St. Diomedes the Physician, Martyr

Today the Church honors St. Diomedes the Physician, Martyr.

Ora pro nobis. 

Diomedes was born in Cilician Tarsus some time in the mid-3rd c. AD in Asia Minor. He was trained as a physician. Diomedes seems to have been born into a Christian family. He was well known as a physician as well as being a tireless evangelist, treating not only ills of the body, but also of the soul. He enlightened many pagans with belief in Christ, and baptized them.

Saint Diomedes traveled much both as a noted physician but also from his desire to spread the Gospel of Jesus. His ministry led to the conversion of many people to the true Faith. On one such journey, when he arrived in the city of Nicea, the emperor Diocletian (284-305 AD) heard of the arrival of this famous man and sent soldiers to arrest him. Having already left Nicea, the emperor’s soldiers pursued him. Along the way from Nicea to Nicomedia, Diomedes got down from the cart so as to pray, and he died.

As proof of carrying out their orders, the soldiers cut off his head, but then themselves became blinded. Upon seeing what had happened to his soldiers, Diocletian gave orders to take the head back to the body. When the soldiers fulfilled the order, their sight was restored and they believed in Christ.

The Orthodox Church venerates him as a healer and mentions him during the Mystery of Holy Unction.

Almighty and everlasting God, who kindled the flame of your love in the heart of your holy martyr Diomedes: Grant to us, your humble servants, a like faith and power of love, that we who rejoice in her triumph may profit by her example; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. 

Amen.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr

Today, the Church remembers St. Maximilian Kolbe, priest and martyr.

Ora pro nobis. 

Maximilian Kolbe (8 January 1894 - 

14 August 1941) was a Franciscan friar imprisoned by the National Socialist Gestapo at Auschwitz in 1941 because of his work as a Catholic publisher.  He founded and and supervised the monastery of Niepokalanów near Warsaw, operating an amateur-radio station (SP3RN), and founding or running several other organizations and publications. 

Because he was a priest, he was treated with particular savagery by the prison guards and given the dirtiest, heaviest work.  He ministered to his fellow prisoners, encouraging them to forgive their persecutors and to overcome evil with good.  He constantly sacrificed himself for others to the point where a doctor later testified, "In Auschwitz, I knew of no other similar case of such heroic love of neighbor."

After the outbreak of World War II, which started with the invasion of Poland by the National Socialist regime of Germany, Kolbe was one of the few brothers who chose to remain in the monastery, where he organized a temporary hospital. After the town was captured by the National Socialists, he was briefly arrested by them on 19 September 1939 but released on 8 December. He refused to sign the Deutsche Volksliste, which would have given him rights similar to those of German citizens in exchange for recognizing his German ancestry. Upon his release he continued work at his friary, where he and other friars provided shelter to refugees from Greater Poland, including 2,000 Jews whom he hid from German persecution in their friary in Niepokalanów. Kolbe also received permission to continue publishing religious works, though significantly reduced in scope. The monastery thus continued to act as a publishing house, issuing a number of anti-National Socialist publications.

On 17 February 1941, the monastery was shut down by the National Socialist authorities. That day Kolbe and four others were arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison. On 28 May, he was transferred to Auschwitz as prisoner 16670.

Continuing to act as a priest, Kolbe was subjected to violent harassment, including beatings and lashings. Once, he was smuggled to a prison hospital by friendly inmates. Several months after his imprisonment, a prisoner escaped, and the guards gathered ten innocent prisoners to die in reprisal.  When one of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, "My wife! My children!", Kolbe volunteered to take his place, and the guards accepted his offer. With the nine other condemned men he was stripped of all his clothing and placed in a starvation bunker.  According to an eyewitness, who was an assistant janitor at that time, in his prison cell Kolbe led the prisoners in prayer. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. At the end of two weeks, he was one of four men still alive. Because they needed the bunker for more victims, these men were injected with a lethal dose of carbolic acid. Kolbe is said to have raised his left arm and calmly waited for the deadly injection. Their bodies were cremated the following day, August 15, the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.

In this icon, Maximilian wears the black Franciscan habit of the Conventual branch of the Order of Friars Minor. Over his arm he carries the jacket of his uniform in Auschwitz. The number on the jacket was the one assigned to him when he arrived, and the red triangle identifies him as a political prisoner. Franciszek Gajowniczek, the man whose place he took, survived the concentration camp and eventually returned to his family.

