I saw a Burger King restaurant while getting here. It had a very awkward picture of a finger (or two pictures of two fingers) with grill marks on it.
I got reminded of a humouristic verse in Readers' Digest a few decades ago. It's not my own production, but I still am fairly sure of the verses:
- To fry the steaks upon the grill
- is fraught with risk and tedium:
- the beefs are usually quite rare,
- the fingers well or medium.
If someone had that kind of experience with grilling, what should he do, as a Catholic?
Well, today he could obviously let the grill be or fry fish on it instead, since it is Lent, but usually, when he has business to feel that "to be a vegetarian is a big missed steak"?
He should pray to St. Lawrence. Now, lots of Prots would at this point start protesting something like "that's idolatry, that's polytheism, that's praying to different god with different functions instead of to one God for all concerns!"
Not so fast, please.
He was a deacon, of Rome, and he was martyred by being put on a grill. He told the executioners when to "turn the steak" ... some pretend that the martyrdoms in Roman law are fantasy, since some versions of the death penalty referred to don't occur in Roman law. And Roman justice obviously went by Roman law. Yes, in some cases it did, like when it said a non-Roman criminal (like the Christian non-Roman Peter, guilty of holding a Bacchanal over 5 participants or of burning down Rome) could be crucified. Or when it said that a Roman criminal (like the Christian Roman ciztizen Paul, also guilty of holding a Bacchanal over 5 participants or of burning down Rome) could be executed by a sword cutting off his head. But this was still before the Codex Iuris Civilis, before Ulpian, and therefore criminal justice in Rome was something of a Wild West affair - except the sheriff was the chief involved in lynchparties. So, yes, very creative executions did occur. That ceased later on, except such as should be codified by law, when Rome became Christian.
So, what's the connexion with his martyrdom and invoking his intercession if you have troubles keeping your fingers totally raw or your steaks turned in time? Well, suppose for a really wild, wild moment of imagination that invoking him isn't spiritism, unlike what some learned in Bible school and he could hear you because God told him ... he would probably see a brother in Christ in a trouble he could relate to (go figure why!) and as he had given his life for Christ, he was arguably in a stronger position to pray about it than the guy who just uttered a cuss word over his fingers getting "well or medium" ...
Isn't that why you go to your pastor and ask him for prayers, and a different pastor depending on the issue? A brother in Christ, who is probably having a closer walk with God than yourself, and who can relate to your issue?
If pagans prayed to any special god about grilling, it would probably be the "god of fire." That one we neither pray to principally, nor ask for any intercession.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Paul of Narbonne
22.III.2023
Narbone, in Gallia, natalis sancti Pauli Episcopi, Apostolorum discipuli, quem tradunt fuisse Sergium Paulum Proconsulem. Hic, a beato Apostolo Paulo baptizatus, et ab eo, cum in Hispaniam pergeret, apud Narbonem relictus, ibidem Episcopali dignitate donatus est; ibique, praedicationis officio non segniter expleto, clarus miraculis migravit in caelum.
