Through the fire

By Jim Davis - Florida Catholic

Photography: Jim Davis

NORTH MIAMI BEACH | Church treasure – that’s what the Roman judge demanded. Instead of gold and silver, however, the chief deacon showed him the poor and sick.

That brashness brought a torturous death for St. Lawrence. But his martyrdom led to the conversion of many, and he has become one of the most honored martyrs.

Lawrence's background is little known, mainly that he lived in mid-third-century Rome. An archdeacon under Pope Sixtus II, he handled donations to the less fortunate.

It was a deadly time and place to be Christian. In 257 A.D., the Roman Emperor Valerian began mass executions of bishops, priests and deacons, including Sixtus himself. 

A judge learned that Lawrence was the Church treasurer, and he demanded its monies for the empire. Lawrence asked for three days to round up the treasures.

Instead of gold, however, he paraded before the judge lepers, cripples, widows, orphans, the poor and lame – to whom he had already given the Church's wealth. The outraged judge ordered his execution: a slow death, roasting on a gridiron.

Even then, Lawrence somehow remained cheerfully defiant. According to one tradition, he called out: “It is well done! Turn me over!”

In another legend, Lawrence healed a blind man while imprisoned. His jailer witnessed the healing and became a Christian.  So did others after Lawrence’s death, including Roman senators who witnessed the execution.

Still another story says that a spring with healing powers appeared at his tomb. It became known as the Fountain of St. Lawrence.

His mode of death has made Lawrence the patron saint of fire, firefighters and, ironically, of chefs. He is often pictured next to the gridiron on which he was martyred. He is sometimes shown wearing a robe embroidered with tongues of fire.

Lawrence is also the patron of deacons, bankers and the poor, recalling his role in church finance and charity. He may be shown also with a moneybag or holding a plate of gold or silver.

His feast day is Aug. 10, the day of his martyrdom in 258.

In South Florida, the saint's namesake church sits on a bank of the Oleta River, in a quiet, oak-shaded corner of Miami-Dade County. St. Lawrence Church was founded about two years before the diocese itself, in 1956.

Archbishop Joseph Hurley, who ruled Florida Catholics from St. Augustine at the time, decided that northeastern Dade County needed a second parish. The other is Holy Family, three miles away in North Miami.

St. Lawrence parish began with a small school that met in a store in North Miami Beach. In 1957, the members placed a portable building on parish property, using it for school on weekdays and Mass on weekends. 

But not for long: That year, the congregation had outgrown the building and moved Mass to a nearby junior high school auditorium. And a mere two years later, the parish built a church, school and convent.

On its 13th anniversary – a bar mitzvah in Jewish terms – St. Lawrence sold a parcel of land to what is now Temple Sinai of North Dade. The sale birthed a friendship between the neighboring congregations.

The 1,400 registered members at St. Lawrence take part in a number of lay groups, including Cursillo, Soldados, Respect Life, the Legion of Mary and Charismatic Renewal. Members of the Neocatechumenal Way meet there as well.