Lingering on Saint Stephen’s speech to the Court, the longest in the Acts of the Apostles, the Pope pointed out that, in it, Stephen “rereads all of the Biblical narrative, a process contained in the Holy Scriptures, to show that it leads to the ‘place’ of the final presence of God, which is Jesus Christ, especially His Passion, Death and Resurrection. From this perspective, Stephen also reads his own being Jesus’ disciple, following Him through to martyrdom. His meditation on the Holy Scriptures thus enables him to understand the present”. “In the events told by the Holy Scriptures – the Pope commented –, God always appears as He never gets tired of coming close to man, despite often finding obstinate opposition”. In all this, Stephen “sees the harbinger of the life of Jesus Himself, God’s Son incarnate, who finds obstacles, rejection, death”. “In his meditation on God’s action in the history of salvation, highlighting the never-ending temptation to reject God and His action”, Benedict XVI concluded, he states that Jesus is the Righteous one announced by the prophets”, in whom “God finally and uniquely made Himself present”.-

02/05/2012 -