Sermons & Letters 31

About to preach to you, dearly beloved, the most sacred and greatest fast, what more fitting exordium can I use than to begin with the words of the Apostle, in whom Christ was speaking, and to say what has been read: 'Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation' (2 Corinthians 6:2)? For although there are no seasons which are not full of the divine gifts, and access to the mercy of God is always granted us through his grace, yet now it behoves the minds of all to be moved with greater zeal toward spiritual advancements, and to be animated with fuller confidence, when the recurrence of that day on which we were redeemed invites us to all the offices of piety:

that we may celebrate with purified bodies and souls that sacrament of the Lord's Passion which excels above all things. There was indeed owed to such great mysteries so unceasing a devotion and continual reverence, that we should remain in the sight of God such as it is fitting we be found in the paschal festival itself. But because this fortitude belongs to few, and while a more austere observance is relaxed for the frailty of the flesh, and while solicitude is stretched through the various actions of this life, it is necessary that even religious hearts grow soiled with worldly dust; it has been provided with great wholesomeness by the divine institution, that the exercise of forty days should heal us, for the restoring of the purity of our minds,

in which they might redeem the faults of other times by pious works, and by chaste fasts might refine themselves. About to enter therefore, dearly beloved, upon days mystical and consecrated by the remedies of fasting, let us take care to obey the apostolic precepts, cleansing ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit (2 Corinthians 7:1): so that, the wrestlings which are between the two substances being chastised, the mind—which, set under God's governance, ought to be the ruler of its own body—may obtain the dignity of its dominion: that, giving offence to no one, we may not be liable to the reproaches of those who speak against us.

For we shall be seized upon with deserved reproach by the unbelievers, and through our fault impious tongues will arm themselves for the injury of religion, if the manners of those who fast differ from the purity of perfect continence. For the sum of our fasting stands not in abstinence from food alone, nor is food withdrawn from the body fruitfully, unless the mind is recalled from iniquity and the tongue restrained from detractions. So therefore is our liberty of eating to be chastised, that other desires also may be bridled by the same law. This is the time of meekness and patience, of peace and tranquillity:

in which, every contamination of vices being excluded, a perpetuity of virtues is to be acquired by us. Now let the fortitude of pious minds accustom itself to grant faults, to overlook insults, and to forget injuries. Now let the faithful soul exercise itself through the arms of righteousness on the right hand and on the left (2 Corinthians 6:7):

so that through glory and dishonour, through infamy and good report, a secure conscience and constant probity may neither be puffed up by praises nor wearied by reproaches. Let the modesty of the religious not be sorrowful, but holy; nor let there be found in them the murmurs of any complaints, since the solaces of holy joys are never lacking to them. Let no diminution of earthly means be feared amid the works of mercy. Christian poverty is always rich, because that which it has is more than that which it has not. Nor does it dread to labour in want in this world, to whom it has been granted to possess all things in the Lord of all things.

To those therefore who work the things that are good, it is not at all to be feared that the means of working should fail them; since even in the two mites of that widow of the Gospel her devotion was magnified (Luke 21:2), and for a cup of cold water a free-given bounty has its reward (Matthew 10:42). For the measure of benignity is reckoned from the affections of the pious: and the efficacy of showing mercy never deserts him in whom mercy itself does not fail. This the holy widow of Zarephath experienced, who in the time of famine set before blessed Elijah the food of a single day, which alone she had (1 Kings 17:11), and, preferring the prophet's hunger to her own need, without delay expended the little flour and the small quantity of oil.

But he did not lack what he had faithfully given away, and in the vessels emptied by pious outpouring a fountain of new resources sprang up: so that the fullness of that man's substance was not lessened by holy uses, since its depletion had not been dreaded. CHAPTER III. — In these pursuits, beloved, for which we confidently trust that you are willingly prepared, do not doubt that the devil, who is the adversary of all virtues, is envious and arms the force of his malignity for this end: that he may lay snares for piety out of piety itself, and that those whom he could not cast down through distrust he may strive to overcome through vainglory. For pride is a neighbour to upright actions: it is an evil, and self-exaltation always lies in ambush close beside the virtues.

For it is difficult that human praise should not lay hold of one who lives in a praiseworthy manner, unless, as it is written, 'He who glories, let him glory in the Lord' (1 Cor. 1:31). Whose resolve indeed would that most wicked enemy not dare to assail? Whose fast would he not seek to violate? — seeing that, as is made plain in the Gospel reading, he did not restrain his cunning even against the Saviour of the world Himself. For dreading the fast of forty days and nights in Him, he most craftily wished to explore whether He held this power of abstinence as a gift or as His own: so that he might not fear that the works of his deceptions must be undone, if Christ were of the same condition as the body.

