{"id":767,"date":"2019-12-26T10:12:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-25T23:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/?p=767"},"modified":"2020-06-26T11:07:52","modified_gmt":"2020-06-26T01:07:52","slug":"st-stephen-the-first-martyr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/saints\/p-t\/2019\/st-stephen-the-first-martyr\/","title":{"rendered":"St Stephen the First Martyr"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Christianity\u2019s first martyr was probably a Greek Jew. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stephen\u2019s story is recounted in the Acts of the Apostles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He was among the first seven deacons chosen to serve the Hellenist Christian community in Jerusalem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the wonders he worked rattled local Jewish leaders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Witnesses at his trial before the Sanhedrin gave false testimony, and Stephen defended himself with a stirring speech recalling the long history of Israel\u2019s relationship with God and calling the Jews \u201cstiff-necked people\u201d who \u201calways oppose the Holy Spirit.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As he was stoned to death outside the city, he cried out, \u201cLord Jesus, receive my spirit.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He is the patron of bricklayers, stonemasons and numerous individual Christian churches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Text: Catholic News Service<\/em>, <br><em>Image: The Stoning of St Stephen by Annibale Carracci, between 1603 and 1604\/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<strong> Feast: 26 December <\/strong> Christianity\u2019s first martyr was probably a Greek Jew. Stephen\u2019s story is recounted in the...","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":768,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":769,"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions\/769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.sydneycatholic.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}