Feast: September 5th
St. Lawrence Justinian, first Patriarch of Venice, was born in 1381 of the noble Giustiniani family. From his earliest years he gave signs of singular sanctity. His mother, a pious widow, reared him in the fear of God and in holy discipline. Even in his youth he was remarkable for purity of life, modesty, and contempt of worldly vanities.
When but nineteen years old, moved by divine inspiration, he entered the Congregation of the Canons Regular of St. George in Alga, newly founded for the reform of clerical life. There he shone forth as a model of every virtue—assiduous in prayer, given to holy reading, austere in fasting, patient in affliction, and ever cheerful in the service of God. He embraced poverty with joy, rejecting all superfluities, and strove continually for interior recollection.
Ordained priest, he soon became the exemplar of his brethren. In 1433 he was chosen Bishop of Castello, a small diocese which would later be united to Venice. The burden of the episcopate, which he at first feared, he bore with apostolic zeal. He visited his flock untiringly, corrected abuses with meek firmness, consoled the afflicted, relieved the poor, and was especially tender toward the sick. His sermons were fervent and simple, springing from a heart filled with God.
In 1451 Pope Nicholas V raised the See of Venice to a Patriarchate, and Lawrence was named its first Patriarch. In this dignity, far from relaxing his austerities, he increased them. He was a true shepherd, adorned with every pastoral virtue: humility, prudence, fortitude, and charity. He sought neither honors nor wealth, but only the salvation of souls.
The people revered him as a living saint. He was often rapt in contemplation, sometimes raised from the ground in prayer. His devotion to the Holy Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin was singular. He composed many spiritual writings, filled with the unction of the Holy Spirit, urging souls to detachment from the world and union with God.
At length, worn out by labors and mortifications, he fell grievously ill. On the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, September 8, 1455, after receiving the Sacraments with heavenly fervor, he rendered his soul to God. He was canonized by Pope Alexander VIII in 1690, who proclaimed him a shining example of pastoral sanctity and a reformer of clerical life.
Reflection
St. Lawrence Justinian teaches that a true pastor must first govern himself before he governs others. He reformed his flock by reforming his own life, showing that holiness, more than eloquence or power, is what draws souls to God.
“He who would draw others to the love of God must himself burn with charity.” — St. Lawrence Justinian