Saint Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr

Lawrence was one of the seven deacons of Rome under Pope Sixtus II, in charge of the Church's goods and its help to the poor. He was put to death on 10 August 258, four days after Sixtus, in the persecution of Emperor Valerian. Ambrose of Milan, writing a century later, tells that when the prefect demanded the Church's treasures, Lawrence brought the poor and the sick and said that these were its treasures. The same tradition, followed by the poet Prudentius, says he was roasted on a gridiron and joked that one side was done; many historians think he was more likely beheaded, like Sixtus. He was buried on the Via Tiburtina, where Constantine built a basilica over his tomb.