No one can accuse Jesus of false advertising when it comes to the conditions of discipleship. “Whoever serves me must follow me,” says the Lord (John 12:26a), and so as disciples we must be content with what Jesus chose for himself. If Jesus faced opposition, trials, misunderstanding, betrayal, abandonment, and even torture and death, then we should not be surprised when we face the same.
Today’s feast of Saint Lawrence presents us with a figure who embraced wholeheartedly that following of the Lord, even unto death. As the legend of his life tells us, Lawrence was asked to turn over the treasures of the Church to the Roman prefect, and after three days in which he distributed much of the Church’s property to the poor, he presented the blind, the lame, and the sick to the prefect, saying, “These are the treasures of the Church.”
Do we value the poor, the outcast, and the dying, as Lawrence did in imitation of Christ? Do we strive to make Jesus’ attitudes and ways of acting our own, even if to do so might result in persecution or ridicule from others? In our prayer today, let us consider the example of St. Lawrence, asking for his intercession that we might learn to imitate the Lord as he did.