Lavrentia: Name Day and Patron Saint

St Lawrence was archdeacon of the Church of Rome under Pope Sixtus II, entrusted with its sacred vessels and its care for the poor. In 258, under the emperor Valerian, Sixtus was arrested. Lawrence wept and begged to die with him, but the pope told him he would follow three days later, and gave him the Church’s treasures to distribute. Lawrence went through the city on foot, helping clergy in hiding and Christians in need. In prison he restored sight to a blind man, and his jailer Hippolytus came to believe and was baptized with all his household. When the prefect demanded the Church’s riches, Lawrence gathered the poor, the sick and the needy and presented them, saying, “Behold the treasures of the Church.” He was scourged and laid on a red-hot gridiron. Even there he kept his courage, telling his tormentor that one side of his body was already roasted, and he died thanking the Lord Jesus Christ for finding him worthy to enter His gates. Hippolytus carried his body away, and Christians buried him outside Rome, where a church in his name stands over his tomb; parts of his relics are also kept on Mount Athos and on Cyprus. The Church keeps his memory on 10 August (23 August on the Old Calendar), together with Pope Sixtus and the martyrs who suffered with them. The faithful ask his prayers in sickness and sorrow, for the healing of blindness of body and soul, and for hearts that see Christ in the poor.

What the faithful pray for

• the healing of blindness of body and of soul
• the sick and the sorrowing
• the poor and all who serve them
• courage to confess Christ under trial
• strength against enemies seen and unseen