Dr Kelly Fleming

St. Lawrence of Rome (225-258) provides us with an extraordinary message of the great treasures of the Church. He was one of the seven deacons serving in Rome under Pope Sixtus II. He was called before the Roman Emperor Valerian during the time when Christians were being massacred for their faith in Christ. The emperor ordered Lawrence to bring the Church treasures to him. Lawrence appeared before him, bringing all the poor, the sick, the elderly and the disabled people he could find and said, “here are the treasures of the Church.” The emperor was not impressed and felt he was being mocked by Lawrence and sentenced him to a brutal death. (Foxe, 2011) In the third century, Lawrence had acknowledged that disabled people were the treasures of the Church alongside other marginalized people and yet, sadly, the Church has spent most of its history ignoring and marginalizing this treasure.

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