Deacon and Martyr · Feast day August 10
St. Lawrence
The feast day of St. Lawrence is August 10, a feast in the US Catholic calendar. Traditionally invoked as patron of cooks, the poor, and deacons.
Life
Chief of the seven deacons of Rome under Pope Sixtus II, keeper of the Church’s purse and its poor. When the prefect demanded the Church’s treasures, Lawrence asked three days, gathered the blind, the lame, and the destitute, and presented them as the treasures of the Church.
For that wit he was roasted alive on a gridiron, joking with his executioners even then. Rome loved him beyond almost all her martyrs; the basilica over his tomb is one of the city’s seven great churches.
Patron of
Tradition invokes St. Lawrence as patron of cooks, the poor, and deacons.
Saints with the same patronage
- St. Marthacooks · July 29
- St. Anthony of Paduathe poor · June 13
- St. Gilesthe poor · September 1
- St. Stephendeacons · December 26
Patronages are traditional, not an official list. All patron saints in Bless, A to Z.
In their own words
Attributed, source unconfirmed
These sayings circulate under the saint’s name, but no source has been confirmed. Bless shows them with that label.
Turn me over; I am done on this side.
In Scripture
In Bless, St. Lawrence’s words appear in the comments beside these verses. This page’s labels say how each is linked: “on this verse” means the saint wrote about that very verse; “on this theme” means the quotation shares its theme. Scripture is quoted from the Catholic Public Domain Version.
On this theme · source unconfirmed
Blessed are those who endure persecution for the sake of justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they have slandered you, and persecuted you, and spoken all kinds of evil against you, falsely, for my sake: be glad and exult, for your reward in heaven is plentiful. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Matthew 5:10–12 · CPDV Beside their words: “Turn me over; I am done on this side.”
In the calendar
The upcoming dates, through December 31, 2028, when Bless’s Today screen shows St. Lawrence. Where the US calendar keeps another celebration that day, it is named instead and no rank is given.
Readings
No dates are left in Bless’s published calendar, which runs through December 31, 2028. St. Lawrence keeps August 10 in Bless’s calendar of saints: see the saints of August.
All the saints of August Born on August 10? A saint for every day
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