Please be so kind as to say a prayer for the release of Warren Weinstein, an American citizen who was captured and is being held by the terrorists Al Que’da in Pakistan. \u00a0God is still on the throne and prayer changes things!<\/p>\n
Today we celebrate the first Catholic martyr, great St. Stephen, deacon of Holy Mother Church. \u00a0He saw the heavens open and the Lord waiting to receive him as he was being stoned to death. \u00a0Many believe that in the crowd that watched his martyrdom, there was Saul of Tarsis, later to become the great St. Paul. \u00a0Holy Mother Church gives St. Stephen this feast day so as to remind us that Christ came for a reason, to redeem a sinful world and that to do it cost His very Life, His very Blood. \u00a0Those that are called to serve Him and who hope to be received by Him at the end must be willing to make the greatest sacrifice, like St. Stephen did. \u00a0For us not called to physical martyrdom, a sacrifice just as serious is required of us- to live as a true Catholic every day of our lives and thus to die in His grace and favor. \u00a0To forgive daily, to silence our pride and ego daily, to speak up for the injured, tortured and hurt and to do this daily. \u00a0To pray and hope and LOVE daily, daily, daily! \u00a0This is the way of Christ, the way of the true Catholic.<\/p>\n
O Great St. Stephen, thank you for your sacrifice for Jesus, Our Lord and for your holy example. \u00a0Please help us to lead good, Catholic lives and please, please protect Warren Weinstein and give him the miracle of a release from his captors. \u00a0Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Please be so kind as to say a prayer for the release of Warren Weinstein, an American citizen who was captured and is being held by the terrorists Al Que’da in Pakistan. \u00a0God is still on the throne and prayer changes things! Today we celebrate the first Catholic martyr, great St. Stephen, deacon of Holy Mother Church. \u00a0He saw the… (more…)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[380,287,54,166,379],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts","tag-al-que","tag-great-st","tag-holy-mother-church","tag-love","tag-warren-weinstein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":553,"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions\/553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}