CAp. I. - Apostolica,dilectissimi, doctrinnnosadmonet,utdeponentesveteremhominemcumactibussuis (EpAes. iv, 22; Coloss. m, 8), dedieindiemsanctaconversationerenovemur. SienimteniplumDeisumus.etmentiumnostrarumSpiritussanctushabitatorest, dicenteApostolo: VosestistemplumDeivivi (IICor. vl,16),multanobisvigilantialabo.
CHAPTER I. — The apostolic teaching, beloved, admonishes us that, putting off the old man with his deeds (Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9), we be renewed from day to day in holy conversation. For if we are the temple of God, and the Holy Spirit is the indweller of our minds — the Apostle saying, 'You are the temple of the living God' (2 Cor. 6:16) — we must labour with much vigilance
that the receptacle of our heart be not unworthy of so great a Guest. And just as in houses made by hand it is provided with praiseworthy diligence that, if anything be damaged by the inrush of rains, or by the whirlwind of storms, or by very age itself, prompt care may restore it to soundness; so with unceasing solicitude we must take precaution lest anything ill-composed, anything unclean, be found in our souls. For although our edifice cannot subsist without the help of its Craftsman, nor can our fabric be safe unless the protection of its Founder presides over it, yet, because we are rational stones and living material, the hand of our Author has so built us up that he who is repaired may also work together with his Maker.
Let therefore human obedience not withdraw itself from the grace of God, nor fall away from that Good, without which it cannot be good: and if it finds anything impossible or arduous in the performance of the commandments, let it not remain in itself, but have recourse to Him who commands: who therefore gives the precept, that He may awaken desire and furnish aid — the prophet saying, 'Cast your care upon God, and He Himself will sustain you' (Ps. 55:22). Or does anyone perhaps so insolently boast, and presume himself so unharmed, so unstained, that he needs no further renewal? This persuasion is utterly deceived, and whoever amid the temptations of this life believes himself immune from every wound grows old in excessive vanity.
All things are full of dangers, full of snares. Desires incite, enticements lie in wait, gains flatter, losses deter, bitter are the tongues of detractors, nor are the mouths of praisers always truthful. Here hatred rages, there a lying courtesy deceives: so that it is easier to avoid the openly hostile than to escape the deceiver. CHAPTER II. — But in the very attaining of virtues the measure is so doubtful and the discernment so uncertain that, if anyone amid the borderlands of good and evil could have preserved the standards of the subtlest distinction, it is hard that the tongue of detractors should not bite one whose probity is well aware to itself, and that he to whom justice is a friend should escape the reproaches of the wicked.
Now when human thought turns to the very variety of temporal affairs, what darknesses oppose themselves, what errors of depraved opinions arise, so that from the confrontation of contraries the material of complaints is taken. For although the hearts of all the faithful do not doubt that from no regions of this world, nor at any times, is the divine providence absent, and that the outcomes of worldly affairs do not hang upon the power of the stars — which is nothing — but that all things are ordered by the most just and most clement judgement of the supreme King: since, as it is written, 'All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth' (Ps.
Ps. 25:10), yet when certain things do not proceed according to our desires, and, through the error of human judgement, the cause of the unjust is for the most part superior to that of the just, it is all too near and close at hand that they should shake even great souls and impel them into some murmur of unlawful complaining. Indeed, by these variations even the most excellent prophet David professes himself troubled unto peril, and says: 'But my feet were almost moved, my steps had well-nigh slipped, because I was envious of sinners, seeing the peace of sinners' (Ps. 73:2-3).
Wherefore, since so solid a fortitude belongs to few that they are shaken by no perturbation of inequalities, and since not adversity only but even prosperity corrupts many of the faithful, diligent treatment must be applied for the healing of the wounds by which human weakness is injured. For I have therefore briefly run through some of the dangers with which this world is full, so that — as the Scripture says, 'Who shall boast that he has a chaste heart, or that he is clean from sin?' (Prov. 20:9) — all may understand that the indulgence of transgressions and the medicine of repair are necessary for them. CHAPTER III. — But when do we more opportunely, beloved, have recourse to the divine remedies than when the very sacraments of our redemption are brought back to us by the law of the seasons?
That we may celebrate these more worthily, let us most healthfully prepare ourselves by a fast of forty days. For not only those who are to come to a new life through the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection by the regenerating baptism, but also all the peoples of the reborn, usefully and necessarily take up for themselves the safeguard of this sanctification: the former, that they may receive what they do not yet have; the latter, that they may guard what they have received. For, the Apostle saying, 'Let him who stands take heed lest he fall' (1 Cor. 10:12), no one is propped up by such firmness that he ought to be secure about his own stability. Let us therefore use, beloved, the venerable institutions of this most healthful season, and with more anxious care wipe clean the watchtower of our heart.