“No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hecatombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?”

Almighty God, by whose grace and power your holy martyr Maximillian triumphed over suffering and was faithful even to death: Grant us, who now remember him in thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to you in this world, that we may receive with him the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. 

Amen.

Fr. Troy Beecham Sermon, Proper 14 A, 2023

Fr. Troy Beecham

Sermon, Proper 14 A, 2023

Matthew 14:22-33

Jesus Walks on the Water

"Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid."

Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."

I recently read the summary of a sermon on this Gospel reading. The preacher saw this narrative as being an evocative tale trying to teach us principles on how to "handle the storms of life". This Gospel is literally teaching us the opposite. Here’s why.

This Gospel reading is part of a larger narrative on Jesus instructing his disciples about the mission that he has given them. This core section of the Gospel according to St. Matthew is full to overflowing with the stories of the miracles of Jesus. For anyone reading any of my sermons, or hearing me preach them, you will be well familiar with my total confidence that the Holy Scriptures mean what they say and say what they mean, and that the miraculous does not need any explaining away. It is unnecessary to try to flatten out the miraculous in the Scriptures. Quite the opposite! In fact, to do so, to present the Gospels as simply stories of a wise, good man named Jesus who taught nice ideas that we can emulate and be good people, is to miss the core revelation of the Scriptures, in fact the whole endeavor of the writing of the Gospels, and the mission of the Church.

And what is the endeavor of the Gospel and the mission of the Church? St. John the Evangelist said it this way, "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name." Without the miraculous, without the divine in action in the lives of men and women just like you and me, I see no point in Christianity or in the Gospel. If life really just boils down to us trying to be nice people, well I can get that from any decent philosophy, with the added bonus that it does not require me to participate every week with a community of equally exhausted, hurt, aggravating, dysfunctional people or pay a tithe of my earnings to support the worship life of that community.

Yes, I’ve heard it said a thousand times, "God is everywhere. He can be found on a mountaintop as equally as in a Church". But that version of God as a flattened, humanistic, materialistic, vague universal consciousness does nothing for the human condition. Yes, we can learn many good things from many sources, and even learn to dampen some of the worst impulses of our fallen nature. However, we are unable to save ourselves from our sinful nature, from the cruelty of death, and from the universal bending of human society towards brutality, oppression, and wickedness.

But God has provided for the salvation of all humankind in sending his Son, Jesus, to be the Savior and Redeemer of all who believe in Him and are baptized into his life, death, and resurrection. And Jesus has given his Church, the community of all his baptized disciples (not our institutions and hierarchies), to preach this Gospel of salvation to all the world, and given us His Holy Sacraments to provide the real, objective, and miraculous means of grace. You can’t get that on a mountaintop on your own, or in yoga class, or by any other means in all the world according to the plan of God.

Without the God revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures, and without the Risen Savior sent to redeem us, and without His Church and the Holy Sacraments entrusted to us for the sake of all peoples, we are doomed to everlasting bondage to sin and death. We are destined for everlasting sorrow and oppression if all we have to hope for is some general ideals about how to "handle the storms of life", relying upon ourselves to save ourselves or the world by learning to just be nice.

The truth about us humans is that we are in need of a Savior. We are never going to be able to engineer paradise! We cannot re-enter Eden! We cannot save ourselves from ourselves and each other. Only God can do these things for us! Only God can bring about His kingdom. We are absolutely vulnerable to sin, the evil one, and our own cruelty towards each other, and that vulnerability makes us anxious, aggressive, despondent, and dangerous. But erasing God from the universe leaves us in charge of human destiny, both personal and collective. We unerringly seek to have power, to be "in charge of ourselves and of others.

The last century gave rise to some of the most wicked philosophies in human history, namely Leftist ideology, whether in the form of Soviet Socialism/Communism, National Socialism, Situational Ethics, Eugenics and the ongoing genocides it produced in the acceptance of murdering unborn babies, people with disabilities, et al…all of which led to two world wars and decades of international war and conflict. In fact, the wars of the 20th century killed 15% of the human population on this earth, and internationally, if you add abortion deaths to that number, in the 20th century we murdered 22% of the human population. And the wars inspired by Leftist philosophy continue into the 21st century, as does the great evil of abortion. Leftist philosophy denies human sin, aggrandizes our worst impulses, and gives us permission to do the most unspeakable things to each other. Sadly and unsurprisingly, there are people still trying to make these philosophies work, as they protest that "real Socialism/Communism" have never been tried, so we have to keep endeavoring to save ourselves until we get it right…no matter how many people have to be sacrificed.

