Yesterday at St. Lawrence,
we blessed our newly remodeled hall —
a humble space,
renewed for fellowship and simple joy.
Then we shared a parish meal
for the Feast of St. Lawrence,
BBQ pulled‑pork sandwiches,
warm conversation,
the kind of gathering that feels like home.
And I smiled at the irony.
Because Lawrence,
commanded by Rome
to surrender the Church’s wealth,
gathered instead the poor,
the sick,
the suffering —
and said, “These are the true treasures.”
His witness was sealed
on a hot iron gridiron,
his final words:
“Turn me over…
I’m done on this side.”
I carried some of those parish meals
to our shut‑ins.
I brought them Communion —
the Body of Christ,
and a small taste of the parish table.
Scripture whispers this steady truth:
“He scatters abroad,
he gives to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.”
So here I stand —
a deacon,
eighteen hundred years after Lawrence —
finally seeing what he meant
about the treasure of the Church.
It isn’t stored.
It isn’t counted.
It isn’t guarded.
It is given.
Because Jesus said:
“Unless a grain of wheat
falls to the earth and dies,
it remains alone;
but if it dies,
it produces much fruit.”
That is the quiet dying we offer —
the gentle letting‑go,
the daily surrender,
the fruit that grows in others
because Christ first grew in us.
Prayer
Lord,
Make my heart
a place of giving,
where Your treasures
are the poor and the broken.
Teach me to surrender
like the grain‑of‑wheat,
that my small dying
may bear Your great fruit.
Amen
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