“Saint Sixtus was arrested and led to execution. The order was that the bishops should be first executed. Saint Laurence, the principal of the deacons, was not on that day among the number of the victims. He, weeping, followed Sixtus, and exclaimed: ‘My father, whither are you going without your son? You are not accustomed to offer sacrifice without the assistance of a minister. How have I displeased you? Try me, whether I am worthy of the choice that you have made of me for the distribution of the blood of our Lord.’ Sixtus replied: ‘I do not abandon you, my son; but God reserves you for a greater combat. Doubt it not; in three days you will be with me.’ Having uttered those prophetic words, he ascended to heaven, and from the height of the abode of God he could look down upon the triumph of his disciple."  Pope St. Sixtus II, to St. Laurence the martyr, as recounted by William Hayes Neligan  (Quote by Neligan in his work “The Lives and Times of the Roman Pontiffs: From St. Peter to Pius IX., pub. 1867”)