I’ve said it many times and it bears constant repetition: every genocide, every mass loss of human life, started with someone trying to do "good" for themselves and people like them. When we inevitably run up against the reality of sin and death, and our inability to re-engineer paradise, we begin to start identifying those most unlike us as being responsible for holding us back from utopia, and suddenly violence, havoc, theft, enslavement, murder, and every human form of human wickedness becomes not wicked at all: they become necessary, even good. This is the false gospel that Satan has been whispering in our ears since the Garden of Eden, where we lost our innocence and became vulnerable exiles in an uncaring world.

The truly good news, the Gospel Truth, the true Faith, is that God knows our weaknesses and our inability to save ourselves or to create human paradise, and He still loves us beyond our imagining. God has been pursuing us since the exit from Eden, and has sent to us a Savior, Jesus, His own Son, to whom God has given all authority in heaven and earth to save us. God has also given to us His Holy Spirit, to empower us the be disciples of his Son, Jesus, and to experience, though for now only in part, the life of the kingdom of God which is even now coming to the earth according to the timing and will of God.

By the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, we can endure the wickedness of human society, our vulnerability to the cruelties of life, and even death, with hope, love, and faith. This is the meaning of this Gospel narrative, and of every Gospel narrative. We are loved by God, who loves us and gave His only Son to save us, and who is saving us even now, who will one day bring His kingdom to earth. And so we wait with faith, hope, and love for the Lord who has the authority to calm the storms of life and the storms of the seas. We hold fast to the Faith of the Church, to the Sacraments, and we give ourselves freely and entirely to God, in self-sacrificing love, so that we might proclaim the Gospel to all peoples in Spirit and in Truth. And as we wait in faith and endeavor to spread the Gospel to all peoples so that they may be saved and find hope, we pray "maranatha!", which means "come now, O Lord!"

Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

St. Alexander of Comana Pontica, Bishop and Martyr

Today the Church remembers St. Alexander of Comana Pontica, Bishop and Martyr.

Ora pro nobis.

Saint Alexander, Bishop of Comana, lived during the third century AD, not far from Neocaesarea (now Niksar, northeast Turkey). He studied the Holy Scripture and knew many scientific disciplines. Taking upon himself the exploit of holy foolishness, the saint lived in poverty, selling coal in the city square. Many, seeing his face always black from the grime of the coal dust, sneered at him with contempt. 

When the Bishop of Comana happened to die, then among the candidates put forth for election as new bishop -- one was a man illustrious, others were learned or eloquent, while yet others were rich. Then Saint Gregory Thaumaturgos, Bishop of Neocaesarea, having been invited for the ordination of their choice, pointed out, that a bishop ought to have not only outward worthiness and distinction, but foremost of all, a pure heart and holy life. These words caused some to laugh saying: “If outward appearance and nobility of origin be for naught, then even Alexander the collier might be made bishop”.

Saint Gregory perceived that it was not without the Providence of God that this man came to be mentioned, and he asked that they call him. The appearance of the saint at the gathering evoked laughter, and the derided him as "the charcoal burner". Having respectfully bowed to Saint Gregory, Saint Alexander stood there deeply absorbed in himself and ignoring the sneering: Saint Gregory put him to the test, and the collier (coal burner) was obliged to reveal that he was formerly a philosopher, and had studied Holy Scripture, but that for the sake of God he had assumed upon himself voluntary poverty and humility. Saint Gregory then took the collier to his own lodging, where he washed off the grime, and gave him clean clothes. Returning then to the assembled people, Saint Gregory in front of everyone began to put to him questions from Holy Scripture, to which Saint Alexander answered like a knowledgeable and wise pastor. Seeing this, all were astonished at his humility and with one accord they elected him their bishop.

Saint Gregory ordained him priest, and later bishop. After the imposition of hands the new bishop preached a sermon to the people, full of power and the grace of God. And everyone rejoiced that the Lord had sent them such a wise pastor. Under the emperor Decius (249-251 AD), the saint bravely confessed Christ, and refused to worship idols. After tortures, they threw him into a fire, and there he departed to God in 251 AD. 

