Turn me over; I'm done on this side

In August of A.D. 258, the emperor Valerian ordered that all deacons, priests, and Bishops be put to death. Tradition via the Golden Legend tells us that Pope Sixtus II met with Lawrence, saying to him:

"I shall not leave thee, my son, but greater strifes and battles be due to thee for the faith of Jesu Christ. We, as old men, have taken more lighter battle, and to thee as to a young man shall remain a more glorious battle of which thou shalt triumph and have victory of the tyrant, and shalt follow me within three days."

Then he delivered to him all the treasures, commanding him that he should give them to churches and poor people. And the blessed man sought the poor people night and day, and gave to each of them that as was needful, and came to the house of an old woman, which had hid in her house many Christian men and women, and long she had had the headache, and St. Laurence laid his hand opon her head, and anon she was healed of the ache and pain.

And he washed the feet of the poor people and gave to each of them alms. The same night he went to the house of a Christian man and found therein a blind man, and gave to him his sight by the sign of the cross. And when the blessed Sixtus would not consent to Decius, ne offer to the idols, he commanded that he should be led forth and beheaded.

Pope Sixtus II's martyrdom was followed three days later by that of Lawrence, the last of the deacons of Rome to be executed. He was put to death by being roasted on a gridiron over a fire. The Golden Legend, written in A.D. 1275 by Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, gives us this account:

And the ministers despoiled him, and laid him stretched out upon a gridiron of iron, and laid burning coals under, and held him with forks of iron. Then said Laurence to Valerianus: Learn, thou cursed wretch, that thy coals give to me refreshing of coldness, and make ready to thee torment perdurable, and our Lord knoweth that I, being accused, have not forsaken him, and when I was demanded I confessed him Christ, and I being roasted give thankings unto God.

And after this he said with a glad cheer unto Decius, Thou cursed wretch, thou hast roasted that one side, turn that other, and eat.

And then he, rendering thankings to our Lord, said: I thank thee, Lord Jesu Christ, for I have deserved to enter into thy gates.

St. Lawrence was buried in the Catacomb of Cyriaca, on the Via Tiburtina. Constantine the Great built a chapel there in his honor, and this chapel was built up over the years, becoming known as St. Lawrence-Outside-The-Walls (San Lorenzo fuori le Mura), one of the original seven patriarchal basilicas of Rome. Another church, San Lorenzo in Panisperna, was built at the place of his martyrdom. In this latter church, one can venerate the gridiron upon which St. Lawrence was put to death.

St. Lawrence is patron of librarians, archivists, cooks, and deacons. He is most often represented in art handing out the treasures of the Church (as above), roasting on a gridiron, or with a gridiron, the Gospels, or a bag of money for the poor.