Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever. 
St. Lawrence, the deacon, is that martyr who died that very cruel death of being cooked alive on an iron grill.
And he faced this death not only courageously, but cheerfully even, we may say, in the sense that he very generously gave his life back to the Lord when faced with the choice of either denying his faith in Christ or professing it and dying for it.
He died on August 10th, 258, four days after Pope Saint Sixtus was martyred as well.
Persecutions at that time were very frequent and common, as you know.
And again, St. Lawrence accepted this death and generously, cheerfully gave his life for the Lord.
That doesn't mean that he suffered without any pain or that it was pleasant to undergo that martyrdom.
No, he had to act manly, in a manly way, against feelings of dread and against the pain that he was feeling.
But again, his will was generous.
And we read about that in the first reading today.
St. Paul tells us that God loves a cheerful giver.
Now St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom, and St. Gregory the Great give us a few insights about this truth, that God loves a cheerful giver.
St. Augustine first of all says that if you give, so St. Augustine speaks of giving alms, and he comments these words of St. Paul by using this example of giving alms.
So St. Augustine says, if you give your alms, if you give your bread, for example, if you give your bread grudgingly, you're a two-fold loser, we can say.
You lose twice over.
If you give your bread grudgingly, you lose both your bread and your reward.
You gave away your bread, and you did it grudgingly, you don't even get a supernatural reward, so you lose two things.
St. John Chrysostom says, if, on the other hand, we give cheerfully, our reward will be two-fold, one for giving and the other for giving cheerfully.
St. Gregory the Great therefore says, alms should be given with cheerful mind, not sadly, not reluctantly.
Thus shall we imitate God Himself, who cheerfully distributes His gifts.
That's the key here.
God says that He loves a cheerful giver.
Why?
Because He Himself is a cheerful giver.
God gives abundantly, and you can just look at the universe like, wow, why such a huge universe?
Why this superfluous sharing of being with a huge universe?
Because God gives abundantly, God gives cheerfully, God gives more than is required.
And He's also not a taker.
Again, God is a giver.
God does not want to take anything from us.
He wants to bestow upon us.
And when He asks us to sacrifice something, it's because He wants to give us something better.
It's like an exchange.
God gives us opportunities to exchange.
Okay, would you like to exchange something good for something better?
For us, it's a sacrifice, but we have to trust in the Lord that when we are asked to sacrifice, it's because God wants to give us something even better in place of what we give up.
So our sacrifices, our mortifications, our joys, rather, our sacrifices, our mortification, should be done with joy.
The persecutions that we suffer, we should suffer joyfully, again, in the will.
Not that it won't hurt.
It'll hurt.
But we should, again, interiorly, in our hearts, say, Lord, I wish to suffer this for you.
I wish to perform this sacrifice for you.
Because the goal of, again, sacrifice, mortification, penance, is not to make us or those around us sad, but the contrary.
It's to receive a reward from the Lord and to rejoice in the reward from the Lord.
The goal is to be brought closer and closer to God, the source of all good things, the source of all joy.
The God who doubles the reward when we trust, and we give to Him.
Our lady, of course, she gave to God this way.
Just, again, think of the Annunciation is this example over and over again.
It seemed like she had to sacrifice something for God at the Annunciation.
That state of life, that state of virginity that she had vowed to God, it seemed like, okay, I have to give that up.
And she consented to our Lord's plan for her to become the mother of God.
And guess what the end result is?
She's Virgin and Mother.
Of course, that's a miracle.
But our lady is a unique member of the Church.
She has a unique place in the economy of grace.
Nevertheless, she's, for us, an example.
She's doubly, doubly rewarded by God.
Nothing is taken from her.
She receives a double reward, Virgin, and Mother.
St. Lawrence gave this way.
And, of course, God, first of all, is such a giver, a cheerful giver.
So let's go for the twofold reward, not the twofold loss.
God loves a cheerful giver.
St. Lawrence is, for us, an example of that.
And let's do our best to imitate this saint.
Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.