Almighty God, who gave to your servant Alexander boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for this faith: Grant that we may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. 

Amen.

St. Clare of Assisi

Today, the Church remembers Saint Clare of Assisi, Monastic. 

Ora pro nobis.

St. Clare (Chiara in Italian) was one of the first followers of Saint Francis of Assisi. She founded the Order of Poor Ladies, a monastic religious order for women in the Franciscan tradition, and wrote their Rule of Life, the first set of monastic guidelines known to have been written by a woman. Following her death, the order she founded was renamed in her honor as the Order of Saint Clare, commonly referred to today as the Poor Clares. 

She was born in Assisi (July 16, 1194 – August 11, 1253 AD), and was the eldest daughter of Favorino Sciffi, Count of Sasso-Rosso, and his wife Ortolana. Traditional accounts say that Clare's father was a wealthy representative of an ancient Roman family, who owned a large palace in Assisi and a castle on the slope of Mount Subasio. Ortolana belonged to the noble family of Fiumi, and was a very devout woman who had undertaken pilgrimages to Rome, Santiago de Compostela and the Holy Land. Later in life, Ortolana entered Clare's monastery, as did Clare's sisters, Beatrix and Catarina.

As a child, Clare was devoted to prayer. Although there is no mention of this in any historical record, it is assumed that Clare was to be married in line with the family tradition. However, at the age of 18 she heard Francis preach during a Lenten service in the church of San Giorgio at Assisi and asked him to help her to live after the manner of the Gospel. On the evening of Palm Sunday, March 20, 1212, she left her father's house and accompanied by her aunt Bianca and another companion proceeded to the chapel of the Porziuncula to meet Francis. There, her hair was cut, and she exchanged her rich gown for a plain robe and veil.

Francis placed Clare in the convent of the Benedictine nuns of San Paulo, near Bastia. Her father attempted to force her to return home. She clung to the altar of the church and threw aside her veil to show her cropped hair. She resisted any attempt, professing that she would have no other husband but Jesus Christ. In order to provide the greater solitude Clare desired, a few days later Francis sent her to Sant' Angelo in Panzo, another monastery of the Benedictine nuns on one of the flanks of Subasio. Clare was soon joined by her sister Catarina, who took the name Agnes. They remained with the Benedictines until a small dwelling was built for them next to the church of San Damiano, which Francis had repaired some years earlier.

Other women joined them, and they were known as the "Poor Ladies of San Damiano". They lived a simple life of poverty, austerity and seclusion from the world, according to a Rule which Francis gave them as a Second Order.

San Damiano became the center of Clare's new religious order, which was known in her lifetime as the "Order of Poor Ladies of San Damiano". San Damiano was long thought to be the first house of this order, however, recent scholarship strongly suggests that San Damiano actually joined an existing network of women's religious houses organized by Hugolino (who later became Pope Gregory IX). Hugolino wanted San Damiano as part of the order he founded because of the prestige of Clare's monastery. San Damiano emerged as the most important house in the order, and Clare became its undisputed leader. By 1263, just ten years after Clare's death, the order had become known as the Order of Saint Clare.

In 1228, when Gregory IX offered Clare a dispensation from the vow of strict poverty, she replied: "I need to be absolved from my sins, but not from the obligation of following Christ." Accordingly, the Pope granted them the Privilegium Pauperitatis — that nobody could oblige them to accept any possession.

Unlike the Franciscan friars, whose members moved around the country to preach, Saint Clare's sisters lived in enclosure, since an itinerant life was hardly conceivable at the time for women. Their life consisted of manual labor and prayer. The nuns went barefoot, slept on the ground, ate no meat and observed almost complete silence.

For a short period, the order was directed by Francis himself. Then in 1216, Clare accepted the role of abbess of San Damiano. As abbess, Clare had more authority to lead the order than when she was the prioress and required to follow the orders of a priest heading the community. Clare defended her order from the attempts of prelates to impose a rule on them that more closely resembled the Rule of Saint Benedict than Francis' stricter vows. Clare sought to imitate Francis' virtues and way of life so much so that she was sometimes titled ‘alter Franciscus’, another Francis. She also played a significant role in encouraging and aiding Francis, whom she saw as a spiritual father figure, and she took care of him during his final illness.

