This young deacon and heroic martyr is numbered among those saints who were most highly venerated by the ancient Roman Church.

Lawrence, born at Huesca, Spain, was chief among the seven deacons who served the Roman Church during the mid-third century. He held a position of great trust, caring for the goods of the Church and distributing its alms among the poor, all this in a time when Christianity was outlawed.

On Aug. 6, 258, by decree of Emperor Valerian, Pope Saint Sixtus II and six deacons were beheaded, leaving Lawrence as the ranking church official in Rome.

While in prison awaiting execution Sixtus reassured Lawrence that he was not being left behind; they would be reunited in four days. Lawrence saw this time as an opportunity to disperse the material wealth of the church before the Roman authorities could lay their hands on it.

On Aug. 10, 258, Lawrence was commanded to appear for his execution, and to bring along the treasure with which he had been entrusted by the pope. When he arrived, the archdeacon was accompanied by a multitude of Rome's crippled, blind, sick, and indigent. He announced that these were the true treasures of the Church.

Lawrence was slowly roasted to death. He rejoiced in his awful martyrdom and died praying for the conversion of the city of Rome.

The meteor shower that follows the passage of the Swift-Tuttle comet was known in the middle ages as the "burning tears of Saint Lawrence" because they appear at the same time as Lawrence's feast.