Monday in the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 10, 2020

The Feast of St. Lawrence

John 12:24-26

Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.”

The grain of wheat must die in order to achieve its end, the production of “much fruit”.  We hear the Lord speak in these and similar words throughout all four of the Gospels.  It is a way in which he prepares his disciples for his own Death and Resurrection.  It is also a way in which he prepares them for the life in him: we must also “die” in order to produce “much fruit”.  

We use the verb “to die” in many ways.  It was a favorite expression of my mother when I was a child, usually using it in reference to something I had done: “I could have died.”  Here, we see it meaning “experiencing mortification”.  We also speak of “dying” in terms of any kind of extreme experience.  A comedian may “die” on stage, or a person may be anxious to learn something, as in “I’m dying to hear”.  Jesus uses the word in two senses: the literal sense, as in “ceasing to live”, and the metaphoric sense of giving of oneself until one has nothing left.

The Lord Jesus accomplished the first dying on the Cross, and the fruit produced was the resurrection of the dead: “The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised” (Matthew 27, 52).  He accomplished the second from the instant of his Incarnation, when he “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man . . . even to the death of the cross” (Philippians 2, 7-8).  By the fruit of his lifelong obedience we “are fellow citizens with the saints and the servants of God” (Ephesians 2, 19). 

St. Paul gives us a very graphic summary of how he emptied himself for a Christ and in imitation of him: “Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods: once I was stoned: thrice I suffered shipwreck: a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren: In labour and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, fasting often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:24–28).  The fruit of his dying to self in obedience to God is found in the conversion of crowds of people and the establishment of many churches, and this dying was crowned by his martyrdom.  Not many of us are called to this kind of suffering any more than we are called to his level of theologian, but we who profess to follow Christ must follow no one else and obey his holy will.  

We see this also in the case of the deacon St. Lawrence, whose feast we celebrate today.  We pray for his intercession, that by it we might fall ever deeper in love with our Lord, and knowing his unconditional love for us, serve him without ceasing.