After Francis' death, Clare continued to promote the growth of her order, writing letters to abbesses in other parts of Europe and thwarting every attempt by each successive pope to impose a rule on her order which weakened the radical commitment to corporate poverty she had originally embraced. Clare's Franciscan theology of joyous poverty in imitation of Christ is evident in the rule she wrote for her community and in her four letters to Agnes of Prague.

In 1224, the army of Frederick II came to plunder Assisi. Clare went out to meet them with the Blessed Sacrament in her hands. Suddenly a mysterious terror seized the enemies, who fled without harming anybody in the city.

In her later years, Clare endured a long period of poor health. She died on 11 August 1253 at the age of 59. Her last words as reported to have been, "Blessed be You, O God, for having created me."

O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his poverty might be rich: Deliver us from an inordinate love of this world, that we, inspired by the devotion of your servant Clare, may serve you with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the age to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. 

Amen.

St. Lawrence and Companions, Martyrs

Today, the Church remembers St. Lawrence, deacon and Companions, Martyrs.

Orate pro nobis.

The Martyrs Archdeacon Laurence, Pope St. Sixtus, Deacons Felicissimus and Agapitus, and the soldier Romanus, were citizens of Rome, and suffered in the year 258 AD during the reign of Emperor Valerian (253-260). Saint Lawrence or Laurence (Latin: Laurentius, lit. "laurelled", or “crowned with victory”; 31 December 225 – 10 August 258 AD) was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome, Italy, with Pope St. Sixtus II.

St. Lawrence is thought to have been born on 31 December 225 AD in Valencia, or less probably, in Huesca, the town from which his parents came in the later region of Aragon that was then part of the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis. The martyrs St. Orentius (Modern Spanish: San Orencio) and St Patientia (Modern Spanish: Santa Paciencia) are traditionally held to have been his parents.

He encountered the future Pope Sixtus II, who was of Greek origin and one of the most famous and highly esteemed teachers, in Caesar Augusta (today Zaragoza). Eventually, both left Spain for Rome. When Sixtus became the Pope in 257 AD, he ordained St. Lawrence as a deacon, and though Lawrence was still young, he appointed him first among the seven deacons who served in the patriarchal church. He is therefore called "archdeacon of Rome", a position of great trust that included the care of the treasury and riches of the Church and the distribution of alms to the poor and needy.

Saint Sixtus was born in the city of Athens, and at first he was a philosopher, but later he became a follower of Christ. When he arrived in Rome, he showed himself to be a wise and devout member of the Church. Over a period of time, he passed through the various ranks of the clergy, and became the Bishop of Rome following the martyric death of Pope Saint Stephen (August 2). Several Roman Popes preferred to die rather than offer sacrifice to idols. Soon, Pope Saint Sixtus was also arrested and imprisoned together with his deacons Felicissimus and Agapitus.

When Archdeacon Laurence visited Pope Saint Sixtus in prison, he cried out with tears, "Where are you going, Father, without your son? Where do you hasten without your Archdeacon? Never have you offered the Bloodless Sacrifice without me. Take me with you, so that I may join you in shedding our blood for Christ!”

Saint Sixtus replied, "I am not forsaking you, my son. I am old and I accept the lesser battle, but greater suffering awaits you. You must achieve the greater victory and triumph over your tormentors. Three days after my death, you shall follow after me."

Then he entrusted Archdeacon Laurence with the Church's treasures and sacred vessels, telling him to distribute these to the poor. He gathered them up and went around the city on foot, to the clergy and impoverished Christians who were in hiding, helping them according to their needs.

When he heard that Saint Sixtus had been brought to trial with his deacons, Saint Laurence went there in order to witness the outcome. Seeing that the martyrs were obstinate in their refusal to offer sacrifice to the idols, Valerian ordered them to be taken to the temple of Mars outside the city walls, and put to death if they did not offer incense to the idols. When he saw the pagan temple, Saint Sixtus prayed for it to be destroyed. There was an earthquake which caused part of the temple to collapse, and the statue of Mars was shattered to pieces. Saint Laurence cried out, “Father, I have fulfilled your command, and have distributed the treasures of the Church which you entrusted to me."

