Monday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time. Year II (Feast of St Laurence, Deacon, Martyr)
2 Cor. 9:6-10; Jn.12:24-26
Ever heard of St Laurence? He was one of the seven deacons of the Church of Rome, and was executed on 10th August 258, four days after Pope Sixtus II and his companions were executed by Valerian. The story goes that he was commanded to bring the wealth of the Church after the Pope’s murder, but he gathered the poor instead, and presented them to the emperor as the wealth of the Church. As a result, he was tied and roasted alive on a stake. He sowed a seed of blood. There is no seed more valuable than this.
Today, people donate large sums of money to Churches as ‘seed money’ because they want long life and prosperity. This isn’t bad. But what if the seed that God truly wants is the seed of our blood? Yes! The seed that bleeds? If he didn’t spare his own son, how much more us? Laurence was right when he said that the wealthy of the Church are those in need of our assistance. They’re those rejected by the world; the marginalised, the widows and orphans, the oppressed, the hopeless…
Friends, the saints were not afraid to sow the seed of blood. In fact, many of them prayed for this kind of sowing but never got the opportunity. Jesus says to us in the gospel reading, “unless a wheat grain falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain.” And as the Church Father Tertullian said in the Second Century, “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church”. Remember those Christians who get killed by the day? Let’s start bleeding for God’s name and glory. Our world needs it, and God totally deserves it.
Good morning dear. God bless your week ahead. St Laurence, pray for us.
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