Saint Lawrence, Deacon & Martyr

August 10 – St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr, 225 – 258 –

Lawrence was chief among the seven deacons who served the Roman Church during the mid-third century. The young cleric held a position of great trust, caring for the goods of the Church and distributing its alms among the poor. According to tradition, Deacon Lawrence, knowing that the fervor of Roman Emperor Valerian’s hatred was extending to all Christians, distributed the money and treasure of the Church to the city’s poor when he was ordered to deliver it to Valerian. Instead he brought to the enraged Emperor the “gold and silver” of the Church – the people. He was brutally martyred.

~Image: St. Lawrence put to death on a grill.