Thursday of 19th Week in Course
St Stephen of Hungary
Today’s first reading, from the prophet Ezekiel, is so short that it tends to run right through our heads without finding purchase. So I’ll read it again, The word of the LORD came to me: 2"Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see, but see not, who have ears to hear, but hear not;” You may recall that these words were later quoted by Our Lord about the “wicked and perverse generation” He lived among. Jesus tried hard over about three years to change minds and hearts that had been weakened by original sin. In the end, even His disciples didn’t really get it too well.
For example, here’s Peter, leader of the apostolic followers, at his most pious: If my brother sin against me, how many times must I forgive? How about seven times? Seven is the number of perfection, and the implication is to forgive even seven times a day, which to Peter sounded like heroic virtue. In return, Peter got a sermon wrapped up in a parable. And, of course, it’s a sermon on the Lord’s prayer, where we tell the Father that we want Him to forgive us in the measure we forgive others. So let’s look at the parable.
This debtor owed the king 10,000 talents. That was no less than 8 million dollars, and some commentators say it was more like the annual federal budget. So it was an amount impossible to pay back, very much like the debt we all owe to God because of our own sin, which is infinitely offensive to our God. Instead of selling the man and his whole family into slavery, because the guy asked for a monthly repayment plan–which he could in a million lifetimes never finish paying off–the king forgave the whole debt. Now note that the man is not recorded as actually thanking the king. Instead, since he was broke, he went out and actually put a guy who owed him a few hundred dollars into debtors’ prison. That was heartless, especially when you compare his actions to the infinite compassion of the king. So the king–who hadn’t actually torn up the promissary note–put him in debtors’ prison. Now the way this works is that you’d stay in the prison until your friends set up a collection to repay the debt. And since this fellow was obviously a jerk, the debtors’ prison was a life sentence and a death sentence for his family. In other words, forgive those who offend you or God cannot forgive your own sins. Be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful.
Which leads us to our saint of the day, Stephen of Hungary. You may recall that the Huns were one of the principal tribes that brought down the Roman Empire. Eventually their descendants were called Hungarians, and settled in the Carpathian basin, south of Poland and north of the Balkans. Stephen was the first Christian king of Hungary, that is, the first king who devoutly practiced the Catholic faith. He was a warrior, because many of his rivals were pagans. By persuasion and force he established the Catholic faith in his kingdom, and suppressed pagan practices. That wasn’t all too popular in some areas, and after his death in 1038 there were forty years of troubles, but Stephen I was seen as the king who brought peace to his people.
His method of forced evangelization was pretty much the standard practice in all areas. After all, the reason Islam spread so rapidly in the middle East is that the Muslims didn’t give the inhabitants much of a choice. If they remained Christians or Jews, they were second or third-class citizens. If they remained pagans, they were killed. Suppressing pagan practice looks pretty mild by contrast. It was a brutal era.
What Stephen did was to dedicate his kingdom to the Blessed Virgin, establish Catholic dioceses, and encourage and finance the foundation of monasteries, which became centers of Christian learning. And, at a time when people risked much to make pilgrimage to the Holy Land, “[Almost] all those from Italy and Gaul who wished to go to the Sepulchre of the Lord at Jerusalem abandoned the usual route, which was by sea, making their way through the country of King Stephen. He made the road safe for everyone, welcomed as brothers all he saw and gave them enormous gifts. This action led many people, nobles and commoners, to go to Jerusalem.” This was in the time just before the crusades. So Stephen was an exemplar ruler and Catholic for later kings to emulate. He was canonized by Pope Gregory VII in 1087.