First, therefore, by guile he probed whether He were Himself the creator of substances, who could change corporeal things into whatever natures He willed; secondly, whether under the appearance of human flesh a Divinity lay veiled and hidden, for which it would be easy to make the air passable to itself and to poise earthly limbs through the void. But when the Lord had chosen rather to oppose to him the righteousness of a true man than to manifest the power of the Godhead, the devil turned to this device of a third deceit: that he might tempt through the lust of dominion Him in whom the signs of divine power seemed to have ceased, and might draw Him over to worship of himself by promising the kingdoms of the world. But the wisdom of God made foolish the cunning of the devil:

so that the proud enemy might be bound by that very One whom he had once bound, and might not fear to persecute Him who for the world's sake must be slain. CHAPTER IV. — Let us therefore beware of the wiles of this adversary, not only in the enticements of the gullet, but also in the resolve of abstinence. For he who knew how to bring death upon the human race through food, knows also how to do harm through fasting itself; and turning to a contrary fraud, using the Manichaeans as his servants, just as he impelled them to presume what is forbidden, so he persuades them to shun what is permitted. Useful indeed is that observance which, accustomed to a sparing diet, curbs the appetite for delicacies; but woe to the teaching of those among whom sin is committed even in fasting!

For they condemn the natures of created things to the injury of the Creator, and assert that those who eat are defiled by those things whose author they define to be not God but the devil; whereas there is absolutely no substance that is evil, nor has evil itself any nature. For a good Author established all good things, and there is one Creator of all things, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them (Ps. 145:6). Of these, whatever has been granted to man for food and drink is holy and clean in the quality of its own kind. But if it be taken with immoderate greed, the excess disgraces the glutton and the drunkard — the nature of the food or of the cup does not defile. For all things, as the Apostle says, are clean to the clean.

But to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is clean, but their mind and conscience are defiled (Titus 1:15). CHAPTER V. — But you, beloved, holy offspring of the Catholic mother, whom the Spirit of God has instructed in the school of truth, govern your liberty with fitting reason, knowing that it is good to abstain even from what is lawful, and that when one must live more strictly, food is to be so discerned that its use is set aside, not its nature condemned. Let therefore no contagion of those men touch you who are polluted most of all by their own observance, serving the creature rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:25), and dedicating a foolish abstinence to the lights of heaven;

since in honour of the sun and moon they have chosen to fast on the first and second days of the week, by one work of their perversity being twice impious, twice profane, who have appointed their fast both to the worship of the stars and to the contempt of the Lord's resurrection. For they shrink back from the sacrament of human salvation, and do not believe that Christ our Lord was truly born in the true flesh of our nature, truly suffered, truly buried, and truly raised. And on this account they condemn the day of our gladness with the mourning of their fast.

And since, to cover up their unbelief, they dare to take part in our assemblies, they so temper themselves in the communion of the sacraments that at times, lest they be unable to remain wholly hidden, they receive the Body of Christ with an unworthy mouth, but altogether decline to drink the Blood of our redemption. Therefore we make this known to your holiness, that men of this kind may be manifest to you both by these signs, and that whoever's sacrilegious pretence is detected may, by priestly authority, be expelled from the fellowship of the saints. For concerning such persons the blessed Apostle Paul providently warns the Church of God, saying: 'We beseech you, brethren, to mark those who cause dissensions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and turn away from them.'

For such persons serve not Christ the Lord, but their own belly; and by smooth words and blessings deceive the hearts of the innocent (Rom. 16:17). CHAPTER VI. — Instructed sufficiently, therefore, beloved, by these our admonitions, which we have frequently pressed upon your ears against this accursed error, receive the holy days of Lent with pious devotion, and prepare yourselves to earn the mercy of God through the works of mercy. Extinguish anger, blot out hatreds, love unity, and outdo one another in the offices of sincere humility. Rule over your servants and those subject to you with fairness; let none of them be tormented by prisons or chains. Let acts of vengeance cease, let offences be forgiven;

let severity be changed into gentleness, indignation into meekness, discord into peace. Let all find us modest, all find us placid, all find us kindly; that our fasts may be acceptable to God. To Him at last we offer the sacrifice of true abstinence and true piety, if we keep ourselves from all malice: God Almighty aiding us in all things, to whom, with the Son and the Holy Spirit, there is one Godhead, one majesty, unto the ages of ages. Amen.