St Stephen Harding (ca 1050 -1134) was born in Dorset, England. He was placed in the abbey of Sherbourne at a young age, but eventually put aside the cowl and became a travelling scholar. . He eventually moved to the abbey of Molesme in Burgundy, under the abbot Saint Robert of Molesme. St Stephen is the co- founder of the Cistercian Order

Reflection: Worth remembering is the portrait of St Stephan who gazes upon the opened gates of heaven and the vision of God and Christ, when the people where standing around him with stones in their hands to stone him to death. One needs to remember that the world is not the end and everything of human existence. In the gospel reading Jesus speaks about the human hunger and thirst. Normally man is insatiable. But Jesus promises an eternally satiating banquet: a banquet prepared by his own body and blood. Stephan found the food of his life in Jesus. He no longer had the hunger and thirst for this world and what it offers for a short time. Being a person who has imbibed the life of Jesus, like Jesus he prays for the forgiveness of sins of those who were stoning him to death (v 60) and he offers his spirit into the hands Jesus (v 59).