Special Guest Blogger: Saint Stephen

For most people their only knowledge of me is from that Good King Wencheslaus song but the Feast of Stephen is more commonly known as Boxing Day in Australia, Canada and the UK which is mainly the day to return Christmas gifts to the shops and exchange them for the correct size, an alternative to the same value or make up stories about how it was broken when we got it and can we have the money back please.
I was Jewish to start with but religion isnt like picking a football team and you can switch sides whenever you want and i did, coming over to Team Jesus and i was one of seven deacons appointed by the Apostles to distribute food and charitable aid to poorer members of the community but that did not go down well with the Jewish community who said i was not evenly distributing the food, favouring the guys with the foreskins.
They argued with me, i gave a long speech with my central point being my God and Jesus would kick the arse of their God and Moses which was every bit as effective as it sounds and they accused me of blasphemy and dragged me off to a court of Jewish elders who said i had preached against the Temple and the Mosaic Law.
I was expecting to have a debate, then be told to behave myself than back home for a bit of a pray but it was the bit about the many mercies that God had given the children of Israel, and the ungrateful way in which they had repaid him by killing the saviour that really got up their nose and i said i would be sat at Gods right hand but i wasn't expecting it to be within the next 20 minutes as they dragged me out into the street and began stoning me, the other Saints call me the first rock star because a rock hit my head and i saw stars.
The Christmas bit comes in as my remains were found and taken to the Church of Hagia Sion on 26 December, making it the date for the feast of Saint Stephen but as Christians tend to do, they hold part of my right arm at Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius in Russia as a religious relic and us Christians do like a relic.
When you think of a religious relic, you probably picture a golden chalice, a sacred jewel or even a fancy dagger somebody once stabbed a mythical monster with but generally it's a saint's body part that was lopped off and put in a box.
To show how much of a sense of humour the Church has, i am the patron saint of headaches and stone masons and is often represented carrying a pile of rocks or with rocks on my head.
My message then is try also not to be dominated by your hatred and learn to forgive like I have learned to forgive those miserable, sadistic Jews so that you, too, can be inwardly cleansed. That and duck if a bunch of people wearing Shtreimel hats throws stones at you.