[00:00] Today we celebrate one of the seven great deacons of Rome at the time that Pope Sixtus was the Bishop of Rome, the Holy Father, and we celebrate his feast day in the light of his example. We know that in all the years that the Church has existed, there's always

[00:35] been some sort of persecution of one sort or another. In today's day and age, depending on where you're living in the world, but since we're living in the West, there's more of a soft persecution. It's just an underlying current of immorality, debauchery, things that are running against the message of the Christian faith. So when we are practicing

[01:11] our faith, we come in contact with these contradictory values, and we are called, after the example of St. Lawrence, the deacon, to stand up with the same courage that he stood up and defended his faith. Now his time period was the middle of the third century in 258 AD, when Pope Sixtus was the Pope and Valerian was the Emperor, the Caesar. Valerian at first,

[01:50] as I talked about on the feast day of St. Sixtus that we celebrated a few days ago, that Valerian at first was very sympathetic to the Christians. He allowed them to practice the faith, and they did so. There was a thriving Christian community in Rome, but then through different superstitions and allowing himself to be swayed by people that were, I guess you could

[02:21] say, in his court or politicians who did not appreciate the Christian faith, he began to change his views, and he began a great persecution, one of the greatest persecutions of the Christians at that time, or in that time period of the great persecutions of the Christians of the early centuries. And one of the things that he did was issued an edict which prescribed that the Pope

[02:56] and the bishops and the deacons and the priests were to be handed over to the authorities, and that they would be punished. And he also required anyone, any politicians that were Christians to give up their lands to the government. So at that time, abortion was commonplace. They would take babies and just leave them out on rocks on the side of certain designated places. There was debauchery all through Rome. It was at that period of time

[03:30] that people and or historians have observed that the decline of Rome was in full swing. And it always happens that as these empires grow and immorality grows with it, that they will fall. So, as it happened, Sixtus, who was fleeing from this persecution, not fleeing the city, but hiding from it, was trying his best to be able to administer to his flock. And St. Lawrence

[04:05] and the other deacons were helping him. And at one point, they were gathered in the catacombs, the catacomb of St. Callistus, to be specific. And it was there that the authorities caught up with them and they dragged them into Rome to be tried. And later, St. Sixtus was brought to, back to the catacomb of St. Callistus and was beheaded. Now, St. Lawrence, that great deacon

[04:37] and martyr, he wept because he saw the others going to be martyred and giving up their lives for Christ. And he called out to St. Sixtus and he said, "You know, how could I be serving you all these years by your side as you brought down the body and blood of Christ for all of us? But as you shed your blood, I remain here." And St. Sixtus turned to him and said, "Do not worry, for in three

[05:15] days, you shall follow me." And that's exactly what happened. Now, Valerian, he thought that the Church had many riches and were hiding many riches. Like I said, there was a thriving Christian community in Rome at the time. So he requested, ordered Deacon Lawrence to bring all the Church's riches and the gold and the silver that he heard that it was holding and bring it to him in three

[05:46] days time. So St. Lawrence said, "Sure, I'll do that. I'll bring the riches and the treasure of the Church to you." So three days later, what Valerian found when he met up with St. Lawrence at the location that was designated, he saw that St. Lawrence had brought all the poor and the ill and the infirm to this place. And he declared that these here are the true

[06:18] riches and the treasures of the Church. And his anger, Valerian did not think that beheading was good enough for Lawrence. And he ordered that he be publicly murdered or killed by roasting on a grill. And St. Lawrence happily went to this death. In fact, he joked around telling them, "Oh, I'm done now. You can eat me. I'm done. You can turn me over. This one side's done. You can

[06:55] turn me over." He showed great courage, even in his joking around with those who were killing him and giving him that crown of martyrdom. So St. Lawrence, he showed us an example of one who had no fear in the face of death. Not that we don't have that natural fear, but he was able to overcome it because he was convicted in his faith of the strength that our Lord would give him. And it is

[07:27] the same for each one of us. We're faced with persecutions today in our own lives, in going against the immorality, the debauchery, the things that we see that go against the Christian message in our world today. And we are called in our own way to stand up for the faith and to be witnesses of Christ. Whether we're called, we never know, because these things can change in an instant. We

[08:00] know this just from studying the history of persecutions. One moment everything is fine, and the next thing you know, in an instant, it can change. So we always must be ready. And even if we're not called to die a martyr's death, then we should all know that we're called to live a martyr's life. Like St. Augustine said when he was preaching on the Feast of St. Lawrence, he said that there are many who are called to be in the flower, the garden of our Lord in heaven, to be the

[08:37] red flowers, the red symbolizing martyrdom. But even if we are not called to be, to undergo that suffering of blood, the bloody martyrdom, we are called to live the white martyrdom. And St. Augustine said in the garden of God there will be those red flowers, but there also be the white flowers of purity of those who are virgins. There will be the violet flowers of those who lived

[09:12] married life, and there will be all kinds of different colors of flowers representing the virtues and the sanctity of those in whatever state in life that God called them to. So let us always witness as St. Lawrence did. And after his death, St. Lawrence worked many, many miracles. And it was Constantine the Great that, where he had died,

[09:44] St., or Constantine the Great, he built a church to St. Lawrence in Rome. So with the example of St. Lawrence, we have our pattern of how to live the Catholic life, to live the Christian life, always being ready with the grace of God to stand up for our faith. Even if we have that natural fear, because faith and love will cancel out all fear, and the

[10:16] strength of God will be with us to live whatever it is that our Lord wants us to live, whether it be that red martyrdom or the white martyrdom of offering up all of our trials and sufferings of daily life.