A sermon for Sunday
by the Revd Dr Robert Wilson PhD (Cantab), Old Roman Apostolate UK
St. Laurence/Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Laurence, as well as commemorating the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost. St. Laurence was one of the most notable martyrs in the early Church. Little is known about his life save that he was the archdeacon of Rome who was martyred in the persecution under the Emperor Valerian a few days after the Bishop of Rome, Sixtus II. The traditional account of his martyrdom is read in the Breviary during the Octave of this feast. It tells of how when Pope Sixtus II was being led to execution, he told his archdeacon Laurence that he would follow him in three days. During this interval Laurence sought out the poor who were supported by the Church from all over the city and then went to the prefect and invited him to see the treasures of the Church. St. Laurence then told the prefect that the poor were the treasures of the Church. The prefect then had Laurence martyred on a gridiron on this day in 258.
It is important to emphasise that the persecution of the Church was sporadic rather than systematic. Ever since the time of Nero Christians had been viewed as suspect and were constantly in danger of persecution and martyrdom. They were disliked for their refusal to participate in the cult of the Emperor, which was seen as a sign of their disloyalty. Despite this, the Roman Emperors were on the whole content not to force the issue, unless there was a need for a scapegoat to blame for some other problem. Though the Church was gradually expanding throughout the second century it was on the whole still too small and insignificant to trouble the powers that be too much.
All that changed by the middle of the third century as the Empire began to be increasingly threatened by external dangers, and the Church had consolidated into a minority substantial enough to be a serious threat to the stability of the Empire. The Emperor Decius sought to enforce the imperial cult on all his subjects to ensure their loyalty and to isolate and discredit elements deemed subversive. It does not appear that he aimed to target the Church as such, but it inevitably suffered greatly, for though many apostasised under pressure, countless others held firm and added their names to the roll call of martyrs. In 257 the Emperor Valerian renewed this persecution. He especially targeted the leaders of the early Church. It seems that he was aware that the structure of the Church provided an alternative leadership to rival the Empire and believed that the best way to weaken the Church was to force the leadership into either outward conformity or death.
Sixtus II and his archdeacon Laurence were two of the most prominent figures who refused to compromise and were martyred. But by this time the Church was already too numerous to be destroyed and the Emperor Gallienus returned to a policy of unofficial toleration that lasted for the rest of the century. There would be a final great persecution under Diocletian in the early fourth century before the Empire finally admitted defeat and gave the Church official recognition, first as the most favoured and then by the end of the fourth century the exclusive religion of the
Empire.
The martyrdom of St. Laurence also shows the importance of the role of the diaconate in the early Church. The deacons formed a permanent order in their own right in this period and were not simply a stepping stone to the presbyterate (as they often became in later ages). Whereas the presbyters formed a council around the bishop to advise him, the deacons were the eye of the bishop. They were to assist him in the liturgy and also in seeking out the sick who needed to be visited and the poor who relied on the Church for alms. The archdeacon was the chief deacon and was second only to the bishop himself in importance. When a bishop died his archdeacon was often his natural successor. This helps us to understand why St. Laurence was also martyred only a few days after his bishop Sixtus II.
It was also during this period that the minor orders were developed, doorkeepers, exorcists, readers, acolytes and subdeacons. At the time of the persecution under Decius it was said that the Church of Rome had forty six presbyters, seven deacons, seven subdeacons, forty two acolytes, fifty two exorcists, readers and doorkeepers, as well as about fitfteen hundred widows and persons in distress, all of whom were supported by the Church. It formed a primitive equivalent of the modern welfare State, in an age before the Government concerned itself with such matters. In the following century even the pagan emperor Julian noted that the Christians cared not only for their own poor, but for those of the pagans as well. The involvement of the Church in such major projects of social welfare helps explain why the faith spread and was eventually able to establish itself as the religion of the Empire.
The early Church was faithful to the teaching and example of St. Paul, who had devoted a great deal of time and energy to raising funds from the churches that he had founded to support the mother Church in Jerusalem. We hear his exhortation to the Corinthians to contribute to the needs of their fellow Christians in today’s epistle. It was this role that came to be among the special responsibilities of the deacons like St. Laurence, who referred to the poor as the true treasures of the Church.
The principle of dying to live was set out by Jesus himself in today’s Gospel from St. John. If a grain of wheat falls to the ground it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit. The man who loves his life will lose it, but he who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life. This was the path to be followed not only by Jesus himself in his sacrificial death for the sins of the human race, but also by his followers. For, as the great second century apologist Tertullian put, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
On this day in which we celebrate the martyrdom of St. Laurence, let us pray for grace to strengthen us to be faithful in our witness to the faith and in our charity towards others in our own time and place.
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