“The divine intention in surrounding the Fall of Rome in 410, with discoveries of Saints’ bodies was clearly manifested in the most in the most important of these discoveries, the one we celebrate today, August 3rd. The Year 415 had opened. Italy, Gaul, and Spain were being invaded; Africa was about to share their fate. Amidst the universal ruin the Christians, in whom alone resided the hope of the world, put up their petitions at every sanctuary to obtain at least, according to the expression of the Spanish priest Avitus, ‘that the Lord would inspire with gentleness those whom He suffered to prevail.’ It was then that took place that marvelous revelation which the severe critic Tillemont, convinced by the testimony of all the chronicles, histories, letters, and discourses of the time, allows to be ‘one of the most celebrated events of the Fifth Century A.D.’ Through the intermediary of the priest Lucian, John, Bishop of Jerusalem, received from St. Stephen the first martyr and his companions in the tomb a message couched in these terms: ‘Make haste to open our sepulchre, that by our means God may open to the world the door of His clemency, and may take pity on His people in the universal tribulation.’ The discovery, accomplished in the midst of prodigies, was published to the whole world as the sign of Salvation. St. Stephen’s relics, scattered everywhere in token of security and peace, wrought astonishing conversions, innumerable miracles, ‘like those of ancient times,’ bore witness to the same faith of Christ which the Martyr had confessed by his death four centuries earlier. Such was the extraordinary character of this manifestation, so astonishing was the number of resurrections from the dead, that St. Augustine, addressing his people, deemed it prudent to lift their thoughts from Stephen the servant to Christ the Master. ‘Though dead,’ said he, ‘he raises the dead to life, because in reality he is not dead. But as heretofore in his mortal life, so now too, he acts solely in the name of Christ; all that you see now done by the memory of Stephen is done in that Name alone, that Christ may be exalted. Christ may be adored, Christ may be expected as Judge of the living and the dead.” —Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year The three companions found buried together with St. Stephen: Nicodemus, who had come secretly to Jesus (John 3), Gamaliel, the grandson of the great Rabbi Hillel, who had defended the Apostles before the Sanhedrin (Acts of the Apostles 5:3439), and Gamaliel’s son Abibo