St. Lawrence

Who they were

Lawrence was the chief deacon of Rome under Pope Sixtus II, holder of the Church's purse and its records, when the emperor Valerian struck in 258 and Sixtus and his companions were taken and executed within days.

The prefect, reasoning that the deacon held the treasury, ordered Lawrence to surrender the wealth of the Church. Lawrence asked for three days, spent them distributing everything to the city's poor, and then presented himself with a crowd of the blind, the lame, the orphaned, and the destitute: these are the treasures of the Church. The answer cost him the slow death the tradition records, roasted on a gridiron, along with the most famous joke in martyrology, delivered mid execution: turn me over, this side is done. The Church took both halves seriously. Rome built seven churches in his honour, his name entered the Canon, and cooks and comedians alike claim the patron who met fire with a punchline. The August meteor shower that falls near his feast is still called the tears of St. Lawrence.

Why people turn to St. Lawrence

Deacons, with St. Stephen, the two of them the diaconate's poles. Cooks and chefs by the old grim humour. And everyone using gallows humour to stay human in dark work, which a funeral home understands from the inside.

How to ask their intercession

His two lines are both prayers. Point at the actual treasures, the poor of your own parish, and ask his intercession for the grace of unbroken good humour in the fire you are in.