Dearly beloved brethren, for this we have gathered together in this place: that we may be free for our Lord, and not for those things in which our enemy delights. For it is certain that when we speak of the things pertaining to the world, or gnaw at one another with wicked murmurings, he rejoices that our hours are withdrawn from God and gained for himself. What does it profit that we wear ourselves out with precious vigils and labours, and yet have not that which our God most desires in us? This is: a heart clean and free from those trifling negligences which, whoever heeds them not, little by little slips away, and falls down into greater faults (Ecclus. XIX). Let us therefore study above all to have that which our God awaits in us:
that is, gentle and kindly speech, a mind free from every curse and every malice, and—shunning those things by which the Holy Spirit is grieved—devoting its effort to humility and quietness. These are the chief sacrifices, these the rich holocausts, which ascend before the Lord as an odour of sweetness. Let us also strive most of all that those things which we do in honour of our God, we do with a cheerful spirit, with the joy of faith and with the affection of a good and devout will. But whatever we do unwillingly and under compulsion, let us know that from it we not only have no profit, but the greatest loss.
Suppose we render service to some powerful man—such as superiors are wont to expect from their clients—would not that man, if he saw us discharge the duty owed him with an unwilling and forced spirit, and even with a certain disdain, judge rather that an injury had been done him, and declare that he was being dishonoured rather than honoured? And would he not think that from one so negligent and undevout there was due to be rendered offence rather than favour? If then the worship of a name requires devotion, faith, and cheerfulness—where sometimes he who honours is better than he who is honoured, where the very officiousness gains no fruit, but this alone is the gain, if one deserve to be called received—
how much more ought we, in the honour of our God, to take heed lest we be found undevout and compelled toward His service, and sad and ungrateful and unwilling, and so be disregarded? For God regards not the gifts that are brought with a negligent and mean spirit. For our faith ought to see that it will serve, and has laid out its very soul, not to a man, but rather to Him whose services and benefits even the angels themselves confess in paradise; to whom, in short, though everything is owed, yet nothing is rendered gratuitously (without His deserving it).
For this wretched life, then, full of toils and sorrows, in which the use is brief and its very brevity always uncertain, we strive in services to please a man; and for that other life, where we shall labour no more, we do not strive now to render a devout service to God—a life which, even if the devotion of our will should refuse to offer it to its Author, the law of death will straightway exact from us; and what is not given by vow is paid to Him as a debt. In exchange for this present life, then, He will give that life which can neither be discerned by the eyes nor grasped by the silent thought of the mind: a life which indeed is easier to attain than to describe—
whose course shall be without end, whose enjoyment without weariness, whose refreshment without food, whose help without failing, whose rest without night, whose leisure without idleness, an unfailing brightness beneath the countenance of God, and beneath ancient and everlasting joys an ever-new delight, and a felicity without any peril of losing. Leaving behind, therefore, the sweetness of this present life, let us strive even now, by daily meditating on the ages to come, to foretaste it even in this body; and having shut out from our senses the bitterness of worldly desires, let us draw into our hearts a certain sweet savour of that blessedness;
and having shaken off all torpor and all sloth—whose mother is unbelief—let us serve our Lord and God with that cheerfulness, that eagerness, and that joy, so that with that joy we may come when He invites us to His gifts. Our Lord Jesus Christ granting this, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.