Homily for Wednesday, 10 August 2016‒ Feast of St. Lawrence

Wednesday of the 19th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 9:6-10; Psalm 112:1-2, 5-6, 7-8, 9; John 12:24-26

This homily was given at the chapel of Kateri House Women's Residence of St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

“God loves a cheerful giver,” St. Paul says in his second letter to the Corinthians. And Jesus says “to his disciples” in John’s Gospel, “Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.”

Who here is able to name “a cheerful giver,” somebody who is known for generous service to others; to our Church; to the world? When I think of a generous, “cheerful giver,” I think of a person like Mother Teresa, who founded the Missionaries of Charity to serve the poor around the world. Here in our own country, and longer ago than Mother Teresa, we might include Canada’s saints: Marie de l’Incarnation, who  established the Ursuline Sisters in Québec; Marguerite d’Youville, founder of the Grey Nuns; the Canadian Martyrs; many missionaries; more recently André Bessette… We may think of philanthropists who have given to their communities.

But so many “cheerful,” generous servants and saints are unheralded. Although he is named (many, even, I imagine, the vast majority of saints are not even known by name), we might consider St. Lawrence, whose feast we celebrate today, among these unheralded cheerful and generous servants. Most of what we know about St. Lawrence is legend or at least second-hand. Tradition back to the Acts of the Apostles was to appoint seven deacons to help the pope in Rome to serve those in need in the city. Under Pope Sixtus II, also a saint and martyr, St. Lawrence was one of these seven deacons during the reign of the Roman Emperor Valerian.

We might be familiar with St. Ambrose’s humorous, if graphic, account of The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence: As St. Lawrence was being burned to death, he asked his executioners: “Would you turn me over? I’m not done yet on the other side”!

Dark humour aside, I think another story from the same work by St. Ambrose even more beautifully captures the spirit of St. Lawrence, the kind of “cheerful giver” and generous servant of God whom Jesus promises “the Father will honour.” After Pope Sixtus was led to his death, three days before Lawrence was martyred, Valerian demanded the treasures of the Church of Rome be brought to him. On the day he was executed, Lawrence (we might imagine tongue-in-cheek) brought with him a delegation of the suffering, the poor, the sick, and the crippled of Rome, and announced to a furious Valerian, “Here are the treasures of the Church”!

Who are the cheerful givers; the servants among us whom “the Father will honour”? Who will present before God “the treasures of the Church”: The people of God most in need of our service; the people whose dignity is most vulnerable to being exploited? Perhaps the better question is to ask ourselves to what extent we are prepared to be servants ourselves; to recognize the suffering, the poor, the sick; people with disabilities; the unborn; the elderly as “the treasures” of our Church; of our world; of God’s creation.

We will most likely not be martyred for our efforts as St. Lawrence was. We may not even gain a name for ourselves, except before God. And yet, if we serve not for our own glory but glorifying God, we can be sure that God will love and honour the cheerful givers; those who serve generously.