I like today’s First Reading at Mass (Latin Rite). It is one of the most compact versions of some of my favourite contemplative themes.

Here is what happens. Saint Stephen speaks with the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit:

Then some… stood up and argued with Stephen. But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke. (Acts 6:9–10 NRSV)

He is then brought before the council:

And all who sat in the council looked intently at him, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel. (Acts 6:15 NRSV)

What a number of contemplative-related themes!

• First, Stephen is shown to have the Wisdom that is a Gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit comes and gives us words that we cannot prepare in advance, as Jesus told us (Mt 10:19; Lk 12:11). Stephen just prays in his heart, in the summit of his soul and depths of his heart, and God provides.
• Secondly, we are reminded that Wisdom is inseparable from the other Gifts and virtues. Stephen was not just in his room with the door closed. He was in a debate. He was in a discussion. He was out there, in the world. But he was living the Gift of Wisdom, which is a contemplative gift. Even when contemplation seems to disappear from our head because of our activity, it can still be present in the summit of our soul, like a flame transforming everything about us.
• Then, there is that flame! His face, the council thought, was like that of an angel. It had been transformed, as Saint John of the Cross says; it had been transfigured, as the Eastern Fathers prefer to say. It shone. It was innocent. It was not merely the dust of humanity. It looked like something else. Prayer comes to the very tips of our fingers or to the very lines of our face. In Stephen’s case, this was when he was so weighed down by persecution and activity, but he kept on and kept focused on Wisdom.
• And what comparison is made? His face was like that of an angel. Stephen’s face looks like it belongs to the Church of Heaven. Where was his treasure? What character did his body take on? An appearance like an angel, like something out of the Church of Heaven!

All in one reading: Gifts of the Holy Spirit, action and contemplation, transfiguration, Church of Heaven. Wisdom and contemplation are inseparable from our activity; transfiguration comes with prayer; transfiguration makes us more like the Church of Heaven, and that is where our heart is when we pray; where our heart is, everything down to our fingertips can follow.

The Bible is always packed with more than we can digest, but here is one reading where I feel that especially!