A Cheerful Giver

Today (August 10) is the feast of one of the Church's most well-known martyrs, Saint Lawrence.

Lawrence was a deacon of the Church in Rome serving Pope Sixtus II. As with many early saints, the circumstances of his life and martyrdom contain few details which can be proven, but what has been passed down through the tradition is truly legendary!

The legend contends that in August of the year 258, during the persecution of the emperor Valerian, Pope Sixtus II was beheaded. His young deacon, Lawrence, met Sixtus on the way to his execution and asked to accompany him, to which Sixtus replied that he would...in three days.

As a deacon, Lawrence maintained many of the temporal goods of the Church, including vessels of precious metals and other riches. The Roman prefect demanded that Lawrence surrender these riches to the emperor. The deacon slyly asked for a few days to gather the vast riches. During that time, he sold the Church's goods and gave the money to those in need. At the appointed time he appeared before the prefect with the poor, the sick, widows and orphans, proclaiming these as the "treasures of the Church."

That, of course, was not well received so Lawrence was executed. They placed him on a gridiron (which he is holding in the picture above) and placed him over hot coals. He is said to have joked at one point, "This side is done. Turn me over." Thus, he became a cheerful giver.

Whether or not every (or any) detail of the legend is true, it is clear that St. Lawrence embodied the Lord's call to follow him, even through suffering and death. In an excerpt from one of St. Augustine's sermons (from today's Office of Readings), he says, "We too must imitate Christ if we truly love him. We shall not be able to render better return on that love than by modeling our lives on his."

The legend also causes one to reflect on how we view the Church's treasures today. We still lock up our gold and silver chalices in the sacristy safe even while we lock the church doors from unwanted visitors. One of the "Fruits of Holy Communion" named in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (no. 1391 and following) is a commitment to the poor: "To receive in truth the Body and Blood of Christ given up for us, we must recognize Christ in the poorest, his brethren" (no. 1397).

Perhaps the best way to celebrate this feast is to ask ourselves how we recognize Christ in his treasured poor.

Father,
you called Saint Lawrence to serve you by love
and crowned his life with glorious martyrdom.
Help us to be like him
in loving you and doing your work.
Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
--Roman Missal, Prayer of the Day