Saint Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr

St. Lawrence was put to death simply because he was a deacon.

According to tradition, Lawrence had been assisting Pope Sixtus at the altar when both were arrested. After Sixtus was beheaded, Lawrence was given three day to collect and hand over the treasure of the church. During this time, he sold all the vessels of the church and gave the proceeds to the poor of Rome. According to the traditional accounts, Lawrence led a procession of poor, crippled, blind and suffering people into the emperor’s present and boldly declared: “These are the true treasures of the Church.”

It is shocking at times to think some people are more concerned about the sacred vessels of the altar than about human beings who are sacred to God.

Viewed in the context of St. Lawrence, we can say that a church that has a large endowment and a beautifully appointed sanctuary cannot consider itself rich as long as there are poor and destitute people sitting outside its door unattended to.

Money bestowed in charity is the seed sown with a prodigal hand. Help should be given freely and cheerfully, not grudgingly.

If we truly believed that God has a homeland prepared for us, we would waste less on ourselves and sow more in hope of a bountiful harvest. God is able to make grace abound in and around us. He can and does provide us with our daily bread, giving us enough to supply for the needs of others. We must never forget the unspoken answer to Cain’s question. We are our brother’s keeper!

The great desire of our souls should be to see Jesus in the poor and to recognize Him in the Breaking of the Bread. As we are fed by the Living Bread, we should pledge ourselves to become bread to feed the world.

A loaf of bread cannot be made unless the wheat grain is sown into the earth where it casts off its outer shell and releases the abundant life it contains. The salvation of the world depends upon the self-emptying of the wheat grain.

In the church, everything is oriented and consummated by values that begin with charity and with realities that are destined to remain, even after this world passes away. Like Saint Lawrence, may we desire to be a sacrifice worthy of the Master so as to bring about the transformation of the world.

--Fr. Jerome Machar, OSCO

The Life Time Journey of Faith

In his apostolic exhortation, Pope Francis wrote: “Reading the Scriptures also makes it clear that the Gospel is not merely about our personal relationship with God.... the Gospel is about the kingdom of God (cf. Lk 4:43); it is about loving God who reigns in our world. To the extent that he reigns within us, the life of society will be a setting for universal fraternity, justice, peace and dignity. Both Christian preaching and life, then, are meant to have an impact on society” (“Evangelii Gaudium, #180). We must look to Christ for our identity as the Children of God. Recall these words taken from the Second Letter to the Corinthians: “All of us gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). Having encountered the Living Lord, we are to reflect Him, His light and love, to those we meet, throwing open the doors to the Kingdom of Light and guiding them out of the valley of darkness.

The disciples of Christ need to use the keys of faith to open wide the doors of the kingdom to people who are trapped in confusion and darkness. It is not enough for us to worship the Lord in the sanctuary and to seek Him in solitude. We are challenged by the Lord to leave our secure strongholds and become beacons of light in the world, helping all the members of the human family share in the glorious freedom of the children of God (Cf. Rom. 8:21). We have been summoned by God to gather around this Holy Table to share Christ’s life for the purpose of descending the mountain and sow the seed of the Gospel in the marketplace.

The Prophet Isaiah recounted how the Keys are taken from Shebna and handed over to Eliakim. Matthew tells us how Jesus gave the Key of the Kingdom to Peter. Both, in Isaiah and in Matthew, the giving of the keys has to do with of the property of the Master. By so doing, Jesus established a concrete community of followers who were to understand themselves as heirs to the covenant life of Israel. That means keeping and passing on the story of salvation in the context of divinely established earthly authority. Jesus intended the church to continue the mission God sent him to accomplish: to preach the reign of God now present and to come. Having been entrusted with the patrimony of faith, we need to depend on the grace God offers so that we might remain faithful to the Truth.

Being grounded in the Truth, we can embrace all our brothers and sisters in love. Holding firm to the anchor of faith, like Eliakim, we can be compared to a nail in a sure place. Our faith tells us that Christ is THE NAIL in a sure place for all believers. As long as we cling to Him, we have no fear of falling to the ground and being smashed to bits. With the Key of the Cross He opens the gate that leads to the heavenly kingdom.

Because we have been grafted into Christ who is the same yesterday, today and forever, we have been made keepers of the hope held out by the Gospel. It is this hope which we are challenged to proclaim to a world that, for all its material prosperity, is seeking something more, something greater, something authentic and fulfilling. To show that we are disciples of the Word Made Flesh, our faith must be transformed into action.

Solidarity with the poor must be seen as an essential element of our faith life. We have only to recall the words of Saint Lawrence before his persecutors. “Behold in these poor persons the treasures which I promised to show you; to which I will add pearls and precious stones -- those widows and consecrated virgins, which are the church's crown, by which it is pleasing to Christ; it has no other riches."

Faith means following Christ on a lifetime journey that will include: good deeds, but with failure too; faith when life presses down on us, but also moments of fear, even despair; good intentions, but mixed with selfish moments as well, etc. It’s a lifetime commitment that invites frequent returns to the path when we have strayed and offers forgiveness whenever we ask. Faith when displayed in cheerful courage, has about it a sacred contagion: others learn to believe in the Most High when they see his servant. Faith like that could be a key that others can count on.

Only God can make Jesus known to Peter and only God makes Jesus’ divine identity known to us. We have to be careful not to cut short the wonder and awe of the mystery of redemption. If anyone knew the mysteries of the Kingdom, it was Paul. Yet he tells the Church of Rome that he doubts he will ever plumb their depths. The best he can do is sit on the edge and worship the depths in awe and trembling. As keepers of the story we must invite others to explore the heights and the depths of God's love and compassion, mindful that our reach will always exceed our grasp.

Peter got it right. Jesus is the Messiah, the one who had come to liberate not only those enslaved by Rome, but all who are poor and oppressed. Jesus is the long-awaited savior Who can liberate those diminished by sin, dominated by evil powers, violence and enslavement of any kind. His liberating power was handed on to Peter and the apostles and through baptism to us. We are to release those who are in bondage and to free those who are enslaved to sin. When The Lord returns in glory, may He bring us all together into everlasting life.

Father Jerome Machar, OSCO