St Lawrence, feast 10th August

St Lawrence is one of the saints most particularly honoured by the Roman Church. A third century Christian and deacon in the city, the saint was entrusted with responsibility for the service of the poor. A tradition describes St Lawrence being asked by the civil authorities to give up the treasure of the Church, to which St Lawrence brought a gathering of the needy and poor and asserted that these were the Church’s treasure. Another popular tradition records the saint being roasted over coals as a cruel form of martyrdom and telling his executioners: “Turn me over, I am done this side”. In common with many or all of the great Roman martyrs, devotion to the saint is closely connected to St Philip’s Oratory which was born in the midst of that Church which had been watered with their blood. St Philip prayed at the shrine of St Lawrence and accompanied his followers there on the Seven Churches pilgrimage. Among other points of interest today in this Church of St Lawrence outside the Walls is that it contains the resting place and shrine of Pope Blessed Pius IX (who reigned from 1846-1878).