Sermons & Letters 10

What the reckoning of the season and the custom of our devotion admonishes, most beloved, we preach to you with pastoral solicitude: that the fast of the tenth month is to be celebrated, whereby, for the completed gathering of all the fruits, a libation of continence is most worthily offered to God, the bestower of them. For what can be more efficacious than fasting, by whose observance we draw near to God, and, resisting the devil, overcome enticing vices? For fasting was ever the food of virtues. From abstinence proceed chaste thoughts, reasonable wills, more wholesome counsels. And through voluntary afflictions the flesh dies to concupiscences, and the spirit is renewed unto virtues.

But because the salvation of our souls is not acquired by fasting alone, let us supplement our fasting with mercies toward the poor. Let us expend upon virtue what we withdraw from pleasure. Let the abstinence of the one fasting become the refreshment of the poor. Let us be zealous for the defense of widows, for the benefit of orphans, for the consolation of the mourning, for the peace of those at variance. Let the stranger be taken in, the oppressed be aided, the naked be clothed, the sick be cherished; so that whoever of us shall have offered to God, the Author of all good things, out of just labors this sacrifice of piety, may deserve to receive from Him the reward of the heavenly kingdom. On the fourth and sixth day, therefore, let us fast;

but on the Sabbath let us likewise keep vigil at the tomb of the blessed apostle Peter, by whose interceding merits we may obtain what we ask, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.