On the Feast of Stephen...

Yesterday we celebrated the birth in time of our eternal King. Today we celebrate the triumphant suffering of his soldier. Yesterday our King, clothed in his robe of flesh, left his place in the virgin's womb and graciously visited this world. Today his soldier leaves the tabernacle of his body and goes triumphantly to heaven... And so the love that brought Christ from heaven raised Stephen from earth to heaven: shown first in the King, it later shone forth in His soldier. Love was Stephen's weapon by which he gained every battle, and so won the crown signified by his name. - Fulgentius of Ruspe (468-533), cited in *For All the Saints*, vol. 1, p. 140