Dom Guéranger
The Liturgical Year
St. Lawrence
“Once the mother of false gods, but now the Bride
of Christ, 0 Rome, it is through Laurence thou art victorious! Thou hast conquered
haughty monarchs and subjected nations to thine empire; but though thou hadst
overcome barbarism, thy glory was incomplete till thou hadst vanquished the
unclean idols. This was Laurence's victory a combat bloody yet not tumultuous
like those of Camillus or of Caesar; it was the contest of faith, wherein self
is immolated and death is overcome by death. What words, what praises suffice
to celebrate such a death? How can I worthily sing so great a martyrdom? Thus
opens the sublime poem of Prudentius, composed little more than a century after
the saint's martyrdom In this work the poet has preserved to us the traditions
existing in his own day, whereby the name of the Roman deacon was rendered so
illustrious. About the same time St. Ambrose, with his irresistible eloquence
described the meeting of Sixtus and his deacon on the way to martyrdom.' But,
before both Ambrose and Prudentius, Pope St. Damasus chronicled the victory of
Laurence's faith. In his majestic monumental inscriptions, which have such a
ring of the days of triumph! Rome was lavish in her demonstrations of honor
towards the champion who had prayed for her deliverance upon his red hot
gridiron.
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The shrine in Rome
containing the gridiron used to grill St Lawrence to death
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She inserted his name in the Canon of the Mass, and moreover
celebrated the anniversary of his birth to heaven with as much solemnity as
those of the glorious apostles her founders, and with the same privileges of a
Vigil and an Octave. She has been dyed with the blood of many other witnesses
of Christ, yet as though Laurence had a special claim upon her gratitude, every
spot connected with him has been honoured with a church. Amongst all these
sanctuaries dedicated to him, the one which contains the martyr's body ranks
next after the churches of St. John Lateran, St. Mary's on the Esquiline, St.
Peter's on the Vatican, and St. Paul's on the Ostian Way. St. Laurence outside
the Walls completes the number of the five great basilicas that form the
appanage and exclusive possession of the Roman Pontiff. They represent the
patriarchates of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem,
which divide the world between them, and express the universal and immediate
jurisdiction of the Bishops of Rome over all the churches. Thus through Lawrence
the Eternal City is completed, and is shown to be the centre of the world and
the source of every grace. Just as Peter and Paul are the riches, not of Rome
alone, but of the whole world, so Lawrence is called the honor of the world,
for he, as it were, personified the courage of martyrdom. At the beginning of
this month we saw Stephen himself come to blend his dignity of Protomartyr with
the glory of Sixtus II's deacon, by sharing his tomb.
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Pope St. Sixtus II
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In Laurence, it seemed
that both the struggle and the victory of martyrdom reached their highest
point; persecution, it is true, was renewed during the next half-century, and
made many victims, yet his triumph was considered as the death-blow to
paganism. 'The devil,' says Prudentius, 'struggled fiercely with God's witness,
but he was himself wounded and prostrated for ever. The death of Christ's
martyr gave the death-blow to the worship of idols, and from that day Vesta was
powerless to prevent her temple from being deserted. All these Roman citizens,
brought up in the superstitions taught by Numa, hasten, 0 Christ, to Thy
courts, singing hymns to Thy martyr. Illustrious senators, flamens and priests
of Lupercus, venerate the tombs of apostles and saints. We see patricians and
matrons of the noblest families vowing to God the children in whom their hopes
are centred. The pontiff of the idols, whose brow but yesterday was bound with
the sacred fillet, now signs himself with the Cross, and the vestal virgin
Claudia visits thy sanctuary, 0 Laurence. It need not surprise us that this
day's solemnity carries its triumphant joy from the city of the seven hills to
the entire universe. As it is impossible for Rome to be concealed,' says St.
Augustine, so it is equally impossible to hide Laurence's crown.' Everywhere,
in both East and West, churches were built in his honor; and in return, as the
Bishop of Hippo testifies, the favors he conferred were innumerable, and prove
the greatness of his power with God; who has ever prayed to him and has not
been graciously heard?' Let us, then, conclude with St. Maximus of Turin that
in the devotion wherewith the triumph of St. Laurence is being celebrated
throughout the entire world, we must recognize that it is both holy and
pleasing to God to honor, with all the fervour of our souls, the birth to
heaven of the martyr who by his radiant flames has spread the glory of his
victory over the whole Church. Because of the spotless purity of soul which
made him a true Levite, and because of that fullness of faith which earned him
the martyr's palm, it is fitting that we should honor him almost equally with
the apostles.
