Perseid meteors started in mid-July but they will peak on the mornings of August 11, 12 and 13.
Why Perseids? If you trace the meteors backwards, it looks like they are shooting out of the constellation Perseus.
Otherwise, we call them the Tears of St. Lawrence because the peak is always around the great saint’s feast day.
How is it that St. Lawrence figures so strongly in connection with this annual celestial fireworks show?
To grasp that, we have to remember how important St. Lawrence was for the Roman Church and therefore the mind’s of men throughout Christendom for centuries.
The influence of Rome is pervasive. We cannot have a clue about who we are without having a knowledge of Rome. Thus, the chao in society and the Church today.
There are many churches in Rome named for this great martyr. Traditionally, the Feast of St. Lawrence not only had its own Vigil (9 August, today as I write) it had a first Mass “de nocte… at night” and a station, and “Missa publica” in the day. The Missa Publica has a great collect, which priests who use the Vetus Ordo will recognize (I hope!) from the Gratiarum Actio Post Missam:
Da nobis, qu?sumus Dómine, vitiórum nostrórum flammas exstingúere; qui beato Lauréntio tribuísti tormentórum suórum incéndia superáre. Per Christum, Dóminum nostrum…
Grant us, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, to extinguish within us the flames of vice, even as Thou gavest blessed Lawrence grace to overcome his fiery torments.
“But Father! But Father!” detractors of Tradition are sniveling, “Why this sick tangent about irrelevant prayers when the planet’s climate is endangered by meteors which leave Gaia-suffocating gases in the air that Amazon jungle trees need to protect themselves from the predations of large corporations? You go on and on talking about outdated morals and sins, tricking us to read this by mentioning some kind of shower! To save the planet we have to get rid of that old stuff and the people who want it. But because we feel the vibe and aren’t burdened by the past we’ll humor you and ask what you want us to ask, you Vatican II hater: Why is this moldy old prayer be in the gratif… grated … YOU HATE VATICAN II!”
At the Lateran we find the Sancta Sanctorum where the Holy Stairs. The true name in Italian is Chiesa di San Lorenzo in Palatio ad Sancta Sanctorum. It is the only remaining ancient oratory of the Lateran complex and it was dedicated to St Lawrence. Leo III deposited many sacred relics there. This is where Popes put off their sacred vestments after Mass and recited thanksgiving prayers. This is why the thanksgiving prayers in the Missale Romanum to be recited by priests after Mass include that collect in honor of St. Lawrence, the titular saint of that ancient pontifical chapel.
Fans of the Novus Ordo will perhaps be happy to know that this prayer, as well as the prayer to St. Joseph and the Transfige, the Canticle with its prayers, the Alia Oblatio and the prayer in honor of the day’s saint were all removed from the Gratiarum Actio prayers in the back of the Novus Ordo Missale Romanum, and of course, their removal was really for the good of the priests and to the lasting benefit of all the faithful. Right?
Thus, we come full circle to the Tears of St. Lawrence. How would this saint weep for us now were it not for the full joy of the Beatific Vision.
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