St. Stephen Intercedes from Heaven.
To those who say miracles do not happen, and did not happen beyond Apostolic (New Testament) times, St. Augustine (354-430) of Hippo in North Africa (today's Annaba, Algeria), would reply, “It is sometimes objected that the miracles which Christians claim, no longer happen.... However, the malice of the objection is in the insinuation that not even the earlier miracles ought to be believed.” Isn’t that certainly true with the Modernist scholars and atheists!
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| Basilica of St. Augustine at Annaba (Hippo) |
A priest had been cured of one ailment
when sometime later he had died. Not losing hope, someone took the priest’s
tunic to the shrine of St. Stephen and touched it to the relic of Stephen. When he came back, and put the
tunic on the priest’s body, the priest was restored to life. Thank you, Lord!
Thank you, St. Stephen, for your intercession in Heaven! There is the
“communion of saints” in action, aiding us who remain on Earth!
Another time a consecrated virgin was on
the brink of death, and her parents took her habit to the shrine to touch St.
Stephen’s relic. But while they were there, the woman died back home. Upon
returning, the parents, full of faith, still clothed the corpse with the habit.
What happened? Their daughter came back to life. Thank you, Lord! Thank you,
St. Stephen, for your intercession in Heaven!
A Syrian who lived there in Hippo had a
daughter who was approaching death, and he took her robe to St. Stephen’s
shrine to touch it to the relic. While the father was still there praying, his
servants came intending to tell him his daughter had died, but friends of the
man would not let them say it so that he might not break down in public. Upon
coming home, they were already mourning at the house, and thus the man learned
of his daughter’s death. Nevertheless, full of faith, he put the robe on the
lifeless corpse of his daughter. Yes, her life was restored. Thank you, Lord!
Thank you, St. Stephen, for your intercession in Heaven!
Another man in Hippo, a neighbor of St.
Augustine’s, and a tax collector at that(!), had a son who had just died. His
body was laid out and the funeral arranged. A friend in attendance at the
funeral suggested the body be anointed with oil from the shrine of St. Stephen.
So the family followed that suggestion. And what happened? You guessed it! The
funeral stopped – the boy came back to life! Thank you, Lord! Thank you, St.
Stephen, for your intercession in Heaven!
Well, there were certainly more than four.
But these four got recorded for future generations. St. Augustine wrote, “How
can I tell all the miracles I know .... I know that many of my fellow Catholics
will complain that I have left out any number of miracles which they happen to
know as well as I do.” He then suggested, “I should have to fill several
volumes ... officially recorded and attested for public reading in our
churches.” Good idea! But apparently overwhelming. There were just too many to
ever write them all down.
God is incredibly merciful! And so is the Communion of Saints if we just call upon them as one body in Christ.
Dibby Allan Green