TRADITIONAL
LATIN MASS PROPERS
AUGUST 10
ST. LAURENCE, ARCHDEACON AND MARTYR
Double
of the Second Class with a Simple Octave
Red
Vestments
INTROIT - Ps 95:6
Praise and beauty are before Him: holiness and majesty
in His sanctuary.
Ps. 95:1Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle; sing to the Lord all the earth.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and
ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Splendor and majesty go before Him; praise and
grandeur are in His sanctuary.
INTROITUS - Ps 95:6
Conféssio et pulchritúdo ín conspéctu ejus: sánctitas,
et magnificéntia in sanctificatióne ejus.
Ps. 95:1Cantáte Dómino cánticum novum: cantáte Dómino, omnis terra. Glória
Patri, et Fílio, et Spirítui Sancto. R. Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc, et
semper, et in saecula saeculórum. Amen.
Conféssio et pulchritúdo in conspéctu ejus: sánctitas
et magnificéntia in sanctificatióne ejus.
COLLECT
Grant us, we beseech Thee
O almighty God, to extinguish the flames of our evil dispositions, as Thou
didst grant blessed Lawrence to overcome the fires of his torments. Through our
Lord.
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St.
Lawrence distributing wealth to the poor
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EPISTLE
Lesson from the second letter of St Paul the Apostle
to the Corinthians
II Corinthians 9: 6,10
Brethren: He who soweth
sparingly, shall also reap sparingly: and he who soweth in blessings, shall
also reap of blessings. Everyone as he hath determined in his heart; not with
sadness, or of necessity; for God loveth a cheerful giver. And God is able to
make all grace abound in you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all
things, may abound to every good work; as it is written, He hath dispersed
abroad, He hath given to the poor: His justice remaineth forever. And He that
ministereth seed to the sower, will both give you bread to eat, and will
multiply your seed, and increase the growth of the fruits of your justice.
GRADUAL - Psalm 16: 3
Thou hast proved my heart,
O Lord, and visited it by night. Thou hast tried me by fire, and iniquity hath
not been found in me.
ALLELUIA
Alleluia, alleluia. The
levite Lawrence wrought a good work, who by the sign of the cross gave sight to
the blind. Alleluia.
GOSPEL
Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to St. John
John 12: 24-26
At that time, Jesus said
to His disciples: Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling
into the ground, die, itself remaineth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit. He that loveth his life, shall lose it; and he that hateth his life
in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal. If any man minister to Me, let him
follow Me; and where I am, there also shall My minister be. If any man minister
to Me, him will My Father honor.
OFFERTORY - Psalm 95: 6
Praise and beauty are
before Him: holiness and majesty are in His sanctuary.
SECRET
Accept, we beseech Thee, O
Lord, the gifts offered Thee, and, by the interceding merits of blessed
Lawrence, grant that they may help us unto our salvation. Through our Lord.
PREFACE Common
Preface
It is truly meet and just,
right and for our salvation that we should at all times and in all places, give
thanks unto Thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God: through Christ our
Lord. through Whom the Angels praise Thy Majesty, Dominations worship, Powers
stand in awe. The Heavens and the Heavenly hosts together with the blessed
Seraphim in triumphant chorus unite to celebrate it. Together with them we
entreat Thee, that Thou mayest bid our voices also to be admitted, while we say
in lowly praise:
THE SANCTUS
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,
Dóminus Deus Sábaoth. Pleni sunt cæli et terra glória tua. Hosánna in excélsis.
Benedíctus qui venit in nómine Dómini. Hosánna in excélsis.
COMMUNION - John 12: 26
If any man minister to me,
let him follow Me: and where I am, there also shall My minister be.
POSTCOMMUNION
Filled with Thy sacred
gift, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord, that what we celebrate with our homage
duly given by the intercession of Thy blessed Martyr, Lawrence, we may also
know as an increase of Thy saving grace within us. Through our Lord.
