Saint Lawrence

And it reminds me a little bit of...

It's a coping mechanism, but it's also at the same time a huge political statement because we have the patron saint of comedy is Saint Lawrence.

I don't know if you knew, but he was a Christian deacon who in, I think, A.D. 250, he was arrested by the Romans and was asked to recant his faith, and he didn't.

So they burned him at the stake.

Amen.

We ask especially the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, uh, on our conversation today, and also St. Lawrence, whose feast, the deacon and martyr, whose feast we celebrate today.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

His latest book is God's Fools, Saints, Prophets, Martyrs, and the Making of Modern Comedy.

In this conversation, Jason and I talk about stand-up comedy, St. Francis, St. Lawrence, the patron saint of comedians, and the surprising connections between martyrs, holy fools, and the comedians of our own era.

Jason Crawford, so happy to have you on The Habit Podcast.

Excited about talking about your book, God's Fools, Saints, Prophets, Martyrs, and the Making of Modern Comedy.

You read Ancient Lives of Martyrs, and once again, they're telling jokes.

They're stealing the show.

St. Lawrence, patron saint of comedians, was a martyr.

He's the patron saint

Today is the Feast of St. Lawrence.

Everyone knows the story about him joking on the gridiron saying, turn me over, I'm done on this side.

So we're going to look at Christian joy as the form of defiance.

Eventually, your life will be taken, but Christ cannot be taken from you.

Therefore, Christian joy becomes almost an act of rebellion against despair.

So remember St. Lawrence, the government is hunting Christians.

Your spiritual father has just been executed, and you're next.

And somehow, you're making jokes again.

August 9th St. Romanus, Martyr St. Romanus was a soldier

in Rome at the time of the martyrdom of St. Lawrence.

Seeing the joy and constancy with which the holy martyr suffered his torments, he was moved to embrace the faith, and addressing himself to St. Lawrence, was instructed and baptized by him in prison.

Confessing aloud what he had done, he was arraigned, condemned, and beheaded

the day before the martyrdom of St. Lawrence.

Thus he arrived at his crown before his guide and master.

The body of St. Romanus was first buried on the road to Tiber, but his remains were translated to Lucca, where they are kept under the high altar of a beautiful church which bears his name.

67 of Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints by John Gilmery Shea This LibriVox recording

A very popular saint, as he is the patron saint of actors and comedians.

He shares this with St. Lawrence.

The story goes that Ganesius was an actor who was in a play for that dastardly Diocletian, and it was a play specifically making fun of Christians.

In the play, he was baptized in a ceremony mocking the sacrament, but apparently it worked, and the actor mocking Christianity became a Christian.

Amen.

Dear faithful, the Church is currently within the octave of St. Lawrence.

St. Lawrence is one of the most celebrated martyrs of the Church and among the 40 saints mentioned in the Roman Canon of the Mass.

Today, I would like to speak about the saints named in the Roman Canon and martyrdom.

What, though, is the Roman Canon? The Roman canon, dear faithful, is the essential prayer of the Mass, which is defined as the unbloody sacrifice of Calvary represented on the altar.

And St. Cornelius died by decapitation while in exile north of Rome.

St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, was beheaded by a sword.

St. Lawrence, one of the seven deacons of Rome, was roasted alive on an iron gridiron over burning coals.

he also made some triumphal arches similar to those of the ancients on the occasion of the marriage of the most illustrious duchess leonora to the lord duke francesco maria to whom they gave vast satisfaction as they did to the whole court on which account he was received for many years into the household of that duke with an honourable salary timoteo was a bold draughtsman and even more notable for the sweetness and charm of his colouring insomuch that his works could not have been executed with more delicacy or greater diligence he was a merry fellow gay and festive by nature and most acute and witty in his sayings and discourses he delighted in playing every sort of instrument and particularly the lyre to which he sang improvising upon it with extraordinary grace he died in the year of our salvation fifteen twenty four the fifty-fourth of his life leaving his native country as much enriched by his name and his fine qualities as it was grieved by his loss he left in urbino some unfinished works which were finished afterwards by others and show by comparison how great were the worth and ability of timoteo in our book are some drawings by his hand very beautiful and truly worthy of praise which i received from the most excellent and gentle messer giovanni maria his son namely a pen sketch for the portrait of the magnificent giuliano de medici which timoteo made when giuliano was frequenting the court of urbino and that most famous academy and noli me tangere and a saint john the evangelist sleeping while christ is praying in the garden all very beautiful end of chapter two chapter three of lives of the most eminent painters sculptors and architects volume five this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox dot org lives of the most eminent painters sculptors and architects volume five by giorgio vasari translated by gaston de c de ver life of andrea dal monte sansovino andrea contucci sculptor and architect although andrea the son of domenico contucci of monte sansovino was born from a poor father a tiller of the earth and rose from the condition of shepherd nevertheless his conceptions were so lofty his genius so rare and his mind so ready both in his works and in his discourses on the difficulties of architecture and perspective that there was not in his day a better rarer or more subtle intellect than his nor one that was more able than he was to render the greatest doubts clear and lucid wherefore he well deserved to be held in his own times by all who were qualified to judge to be supreme in those professions andrea was born so it is said in the year fourteen hundred and sixty and in his childhood while looking after his flocks he would draw on the sand the live-long day as is also told of giotto and copy in clay some of the animals that he was guarding so one day it happened that a florentine citizen who is said to have been simone vespucci at that time podestà of the monte passing by the place where andrea was looking after his little charges saw the boy standing all intent on drawing or modelling in clay whereupon he called to him and having seen what was the boy's bent and heard whose son he was he asked for him from domenico contucci who graciously granted his request and simone promised to place him in the way of learning design in order to see what virtue there might be in that inclination of nature if assisted by continual study having returned to florence then simone placed him to learn art with antonio del pollaiuolo under whom andrea made such proficients that in a few years he became a very good master in the house of that simone on the ponte vecchio there may still be seen a cartoon executed by him at that time of christ being scourged at the column drawn with much diligence and in addition two marvellous hands in terracotta copied from ancient medals one of the emperor nero and the other of the emperor galba which heads served to adorn a chimney-piece but the galba is now at arezzo in the house of giorgio vasari

vasariAfterwards, while still living in Florence, he made an altarpiece in terracotta for the church of Santa Gata at Monte San Savino, with a Saint Lawrence and some other saints, and little scenes most beautifully executed.

And no long time after this he made another like it, containing a very beautiful Assumption of Our Lady, Santa Gata, Santa Lucia, and San Romualdo, which altarpiece was afterwards glazed by the della Robbia family.

Then, pursuing the art of sculpture, he made in his youth for Simone della Pollaiuolo, otherwise called Il Cronaca, two capitals for pilasters in the sacristy of Santo Spirito, which brought him very great fame, and led to his receiving a commission to execute the antechamber that is between the said sacristy and the church.