Two priests offer a reflection on the lesson of the martyr Saint Lawrence about humor in the Christian life. The Church celebrates this deacon on August 10,
Saint Lawrence lived in Rome between the years 225 and 258. The emperor ordered him to be burned alive on a giant grill for not presenting him with the treasures of the Church that he was expecting.
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Instead of goods, the deacon brought him what he considered the true treasures: lepers, beggars, orphans, people with disabilities and the poor, whom he always helped.
According to tradition, after being condemned and after a while of burning on the grill, Saint Lawrence said: “I am already roasted on one side. Now that turn me the other way to be completely roasted”. And so they did.
Father Pablo Pich-Aguilera, a Spanish priest who serves in Barcelona, highlighted that “Only a Christian can have a deathly mood”.
Saint Lawrence “was making jokes, because that humorous humus had always flowed through his blood, the wine of the Gospel that gladdens hearts even in the most terrible moments,” the priest told ACI Prensa.
Father Pich-Aguilera recalled that when the saint “felt that he was already to his liking, he invited the diners to the banquet saying to them: ‘The meat is ready, you can eat’”.
Evidently, “that gave off an odor that for pagans had a stench of singeing, and for Christians a very pleasant aroma. It was the good smell of Christ that emanates from the saints”, he highlighted.
“Furthermore, the face of the martyr, not precisely because of the heat, shone as if transfigured. Nor did his executioners see this,” said the priest.
Father Pablo also indicated that “the strength of Christ enables us to always look to Heavento contemplate eternal realities, to found our hope in what Christ Himself has promised us, a promise of which He Himself is the foundation and guarantee.”
For this reason, he said, “in the face of persecution, in the face of eventual martyrdom, we can laugh, because we have drunk from the chalice of redemption, which gives us vigor and true joy, a supernatural joy, capable of making us laugh even in the face of death. May we never lack humor!”.
Father Juan Manuel Góngora, priest of Almería, told ACI Prensa that “in the Christian life it is essential to live the healthy humor that expresses the deep joy of knowing that we are dear and loved by God”.
“Even in the most difficult moments, as San Lorenzo showed us, according to tradition,” he added.
For this reason, Father Góngora highlighted, it is “important that as Christians Let’s not lose our sense of humor, even in the most complicated circumstances.just as the saints have shown us.”
“Christ has already won and sadness, the fruit of evil, does not have the last word,” he concluded.
San Lorenzo is the patron saint of cooks.
Originally published August 9, 2022. It has been updated for republication.
Walter Sanchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.