Tradition remembers Saint Lawrence being ordered to hand over the treasures of the Church. Instead of presenting gold, silver, or valuable objects, he brought forward people who were poor, sick, and vulnerable. He pointed to them as the Church’s true treasure.
It is a powerful story because it asks us to examine what we really value.
We may say that every person has dignity. We may speak often about serving the poor. But our priorities reveal what we believe more clearly than our words do.
What receives the most attention in our parishes? What receives the most money, time, energy, and protection? Is it the building, the budget, the institution’s reputation, or the people who are struggling to belong?
Buildings matter. Budgets matter. Programs, traditions, and careful planning can all serve the life of the Church. The problem begins when preserving these things becomes more important than caring for people.
A parish can have a beautiful sanctuary and still fail to welcome the person who feels out of place. It can have successful events and still overlook the lonely. It can protect its public image while remaining silent about harm. It can speak about charity while keeping those in poverty at a safe distance.
Saint Lawrence challenges us to see treasure differently.
The poor and vulnerable are not projects. They are not problems for the Church to solve. They are members of the Body of Christ. They carry wisdom, dignity, faith, grief, and gifts that the Church needs.
This means service cannot be only one-directional. The Church does not simply give to people in need. We are also called to receive from them, listen to them, learn from them, and allow their experience to shape our community.
People who live close to hardship often understand dependence on God in ways that comfortable people do not. Those who have experienced exclusion may see forms of injustice that others have learned to ignore. Those who have been wounded may reveal where the Church still needs conversion.
To call the poor our treasure means more than offering food, clothing, or financial help, important as those are. It means making room for voice, leadership, friendship, and full belonging.
Would a person experiencing homelessness feel seen in our parish? Would an immigrant family feel safe? Would someone recently released from prison be welcomed without suspicion? Would a struggling single parent, an elderly person living alone, or an LGBTQ+ Catholic believe that there is a place for them among us?
These questions may make us uncomfortable. But discomfort can be a form of grace when it leads us to greater honesty.
Saint Lawrence lived in a time when the Church had little political power and faced persecution. Yet he understood that the Church’s strength did not lie in possessions or influence. Its strength was found in love, service, and faithfulness to Christ.
We can become anxious about the Church’s declining influence or public standing. We can worry about numbers, buildings, and resources. Some of these concerns are real. But the Church does not become more faithful by protecting itself at the expense of vulnerable people.
The Church is most fully itself when it stands close to those whom society pushes aside.
Jesus did not build his ministry around the powerful. He drew near to people who were poor, sick, judged, forgotten, and excluded. He did not treat them as interruptions. He revealed that they were already close to the heart of God.
Saint Lawrence understood this. The treasure of the Church was not locked away. It was living, breathing, suffering, hoping, and waiting to be recognized.
Perhaps his feast invites us to ask a difficult but necessary question: Would someone looking at our parish priorities know that we believe this?
May we learn to measure the wealth of the Church not by what it owns, but by how it loves. May we become communities where people with the least power are treated with the greatest care. And may we recognize Christ not only at the altar, but in every person whose dignity the world has failed to see.
Journaling prompts
- What does my parish seem to value most?
- Whose needs or voices are easiest for our community to overlook?
- Do I think of people in poverty mainly as recipients of help, or as people whose wisdom and gifts the Church needs?
- What is one way I can help make my parish more welcoming to someone with little social power?
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