For however chastely and soberly this mortal life be led, it is nevertheless sprinkled with a certain dust of earthly living, and the brightness of minds created after the image of God is not so estranged from the smoke of all vanity that it cannot be darkened by any defilement, and does not always need to be polished. But if this is necessary even for the most cautious souls, how much more is it to be sought by those who have passed almost the whole span of the year either too carelessly, or perhaps too negligently? These we admonish with due charity, that they do not flatter themselves on the ground that the consciences of individuals cannot lie open to us — since neither the barriers of places nor the walls of buildings shut out the eyes of God who beholds all things at once;
nor to Him are only things done and thought known, but even things to be done and to be thought. This therefore is the knowledge of the Supreme Judge, this is that awesome gaze, to which every solid thing is passable, and every secret laid open; to which obscure things shine clear, mute things answer, silence confesses, and without a voice the mind speaks. Let no one despise the patience of God's goodness (Rom. 2:4) on account of the impunity of his sins; nor esteem Him unoffended because He has not yet been experienced as angry. The respites of mortal life are not long, nor is the licence of foolish wills lasting — a licence to pass over into the pain of eternal punishments, if, while the sentence of justice is suspended, the medicine of repentance is not sought. CHAPTER
IV. — Let us therefore take refuge in the mercy of God, which is everywhere present, and, that the holy Pasch of the Lord may be celebrated with worthy observance, let the hearts of all the faithful sanctify themselves. Let cruelty grow mild, let wrath grow gentle, let all forgive one another their faults, nor let him be an exactor of vengeance who is a petitioner for pardon. For when we say, 'Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors' (Matt. 6:12), we bind ourselves with the hardest chains, unless we fulfil what we profess. Wherefore, if the most sacred compact of this prayer has not been kept in the whole of its terms, let each one now at least know his own conscience, and by pardoning the transgressions of others obtain the abolition of his own sins.
For the Lord saying, 'If you forgive men their sins, your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your trespasses' (Matt. 6:14; 18:35; Luke 6:37), what each one asks is not far off, since the sentence of the Judge hangs upon the kindness of the suppliant; who, being the merciful and just hearer of human prayers, has prescribed to His own equity out of our leniency, that He should have no right of severity against those whom He should not have found eager for revenge. But largesse also befits clement and gentle souls. For nothing is more worthy than that a man should be an imitator of his own Author, and, according to the measure of his own ability, be an executor of the divine work.
For when the hungry are fed, the naked clothed, the sick cherished, does not the hand of the minister fulfil the aid of God, and is not the kindness of the servant a gift of the Lord? Who, though He needs no helper for the effects of His mercy, so tempered His omnipotence that He might succour the labours of men through men. And deservedly are thanks rendered to God for the offices of piety, whose works are seen in His servants. Wherefore the Lord Himself says to His disciples: 'So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven' (Matt. 5:16); who, with the same Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns God unto the ages of ages. Amen.
CHAPTER I. — Always indeed, beloved, is the earth full of the mercy of the Lord (Ps. 33:5); and to each of the faithful the very nature of things is a teaching for the worship of God, while heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, attest the goodness and omnipotence of their Author, and the wondrous beauty of the serving elements demands a just act of thanksgiving from the intellectual creature. But when we come round to these days, which the sacraments of human restoration have more specially marked, and which by a near and contiguous order precede the paschal feast, a preparation of religious purification is more diligently enjoined upon us.
For although at any time the life of many is innocent, and the habit of good deeds commends very many to God, yet we must not so trust in the integrity of conscience as to think that human frailty, living amid scandals and temptations, could have done nothing whereby to wound it — since the most excellent prophet says: 'Who shall boast that he has a chaste heart, or that he is clean from sin?' (Prov. 20:9). And again: 'Cleanse me from my hidden faults, O Lord, and spare your servant from those of others' (Ps. 19:12-13).