After hearing about treasure, the soldiers placed him under guard. Saint Sixtus and the other martyrs were beheaded in front of the temple on August 6, 258 AD. Afterward, the soldiers brought Saint Laurence to the Emperor, informing him that they had heard the Archdeacon mention something about the Church's hidden treasures. The Emperor ordered him to reveal where the treasures were, and the Archdeacon asked for three days in order to collect them. Then Saint Laurence gathered all the poor and the needy, and brought them to the Prefect, saying, "Behold the treasures of the Church."

The ruler became very angry at this and ordered Hippolytos, who was in charge of the prison, to throw the Archdeacon into the dungeon with other prisoners. There the Saint restored the sight of a man named Lucillus. Hippolytos was amazed at this, and asked to see the Church's treasures. Saint Laurence told him that if he believed in Christ and was baptized, he would find true wealth and everlasting life. Hippolytos said that if this was true, he would do as he asked.

Hippolytos took Saint Laurence to his home, where he instructed and baptized the jailer and all his household, consisting of nineteen persons. Soon afterward, Hippolytos was ordered to bring the Archdeacon to Emperor Valerian. Seeing that the Saint had not agreed to offer sacrifice, he ordered that Saint Laurence be tortured. Still, the Archdeacon refused to sacrifice to the idols. As the Martyr endured these torments, a soldier named Romanus cried, "Laurence, I see a radiant youth standing by you, and wiping your wounds. Entreat Christ, Who has sent His Angel to you, not to abandon me."

Then Valerian commanded Hippolytos to return the Saint to prison. Romanus brought a pitcher of water and asked the Martyr to baptize him. Immediately after the soldier was baptized, he was seized by other soldiers and taken to the Emperor. Before anyone could question him, Romanus shouted, "I am a Christian."

The Emperor ordered him to be taken outside the city and beheaded on August 9.

The next day, Saint Laurence was placed on a rack, scourged with whips with sharp iron points attached to them, and then was stretched out naked on a red-hot iron gridiron with burning coals underneath it. The Holy Martyr glanced at the ruler and said, “You have already roasted one side of my body, now turn me over to the other side so you may taste what you have roasted."

Then he glorified God, saying, “I thank You, Lord Jesus Christ, that You have found me worthy to enter Your gates."

Saint Laurence received the unfading crown of martyrdom on August 10, 258.

That night, Saint Hippolytos took the Saint's body he wrapped it in a shroud with spices. Then he and the priest Justin brought the relics to the home of a widow named Kyriake, where it remained until evening. Later, many Christians escorted the Saint's body to a cave on the widow's property. After praying all night, they buried the Martyr there with honor. Then Father Justin served the Divine Liturgy, and everyone partook of the Holy Mysteries.

Saint Hippolytos and the other Christians suffered martyrdom three days after the death of Saint Laurence, on August 13.

A large part of Saint Laurence's relics are located in the church of Saint Laurence "outside the walls" in Rome. Other pieces of the holy relics are to be found in the Monasteries of Saint Panteleimon on Mount Athos, and at Kykkos, Cyprus.

Some historians, such as Rev. Patrick J. Healy, opine that the tradition of how St Lawrence was martyred is "not worthy of credence", as the slow lingering death cannot be reconciled "with the express command contained in the edict regarding bishops, priests, and deacons (animadvertantur) which ordinarily meant decapitation." A theory of how the tradition arose is proposed by Pio Franchi de' Cavalieri, who postulates that it was the result of a mistaken transcription, the accidental omission of the letter "p" – "by which the customary and solemn formula for announcing the death of a martyr – passus est ["he suffered," that is, was martyred] – was made to read assus est [he was roasted]." The Liber Pontificalis, which is held to draw from sources independent of the existing traditions and Acta regarding Lawrence, uses passus est concerning him, the same term it uses for Pope Sixtus II, who was martyred by decapitation during the same persecution. However, this modern scholarship is disputed by another scholar, Janice Bennett, whose study of other primary sources indicates that the traditional narratives are substantially correct. No matter the means of his death, he died for defying the Imperial state by refusing to worship any other god but the God of Israel as revealed by Jesus, whose disciple Lawrence was, both in word and deed. 

Almighty God, you called your deacon Laurence and companions to serve you with deeds of love, and gave him the crown of martyrdom: Grant that we, following their example, may fulfill your commandments by defending and supporting the poor, and by loving you with all our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. 

Amen.

St. Edith Stein, Martyr

Today the Church remembers St. Edith Stein, Martyr.

