SATURDAY AUGUST 10, 2024
WEDNESDAY OF THE EIGHTEENTH WEEK OF THE ORDINARY TIME B
SAINT LAWRENCE, DEACON AND MARTYR (FEAST)
2 Corinthians 9:6-10
John 12:24-26
IN IMITATION OF ST LAWRENCE: WE ARE CALLED TO BE GENEROUS AND IN SERVICE OF OTHERS
Today the Church celebrates a one time deacon of Rome, Saint Lawrence who served the Church so honorably and gave up his life in martyrdom with great honour and sense of duty.
The church wants us to reflect on the life and activities of this deacon of the church who underwent martyrdom in the hands of the Roman authority during the early beginnings of the Church.
What marks Saint Lawrence out is his selfless life, dedication and total self giving to God and his Church. As a deacon of the Cathedral Church of Rome, Saint Lawrence was placed in charge of the church’s properties. He carefully administered all, giving to the poor their dues and distributing the goods of the church conscientiously. And for this, after the Pope was killed, Saint Lawrence was instructed to surrender to the Roman authority all the treasures of the Church. Lawrence surrendered not the material goods of the church to the Roman authorities but the poor of the Church, the lame, the cripple, the poor and the disadvantaged as the treasures of the Church.
Saint Lawrence teaches us the right disposition and spirit of selflessness in serving God and the Church. As the first reading of today says, we must be generous to the point of loosing ourselves. Generosity with all we have and ourselves is the greatest act of Christian dedication and commitment. Generosity is demanded as a necessary disposition for good Christian life. And it means offering oneself, ones gifts, ones endowments, ones life even. He is celebrated as a generous person. He is generous with his life of service and martyrdom to the Church.
The gospel talks of generosity in terms of how to gain back one’s life in abundance. It is like emulating a grain of wheat which is sown. But before it grows and brings forth new grains, it must first die, get rotten, and loose itself. So is the process of giving birth and making greater impact of bringing forth new life.
As Christians, we are called to serve others, to give up our lives in the service of others, to raise up new lives, to bring up people to live happy and fulfilled lives. The only way to do all these is first to give up our lives as Saint Lawrence did. No wonder the maxim, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christianity.”
Jesus went the same way, to rescue us from the dungeon of death and restore us to salvation, he gave up his life. It is in giving up his life and in dying that life was gain by you and me. The sacrifice of mothers in bearing and carrying their children in their wombs and giving birth to them brought about the new borns in our world. A father likewise, sacrifices his comfort and pleasure to sustain and take care of his family.
For goodness to be produced too, some element of dying and sacrificing must be given and allowed before newness can be seen. For change in lifestyle is to be gained, some sacrifices must be made by abandoning other things in preference for the new life.
It takes generous souls and courage to do so. We need therefore generosity of heart and great courage to entertain and allow such new life to be borne through us.
Saint Lawrence teaches us that generosity, sacrifice and grace brings forth change and newness in creation. For God’s generosity and giving up of his son, Jesus Christ and the sacrifice of Jesus made possible our salvation and newness in the kingdom.
We must then be opened to giving, to being generous to people with our resources, with our lives and with all we have to enable life and prosperity to reach others. Again, in the words of Jesus, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruits.” We must be ready to make sacrifices, to die to self, to give up our pleasure, to be generous with all we have and are, to loose ourselves in order to gain life and gain back ourselves again in eternity.
God our Father, give to us, your people the docile mind to be detached from the world, to be able to make sacrifices, to give for the greater good, to surrender ourselves for a greater tomorrow and to serve unreservedly for the betterment of others. In imitation of our Saviour, may we be generous with all we possess and at last gain abundance in you through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Fr Norbert Uchuno
