The Christian Life can be summed up in two words: Imitate Jesus.

In today’s first reading at Mass, we are presented with the Martyrdom of Saint Stephen. Let us see how, in his death, he imitated Jesus. As with Jesus, himself, the motivation behind Saint Stephen being condemned to death was his preaching the message of faith: Jesus is God. While Jesus hung on the Cross, two of the “last words” he spoke were: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” and “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” While Saint Stephen is being stoned, he calls out to God, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” and “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

As we can see from his words, he was able to adopt the same mindset that Jesus had. There is no cursing his persecutors. There is no anger. Instead we find a loving turning over of oneself to God, and a loving concern for others, in particular, that they be forgiven.

It is unlikely that we will face martyrdom ourselves. However, there are other ways in which we can imitate Jesus in our lives. So let us pick one aspect of Jesus’ life that pertains to our own mission in life and let us live it out fully. We need to keep in mind that Jesus was and is Jesus and we would be foolish to think that we could imitate him in all of the aspects of his life. Even for the great saints, we generally find that they were able to grow and highly develop only one aspect of imitating Jesus.

Let each one of us take a close look at our own life. Let us see where the Lord is calling us. Let us see what responsibilities we have. And then let us embrace one aspect of Jesus’ life that applies and let us develop it and live it out.