Stephen's witness uh teaches us,but how can we be like Stephen,
the first martyr?

SPEAKER_01 (11:43):
In service.
Stephen was only able to be amartyr and give up his life in
that way by continued disciplineof lowering himself in service,
of saying, My life is not myown.
You don't just become a martyrone day and it's there.
You have to be prepared forthat.
And so he already was dying tohimself daily, and so that when

(12:05):
his life was demanded of himthat day, he could say yes, he
was ready to say yes.

SPEAKER_02 (12:09):
And the other tie with uh the martyrdom of Saint
Stephen, think about the womancaught in adultery in the
Gospels who is encircled by thevery people who killed Stephen,
and they were ready to kill thiswoman, stone her to death.
And what does Jesus do?

(12:31):
Stops and asks, that who iswithout sin should throw the
first stone, and they all one byone drop their stones to the
ground and disperse, and thenthe woman converts and changes
her heart.
And so we see this play allthroughout the scriptures, and

(12:54):
anytime we're willing to risk itall, just like Jesus was risking
himself to save that woman, wefind people really hold on to
that, and that makes that makesdisciples.

SPEAKER_01 (13:06):
And very beautifully, Stephen loves his
enemies in a way in which thathe preaches the good news and
the truth, because loving yourenemy is actually willing their
good eternally.
That's what it means to love.
Love's a very confused world inthe modern day.
People want it to be a bunch ofdifferent things, but as in
essence, what love means is towill the good of the other

(13:27):
eternally, even sometimes at myown physical expense, you know,
laying down your life for thosethat you love.
And so Stephen isn't bittered,embittered by all of this
different show force against himand so on.
But what does he cry out rightbefore he dies?
Essentially for them to beforgiven that they don't know,
which is a direct allusion backto Jesus himself on the cross

(13:50):
when he looks down not incondemnation, but he looks down
in mercy and says, Father,forgive them, for they know not
what they do.
So Stephen in his death takes onthe very image of Christ.
That's that whole story,condemned by the Sanhedrin,
telling the truth, not backingoff of it, and then even
forgiving in the midst ofpersecution.
And so he lays out as the firstmartyr the exact witness that

(14:14):
all of the martyrs after himshould have.
And the blood of the martyrs isthe seed of the church.
And so we see after Stephen andthe Acts of the Apostles, a
continued growth.
Even one of their greatestpreachers, one of the gravest,
greatest servants of the earlychurch is killed.
And it doesn't thwart the growthof the gospel in the church, but
actually accelerates it more andmore.

(14:34):
And makes it stronger.
Thanks for listening to theCatholic Accent podcast.
Don't forget to follow, like,and subscribe to our show.
See in great stained glasswindows, especially throughout
like the Gothic stylation, thatyou'll see different images of
the saints, but especially themartyrs, and they'll have
something with them signifyingthe way that they died.

(14:55):
So Stephen would be oftendepicted then with stones around
him as a sign of his martyrdom.
Say Saint Catherine ofAlexandria, she died by a spiked
wheel, right?
It's always by her leg.
And so the martyrs, the signs oftheir torment in this life
become badges of honor andaccolades into the next.
And so it's something veryinteresting to contemplate.
What would we be depicted with?

(15:16):
Them up there.
Each other's thorn.
What?
Why are you looking at me?

SPEAKER_03 (15:23):
Yeah, so there he is.

SPEAKER_01 (15:24):
All right, so we're done.

SPEAKER_02 (15:27):
Okay, episode five.