St. Lawrence of Rome (Meal Day - Grand 10)By Protopresbyter Fr. George PapavarnavasArchdeacon Laurence lived in third century Rome and was intricate in strategic work, sincerely in the sanctuary of safety. The Pope of Rome, Sixtus II, who is registered in the list of saints of the Traditional Minster as a regal sufferer, entrusted to him the management of ecclesiastical freight. Out of the annoyance Saint Laurence was arrested and the pagan head customary him to hand untouchable the raw materials of the Minster. With he asked for some time in order to hoard them and he returned with a huge stick of wagons, which were full of the mean, the disabled, widows and orphans. He explained to the turbulent head, that these are the raw materials of the Minster, when all her load wealth is stored in them. A weight was moreover identifiable for him to be sorrowful with hostility, and the turbulent pagans sorrowful him and roasted him in the flesh on an easy quiz. His survival was usual by a holier-than-thou Christian named Hippolytus and he unspoken him. This became frequent and Hippolytus was arrested and he likewise preserved his impervious for Christ with the blood of his martyrdom, once having endured pitiless tortures.The life and character of Saint Laurence gives us the street to nucleus the following:Fundamental, the sacred hymnographer, in the Apolytikion he wrote to Saint Laurence, says in the midst of other things: "Inflamed by the divine Spirit, as a blazing coal you burned the thorns of false impression." In other words, Saint Laurence was inflamed with the fire of the All-Holy Spirit, give pleasure to a blazing coal, and he lit a fire and burned the bristle of false impression, namely idolatry. Strictly, they who accommodate within them the Diplomacy of the Sacred Spirit are give pleasure to a sharp fire and this is why their words are restful. And absolute as fire has a establishment sprint, in sync illustrative and blazing, so do the words of the saints clarify and burst, depending on the spiritual avow of the personality who listens to them and studies them. They elucidate group who are vulnerable to happy, namely the caring and group who clash to stay with be disappointed and the exercise of the divine commandments, and they burst group with hardened hearts and lack of be disappointed.Everything resemblance, we can say, that occurs with the words of the saints likewise occurs with Holy Communion, which is at the identical time light and fire, namely it illuminates and sanctifies or it burns and condemns. For group who enjoy the Association and Blood once rent pithy, Holy Communion is a light that illumines, the same as for group who commune incorrectly and fault pithy, it is a blazing fire. This is positively seen in the prayers read before greeting Holy Communion. Air excerpts from these prayers are the following: "Legalize the blazing coal of Your most-holy Association and Your loaded Blood to be for my sanctification and happy and the health of my down-to-earth life form and suppose", and "neither unto hell nor unto the fault of my sins", and "You are a blazing coal blazing the contemptible".A maximum smug Holy man, the late Plus Demetrios Gagastathis, says the taking sides regarding Holy Communion: "They familiar me to commune the old woman... who was bedridden and about 85 existence old. As exactly as she communed of the Above suspicion Mysteries, she screamed: 'The communion burned me! I'm on fire! Furnish with me water to drink, I'm burning! It's blazing fashionable me!' The few hours she had vanished to stay she screamed for eternity 'I'm blazing, the mean woman. She moreover gave up her spirit. This was a be in awe, being she had time to make known and had an unsettled call. Somewhere she went, she would say various unbearable substance about her child, her adolescent in law, etc. She regularly over-spoke and never congested. She harmed everybody and was never contented with anyone." And he ends with the exhortation: "Let us accommodate love with our children and all type, and go to confession! We requisite store the commandments of our spiritual switch on."Like so, the words of Christ and His friends the saints elucidate some and burst others, depending on their spiritual avow. They likewise burst the false impression of heresy and idolatry and in sync ignite and lead to be disappointed and liberator.Gleam, the raw materials of the Minster are not load and lifeless, but lively. They are all group who accommodate capture of her spiritual and load help. Merely as in a birthplace its highest swag are the children of the birthplace and everything moreover comes in thorough place, so likewise for the huge birthplace, the ecclesiastical community, the maximum loaded swag is her children, sincerely group who accommodate sizeable capture. It is not material for a switch on and mother to swag substance and for the children to be famished. If physical parents cannot occur this, even in spite of this it happens that haunt of them are not good type, but immoral and strenuous, how is it moreover material for it to be so with our heavenly Plus, our unselfish God, as well as with His friends, the saints. Christ Himself emphasizes this sizeable truth, once addressing type He asked: "Who in the midst of you, once your child asks for bread, drive permit him a rock? Or if he asks for associate, drive permit him a snake? Like so, if you who are so evil, know how to permit beneficial substance to your children, how other best quality so drive your heavenly Plus permit good and beneficial substance to group who ask?" (Matt. 6:11).Listening to and studying the words of the saints, once done with the rent milieu, it nourishes religiously, it illumines the nous, it creates feeling, and it likewise softens the meeting place and makes it underdone to material breakdown.Source: "Ekklesiastiki Paremvasi", , Grand 2009. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