FIRST VESPERS
Dom Guéranger - The Liturgical Year
Laurence has entered the lists as a martyr,
and has confessed the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Such is the antiphon
wherewith the Church opens the first Vespers of the feast; and in fact, by this
hour he has already entered the arena; with noble irony he has challenged the
authorities, and has even shed his blood. On the very day of the martyrdom of
Sixtus II, Cornelius Secularis, prefect of Rome, summoned Laurence before his
tribunal, but granted him the delay necessary for gathering together the riches
required by the imperial treasury. Valerian did not include the obscure members
of the Church in his edicts of persecution; he aimed at ruining the Christians
by prohibiting their assemblies, putting their chief men to death, and
confiscating their property. This accounts for the fact that, on August 6, the
faithful assembled in the cemetery of Pretextatus were dispersed, the pontiff
executed, and the chief deacon arrested and ordered to deliver up the treasures
which the Government knew to be in his keeping. 'Acknowledge my just and
peaceable claims,' said the prefect. 'It is said that at your orgies your
priests are accustomed, according to the laws of your worship, to make
libations in cups of gold; that silver vessels smoke with the blood of the
victims, and that the torches that give light to your nocturnal mysteries are
fixed in golden candlesticks. And then you have such love and care for the
brotherhood: report says you sell your lands in order to devote to their
service thousands of sesterces; so that while the son is disinherited by his
holy parents and groans in poverty, his patrimony is piously hidden away in the
secrecy of your temples. Bring forth these immense treasures, the shameful
spoils you have won by deceiving the credulous; the public good demands them;
render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, that he may have' wherewith to
fill his treasury and pay his armies.' Laurence, untroubled by these words, and
as if quite willing to obey, gently answered: 'I confess you speak the truth;
our Church is indeed wealthy; no one in the world, not even Augustus himself,
possesses such riches. I will disclose them all to you, and I will show you the
treasures of Christ. All I ask for is a short delay, which will enable me the
better to perform what I have promised. For I must make an inventory of all,
count them up, and value each article.' The prefect's heart swelled
with joy, and gloating over the gold he hoped soon to possess, he granted him a
delay of three days.
Meanwhile Laurence hastened all over the town
and assembled the legions of poor whom their Mother the Church supported; lame
and blind, cripple and beggars, he called them all. None knew them better than
the archdeacon. Next he counted them, wrote down their names, and arranged them
in long lines. On the appointed day he returned to the judge and thus addressed
him: Come with
me and admire the incomparable riches of the sanctuary of our, God.' They went together to the spot where the crowds of poor were
standing, clothed in rags and filling the air with their supplications. 'Why do
you shudder said Laurence to the prefect? 'Do you call that a vile and contemptible
spectacle If you seek after wealth, know that the brightest gold is Christ, who
is the light, and the human race redeemed by Him; for they are the sons of the
light, all these who are shielded by their bodily weakness from the assault of
pride and evil passion; soon they will lay aside their ulcers in the palace of
eternal life, and will shine in marvellous glory, clothed in purple and bearing
golden crowns upon their heads.
See, here is the
gold which I promised you-gold of a kind that tire cannot touch or thief steal
from you. Think not, then, that Christ is poor: behold these choice pearls,
these sparkling gems that adorn the temple, these sacred virgins, I mean, and
these widows who refuse second marriage; they form the priceless necklace of
the Church, they deck her ears, they are her bridal ornaments, and win for her
Christ's love.
Behold, then, all our riches; take them: they
will beautify the city of Romulus, they will increase' the Emperor's treasures
and enrich you yourself From a letter of Pope St. Cornelius, written a few
years after these events, we learn that the number of widows and poor persons
that the Church of Rome supported exceeded 1,500. By thus exhibiting them
before the magistrate, Laurence knew that he endangered no one but himself, for
the persecution of Valerian, as we have already observed, overlooked the
inferior classes and attacked the leading members of the Church. Divine Wisdom
thus confronted Caesarism and its brutality with Christianity which it so
despised, but which was destined to overcome and subdue it. This happened on
August 9, 258.
The first answer
the furious prefect made was to order Laurence to be scourged and tortured upon
the rack. But these tortures were only a prelude to the great ordeal he was
preparing for the noble-hearted deacon. We learn this tradition from St.
Damasus, for he says that, besides the flames, Laurence triumphed over 'blows,
tortures, torments, and chains. We have also
the authority of the notice inserted by Ado of Vienne in his Martyrology in the
ninth century, and taken from a still more ancient source. The conformity of
expression proves that it was partly from this same source that the Gregorian
Antiphonal had already taken the Antiphons and Responsories of the feast.
Besides the details which we learn from Prudentius and the Fathers, this office
alludes to the converts Laurence made while in prison, and to his restoring
sight to the blind. This last seems to have been the special gift of the holy
deacon during the days preceding his martyrdom.
The August sun has set behind the Vatican,
and the life and animation, which his burning heat had stilled for a time,
begin once more upon the seven hills. Laurence was taken down from the rack
about midday. In his prison, however, he took no rest, but wounded and bleeding
as he was, he baptized the converts won to Christ by the sight of his
courageous suffering. He confirmed their faith, and fired their souls with a
martyr's intrepidity. When the evening hour summoned Rome to its pleasures, the
prefect recalled the executioners to their work, for a few hours' rest had
sufficiently restored their energy to enable them to satisfy his cruelty.
