Click to enlargeWhen told by Roman officials to surrender the Catholic church’s valuables, St. Lawrence brought the city’s poor and sick. “Here is the church’s treasure,” he said. Rome didn’t find this amusing and legend says that he was put to death in A.D. 258 by being roasted on a grate, although some scholars say he was more likely beheaded.

In either case, folks in southern Europe still mark this day every August 10. It is customary there to eat only cold meat in recognition of the reputed manner of his death. Fair weather on St. Lawrence’s Day presages a fair autumn. More