 Ora pro nobis.

St. Edith (12 October 1891 – 9 August 1942) was a  brilliant philosopher who stopped believing in God when she was 14. Even so, she became so captivated by reading the autobiography of Teresa of Avila that she began a spiritual journey that led to her baptism in 1922. Twelve years later she imitated Saint Teresa by becoming a Carmelite, taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

Born into a prominent, religious Jewish family in Breslau, Germany—now Wrocław, Poland—Edith abandoned Judaism in her teens. Moved by the tragedies of World War I, in 1915, she took lessons to become a nursing assistant and worked in an infectious diseases hospital.  As a student at the University of Freiburg, she became fascinated by phenomenology–an approach to philosophy. Excelling as a protégé of Edmund Husserl, one of the leading phenomenologists, Edith earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1916. She continued as a university teacher until 1922, when she moved to a Dominican school in Speyer; her appointment as lecturer at the Educational Institute of Munich ended under pressure from the Nazis. 

She was baptized on 1 January 1922 in the Roman Catholic Church. At that point, she wanted to become a Discalced Carmelite nun but was dissuaded by her spiritual mentor, the abbot of Beuron Archabbey. She then taught at a Catholic school of education in Speyer. As a result of the requirement of an "Aryan certificate" for civil servants promulgated by the Nazi government in April 1933 as part of its Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, she had to quit her teaching position.

She was finally admitted as a postulant to the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Cologne on 14 October, on the first vespers of the feast of Saint Teresa of Ávila, and received the religious habit as a novice in April 1934, taking the religious name Teresia Benedicta a Cruce (Teresia in remembrance of Teresa of Ávila, Benedicta in honour of Benedict of Nursia). She made her temporary vows on 21 April 1935, and her perpetual vows on 21 April 1938. 

The same year, Teresa Benedicta a Cruce and her biological sister Rosa, by then also a convert and an extern (tertiary of the Order, who would handle the community's needs outside the monastery), were sent to the Carmelite monastery in Echt, Netherlands, for their safety. Ultimately, she would not be safe in the Netherlands. The Dutch Bishops' Conference had a public statement read in all churches across the nation on 20 July 1942 condemning the genocidal racism of National Socialism. In a retaliatory response, on 26 July 1942, the Reichskommissar of the Netherlands, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, ordered the arrest of all Jewish converts who had previously been spared. Along with two hundred and forty-two baptized Jews living in the Netherlands, Stein and her sister Tosa were arrested by the SS on 2 August 1942. Stein and her sister Rosa were imprisoned at the concentration camps of Amersfoort and Westerbork before being moved to Auschwitz. A Dutch official at Westerbork was so impressed by her sense of faith and calm that he offered her an escape plan. Stein vehemently refused his assistance, stating: "If somebody intervened at this point and took away  my chance to share in the fate of my brothers and sisters, that would be utter annihilation."

On 7 August 1942, early in the morning, 987 Jews were moved to the Auschwitz concentration camp. They, along with Teresa Benedicta and her sister Rosa, were murdered by the National Socialists in a gas chamber in Auschwitz on 9 August 1942.

Pope St. John Paul II beatified Teresa Benedicta of the Cross in 1987 and canonized her 12 years later, and named her one of the six patron saints of Europe. 

The miracle that was the basis for her canonization is the cure of Benedicta McCarthy, a little girl who had swallowed a large amount of paracetamol (acetaminophen), which causes hepatic necrosis. The young girl's father, Emmanuel Charles McCarthy, a priest of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, immediately called together relatives and prayed for Teresa's intercession. Shortly thereafter, the nurses in the intensive care unit saw her sit up, completely healthy. Ronald Kleinman, a pediatric specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who treated the girl, testified about her recovery to church tribunals, stating: "I was willing to say that it was miraculous." McCarthy would later attend Sr. Teresa Benedicta's canonization.

The writings of Edith Stein fill 17 volumes, many of which have been translated into English. A woman of integrity, she followed the truth wherever it led her. One of the more profound things that she wrote was, 

“Do not accept anything as truth that lacks Love. Do not accept anything as love which lacks truth. One without the other is a destructive lie.”

Almighty God, by whose grace and power your holy martyr Edith triumphed over suffering and was faithful even to death: Grant us, who now remember her in thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to you in this world, that we may receive with her the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. 

Amen.