Surrounded by this ill-favoured company, the prefect thus addressed the valiant
deacon:
Sacrifice to the gods, or else the whole
night long shall be witness of your torments.’
My night has no
darkness,' answered Laurence, 'and all things are full of light to me.' They
struck him on the mouth with stones, but he smiled and said: 'I give Thee
thanks, 0 Christ.' Then an iron bed or gridiron with three bars was brought in
and the saint was stripped of his garments and extended upon it while burning
coals were placed beneath it. As they were holding him down with iron forks,
Laurence said: 'I offer myself as a sacrifice to God for an odour of
sweetness.' The executioners continually stirred up the fire and brought fresh
coals, while they still held him down with their forks. Then the saint said:
'Learn, unhappy man, how great is the power of my God; for your burning coals
give me refreshment, but they will be your eternal punishment.
I call Thee, 0 Lord, to witness: when I was
accused, I did not deny Thee; when I was questioned, I confessed Thee, 0
Christ; on the red-hot coals I gave Thee thanks.' And with his countenance
radiant with heavenly beauty, he continued: Yea, I give Thee thanks, 0 Lord
Jesus Christ, for that Thou hast deigned to· strengthen me.' He then raised his
eyes to his judge, and said: 'See, this side is well roasted; turn me on the
other and eat.' Then continuing his canticle of praise to God: 'I give Thee
thanks, 0 Lord, that I have merited to enter into Thy dwelling-place. As he was on the point of death, he
remembered the Church. The thought of the eternal Rome gave him fresh strength,
and he breathed forth this ecstatic prayer: '0 Christ, only God, 0 Splendour, 0
Power of the Father, 0 Maker of heaven and earth and builder of this city's
walls. Thou hast placed Rome's sceptre high over all; Thou hast willed to
subject the world to it, in order to unite under one law the nations which
differ in manners, customs, language, genius, and sacrifice. Behold the whole
human race has submitted to its empire, and all discord and dissensions
disappear in its unity. Remember thy purpose: Thou didst will to bind the
immense universe together into one Christian Kingdom. O Christ, for the sake of
Thy Romans, make this city Christian; for to it Thou gavest the charge of
leading all the rest to sacred unity. All its members in every place are
united-a very type of Thy Kingdom; the conquered universe has bowed before it.
Oh may its royal head be bowed in turn Send Thy Gabriel and bid him heal the
blindness of the sons of lulus that they may know the true God. I see a prince
who is to come-an Emperor who is a servant of God. He will not suffer Rome to
remain a slave; he will close the temples and fasten them with bolts for ever.'
Thus he prayed, and with these last words he breathed forth his soul.
Some noble Romans who had been conquered to
Christ by the martyr's admirable boldness, removed his body: the love of the
most high God had suddenly filled their hearts and dispelled their former
errors.
From that day the worship of the infamous
gods grew cold; few people went now to the temples, but hastened to the altars
of Christ. Thus Laurence, going unarmed to the battle, had wounded the enemy
with his own swords. The Church, which is always grateful in proportion to the
service rendered her, could not forget this glorious night.
At the period when her children's piety vied
with her own, she used to summon them together at sunset on the evening of
August 9 for a first Night Office. At midnight the second Matins began,
followed by the first Mass called 'of the night or of the early morning. Thus
the Christians watched around the holy deacon during the hours of his glorious
combat. '0 God, Thou hast proved my heart, and visited it by night, Thou hast
tried me by fire, and iniquity hath not been found in me. Hear. 0 Lord, my
justice; attend to my supplication. Such is the grand Introit which immediately
after the night Vigils, hallowed the dawn of August I0, at the very moment when
Laurence entered the eternal sanctuary to fulfil his office at the heavenly
altar. Later on certain churches observed on this feast a custom similar to one
in use at the Matins of the commemoration of St. Paul; it consisted in reciting
a particular versicle before repeating each antiphon of the Nocturns.
The doctors of
the sacred liturgy tell us that the remarkable labours of the Doctor of the
Gentiles and those of St. Laurence earned for them this distinction. Our
forefathers were greatly struck by the contrast between the endurance of the
holy deacon under his cruel tortures and his tender-hearted, tearful parting
with Sixtus II three days before. On this account, they gave to the periodical
showers of 'falling stars,' which occur about August 10, the graceful name of
St. Laurence's tears: a touching instance of that popular piety which delights
in raising the heart to God through the medium of natural phenomena.
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