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Saint Lawrence is traditionally a major feast day in the Latin Rite.  

Today's Mass was the Mass of St. Lawrence with the 9th Sunday after Pentecost commemorated.  We had the Gospel from the 9th Sunday read in Latin as the Last Gospel, and the Prayer (Collect) and Post Communion were commemorated as well.

Our priest gave a most edifying sermon on St. Lawrence, how he died, and the reason he was sentenced to being roasted alive on a gridiron.

The pagan Roman procurator had commanded him to go out and collect all the Church's treasures and bring them in to his court.  "He wanted MONEY!  Filthy lucre!"  So St. Lawrence, who was known to cure a blind man by making the sign of the cross over him, went out and gathered up all the gold and precious metal furnishings he could find and sold them, giving the money to the poor.  Then he brought the sick, lame, blind, deaf, dumb and suffering people of the city into the court for the procurator, who then demanded all the precious treasures of the Church, whereupon St. Lawrence responded with "See here these people:  these are the treasures of the Church."

When his executioners were cooking him over live coals that burned him slowly, St. Lawrence told them, "Turn me over, for I am done on this side."  And then later, after his tourturesome ordeal was still going on, he told them again, "Now I am well done.  Eat." He expired with these words.

His martyrdom is recorded in history as having been the thing that finally destroyed paganism in Rome.  

His Mass prayers are most memorable, and the Gregorian Chant for his High Mass exudes the resolved joy and honor due to his great virtue and perseverance to the end.  


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