But if — as is proven by experience — such is the condition of those who resist their concupiscences, who struggle against the motions of anger, and chastise even the secret places of their thoughts, that they can both never fail to find in their hearts something to reprove, and are often either deceived by hidden things or burdened by others'; it must be more attentively considered at this season what vices, what sicknesses, and how great are the wounds to which a more austere medicine is to be applied: that they be not found strangers to that sacrament by which the works of the devil are dissolved. For this is proper to the paschal festivity, that the whole Church rejoice in the remission of sins, which comes to pass not
eistantumfiatquisacrobaptismaterenascuntur, sedetiamineisquiduduminadoptivorumsortenumerantur.Quamvisenimprincipaliternovoshominesfaciatregenerationisablutio, quiatamensuperestomnibuscontrarubiginemmortalitatisquotidianarenovatio, etinterprofectuumgradusnullusestquinonsempermelioressedebeat,generaliterannitendumestutindieredemptionisnemoinveniaturinvitiisvetustatis. CAp. II.
only in those who are reborn by holy baptism, but also in those who have long been numbered in the lot of the adopted. For although the washing of regeneration principally makes men new, yet, because there remains for all a daily renewal against the rust of mortality, and among the degrees of progress there is none that ought not always to be better, we must strive generally that on the day of redemption no one be found in the vices of oldness. CHAPTER II.
— What therefore it befits every Christian to do at all times, beloved, is now to be more solicitously and more devoutly carried out, that the apostolic institution be fulfilled by the fast of forty days — not only by sparingness of food, but chiefly by the deprivation of vices. For since this chastisement is undertaken for this end, that the tinder of carnal desires may be withdrawn, no kind of continence is more to be pursued than that we always be sober from unjust will, and fasting from dishonourable action. This devotion does not omit the sick, does not set aside the weak: for even in a languishing and useless body integrity of soul can be found, if, where the seat of depravity was, there the foundations of virtue be confirmed. And therefore for the weak flesh
that sickness suffices which often exceeds the measure of voluntary affliction, provided only that the mind fulfil the parts of its office, and that what does not enjoy bodily feasting be nourished by no iniquity. But to reasonable and holy fasts nothing is more usefully joined than the works of almsgiving, which under the one name of mercy contain many praiseworthy actions of piety, so that the souls of all the faithful may be equal even amid unequal means. For love, which is owed at once to God and to man, is never so impeded by any obstacles that it be not always free to wish well. For when it is said:
'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will' (Luke 2:14), whoever with charity has compassion on others labouring in any misery is made blessed not only by the virtue of benevolence, but also by the good of peace. For most wide are the works of piety, which by their very variety confer this upon true Christians, that in the distribution of alms not only the rich and abounding, but also the middling and the poor may have their portions; and that those who are unequal in the powers of largesse may nevertheless be alike in affection. For when, under the eyes of the Lord, many were contributing much into the treasury out of their abundance, a certain widow put in two mites (Luke 21:2;
Mark 12:42), and by the very testimony of Jesus Christ deserved to be crowned, so that in so small a gift she was worthy to be preferred to the offerings of all: because among the great gifts of those to whom much remained, that which was of her, though it was scanty, was the whole. But if anyone is straitened by the narrows of such great poverty that he does not suffice even to impart two coins to the needy, he has in the Lord's precepts wherewith to fulfil the office of good will. For whoever shall have ministered a cup of cold water to a thirsting poor man is to obtain the reward of his work (Matt. 10:42): the Lord having prepared for His servants such easy means of obtaining His kingdom, that even the offering of water, whose use is free and common, should not lack its reward.
And lest any difficulty should shut this off, a form of piety is proposed concerning cold water: lest one should think himself to lack reward for whom the expense of firewood for heating the drink was wanting. Concerning which cup, however, the Lord not in vain admonishes that it be offered in His name: for faith makes precious these things which of themselves are cheap, while the things ministered by unbelievers, even if they be great in cost, are yet void of all justification. CHAPTER III. — About to celebrate the Pasch of the Lord, therefore, beloved, so exercise yourselves in holy fasts that, free from all perturbations, you may come to the most sacred feast. Let the spirit of pride, from which all sins have arisen, be driven out by the love of humility;
and let those who had swelled with self-exaltation be tamed by meekness. But those whose souls some offence has exasperated, being reconciled to one another, let them strive to return into the unity of concord. Rendering to no one evil for evil, and forgiving one another, as Christ forgave us (Rom. 12:17; Col. 3:13), blot out human enmities by peace; and if any of your subjects have deserved prisons, custody, or chains, let them be mercifully released: that we who need the remedies of daily indulgence may not with difficulty forgive the sins of others. For when we say to the Lord our Father, 'Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors' (Matt.
6:12), it is most certain that, when we grant pardon to the transgressions of others, we prepare divine clemency for ourselves. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.