Barbecue… Anyone?
Homily on the Feast of St Lawrence, 10 Aug 2023, Catholic Safeguarding Institute Ateneo
There is a place in Cebu famous for street food. It is called Larsian. Its specialty is barbecue and pusộ. For those who do not know what pusộ is, it is steamed rice wrapped inside a diamond-shaped casing made of woven coconut leaves. It is also called hanging rice and may cost from P5 to P10 depending on the size.
In Larsian, they sell all sorts of barbecue from pork, hotdog and chorizo to chicken and Anduhaw fish – all barbecued. They also sell chicken liver, isaw and isol, just to name some more. But the best seller and most affordable of them all is the pork barbecue which costs only P10 per stick. So with only P20 you can already buy yourself a relatively satisfying meal and eat even without a plate.
Today, we celebrate the feast of St Lawrence, deacon and martyr, isang diakono na binarbekyung buháy. He was grilled alive because of his firm faith in Christ and his selfless service to the Church. After the Pope whom he was serving was arrested and put to death by the Roman emperor, Valerian (A.D. 253-260), he too was arrested by the same authority and killed. But before he was put to death, he was ordered to surrender all the wealth and riches of the Church. Obedient as he was he tried to immediately comply. However, instead of handing over all the funds and other assets of the Church, he gathered up all the poor people of the city including the lame, the blind, the deaf and the dumb and assembled them in the plaza where he presented them to the emperor, saying “Here are all the wealth and riches of the Church.”
What Lawrence did was literally true because, as the Pope’s administrator, he had been tasked to distribute to the poor and needy whatever sum of money was collected during their Sunday Mass. This, however, angered the emperor, who ordered that he be grilled alive. So Lawrence was immediately bound hands and feet, and then was laid on the grid iron with burning red hot coals underneath it.
Now here is the most amazing and amusing part of the story. The deacon Lawrence was not only proven to be truly humble and holy, he was also seen to have a strong sense of humor even in his dying moments. When he felt that one side of his body was already burnt enough, he requested his executioners to turn him over to the other side. Tradition therefore says that because of this, some of those who witnessed the martyr’s unshakable faith and outstanding humour soon got converted to Christianity.
We are now on the fourth day of our workshop seminar on “Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults.” Yesterday we saw some disheartening video clips of children being sexually exploited. Personally I felt so disturbed because they seemed to be like cheap meat being barbecued and sold at a very affordable price on cyberspace. Moreover, just this morning, we heard the testimony of someone who had been sexually abused as a child. And we were left even more disturbed. What was most shocking for me was to know that the Philippines is now number one in the world in the field of child exploitation and sexual abuse. But the good news is this: God called us to be here in this workshop and we believe and have come to realize that he is actually empowering us to do something to stop many more children from being victimized by this monstrous evil. In fact this feast in honor of St Lawrence is meant not only for us to celebrate the saint’s victory over the bloody persecution of Christians, but also to teach us at the price of his own blood a very important and valuable lesson: children and vulnerable adults are the real wealth and riches of the Church. And so we, as lay adults and ordained ministers, are precisely called and challenged by God to safeguard and nourish them; and following the example of the Good Shepherd we are to be ready to lay down our lives for them, even to the point of being barbecued alive if only to make sure they are saved and safeguarded, supported and respected.
May this Holy Eucharist, through the inspiration and intercession of St Lawrence, empower us to do all we can to make our families, our schools, our church, and our society much safer for everyone especially for children and vulnerable adults. GiGsss!
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