“Fervor of love for you, O Lord, enabled the deacon, Saint Lawrence, to remain outstandingly faithful” (cf. Collect)
The example of Saint Lawrence encourages us to give up our lives, set alight our faith, furbish our devotion. Not the flames of a scaffold but those of a living faith are what consume us. Our bodies are not burned for Jesus Christ’s sake but our souls are transported with the fervor of love for him…, our hearts burn with love for Jesus. Did not the Savior himself say of this sacred fire: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” (Lk 12,49). Cleopas and his companion experienced the effects of it when they said: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke ot us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” (Lk 24,32).
It was also thanks to this interior burning that Saint Lawrence remained insensible to the flames of his martyrdom. He burned with desire to be with Jesus and did not feel the torture. The more the fervor of his faith grew within him, the less he suffered from the tortures… The power of the divine brasier alight in his heart calmed the flames of the gridiron kindled by the torturer