Sermons & Letters 62

Beloved, we proclaim the consecrated fast in the seventh month for the exercises of common devotion, confidently urging you on with fatherly exhortations, so that what was formerly Jewish may become, by your observance, Christian. For it is at all times fitting and agreeable to both Testaments, that by the chastisement of both mind and body the divine mercy be sought; because nothing is more effective for entreating God than that a man should judge himself, and never cease to ask for pardon, who knows that he is never without fault.

For human nature has this vice in itself, not implanted by the Creator, but contracted from the transgressor, and transfused into posterity by the law of generation, that from the corruptible body there arises even that which can corrupt the soul. Hence the inner man, although now regenerated in Christ and rescued from the bonds of captivity, has constant conflicts with the flesh, and while it restrains the lusting flesh it suffers its resistance. In this discord so perfect a victory is not easily obtained, that even those things which must be broken off should not entangle, and those which must be slain should not wound.

However wisely and prudently the mind, as judge, may preside over the outward senses, yet amid the very cares and measures of governing and feeding the flesh, temptation is always too near to it. For who so separates himself either from the pleasure of the body or from its pain, that what outwardly flatters or torments does not reach the mind itself? Joy is undivided, sorrow indiscriminate: nothing does not kindle anger in a man, nothing does not gladness loosen, nothing does not sickness afflict. And what avoidance of sin can there be, where the passion is one both of the ruler and of the subject? Rightly does the Lord testify that the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matt. 26:41).

And lest we be led by despair even to idle sloth, He who promises that the things which are impossible to man by his own weakness are possible by divine power: For narrow and strait is the way that leads to life (Matt. 7:14), and no one would set a step upon it, no one would advance a footprint, unless Christ Himself, by making Himself the way, unlocked its difficult approaches: so that the possibility of him who walks becomes the author of the journey, since the same both leads in to labour and brings through to rest. In Him therefore in whom is our hope of eternal life, in the same let there be also the pattern of patience. For if we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him (2 Tim. 2:12; Rom. 8:17): since, as the Apostle says;

he who says that he abides in Christ, ought himself also to walk even as He walked (1 John 2:6). Otherwise we use the image of a false profession, if we do not follow the ordinances of Him in whose name we glory: which surely would not be burdensome to us, and would free us from all dangers, if we loved nothing other than what we are commanded to love. For there are two loves from which all volitions proceed, as diverse in their qualities as they are divided by their authors. For the rational soul, which cannot be without love, is either a lover of God or of the world. In the love of God nothing is excessive; but in the love of the world all things are harmful.

And therefore we must cling inseparably to eternal goods, but use temporal things only in passing: so that, as we are sojourners hastening to return to our fatherland, whatever of the prosperities of this world we meet may be provision for the journey, not an enticement to abide. For this reason the blessed Apostle preaches, saying: The time is short: it remains that both those who have wives be as though they had none; and those who weep, as though they wept not; and those who rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and those who buy, as though they possessed not; and those who use this world, as though they used it not. For the fashion of this world passes away (1 Cor. 7:29-31).

But what flatters by its appearance, its abundance, its variety, is not easily avoided, unless in that beauty of visible things the Creator rather than the creature be loved, He who, when He says: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole mind, and with your whole strength (Matt. 22:37), wills that we be in nothing loosed from the bonds of His love. And when He joins to this precept also the charity of one's neighbour, He enjoins upon us the imitation of His goodness: that we love what He loves, and do what He does. For although we are God's husbandry and God's building (1 Cor. 3:9), and neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase (ibid. 7);

yet in all things He requires the service of our ministry, and wills that we be stewards of His gifts, so that he who bears the image of God may do the will of God. Wherefore in the Lord's Prayer we most sacredly say: Your kingdom come, Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth (Matt. 6:10). By which words what else do we ask, than that God should subject to Himself those whom He has not yet subjected, and, as in heaven the angels, so on earth make men ministers of His will? Now in asking this we love God, we love also our neighbour; and there is in us not a diverse but one love, when we desire both that the servant serve and that the master command.

This affection therefore, beloved, by which earthly love is excluded, is strengthened by the habit of good works; for it is necessary that the conscience should be delighted by good deeds, and gladly do what it rejoices to have done. Fasting therefore is undertaken, almsgiving is multiplied, justice is guarded, prayer is frequented, and it comes to pass that the desire of individuals becomes the one vow of all. Labour nourishes patience, meekness extinguishes wrath, goodwill treads down envy, unclean desires are killed by holy longings, avarice is driven off by liberality, and the burdens of riches become instruments of virtues.

But because the snares of the devil do not rest even amid such pursuits, most rightly at certain junctures of the times is the restoration of our vigour appointed: and where, from the clemency of the heavens and the fertility of the field, the mind, greedy of present goods, can boast, and, its fruits gathered into ample granaries, can say to its soul: You have many goods, feast (Luke 12:19): there let it receive a certain rebuke of the divine voice, and hear Him saying: You fool, this night they demand your soul from you: and the things which you have prepared, whose shall they be (ibid. 20)? This most anxious meditation ought to be the wise man's, that, since the days of this life are brief and its span uncertain, death may never be unforeseen to one who must die, nor may he fall into a disordered end, who knows himself to be mortal.

That therefore it may profit both to the sanctification of bodies and to the restoration of souls, let us fast on the fourth and sixth day of the week; but on the Sabbath let us celebrate the vigils at the most blessed Apostle Peter's, to be aided by his prayers, that we may obtain the effect of our holy desires: through Christ our Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Beloved, there is nothing in which the divine providence does not aid the devotion of the faithful. For to exercise minds and bodies toward holiness, the very elements of the world also serve, while the alternating revolution of days and months, marked out, opens for us, as it were, certain pages of precepts, so that what the sacred institutions admonish, this in a manner the seasons also speak. Whence, since the return of the year has brought us the seventh month, I am not unaware that your observance is spiritually stirred to celebrate the solemn fast: because you have learned by experience how much this preparation purifies both the outward things of men and the inward, so that, when one abstains from things lawful, unlawful things are more easily resisted. But the principle of self-restraint, beloved, is not to be held in the chastisement of bodies alone, nor only in the diminution of foods.

For the greater goods of this virtue pertain to that chastity of the soul, which not only crushes the lusts of the flesh, but also despises the vanities of worldly wisdom, the Apostle saying: Beware lest any man deceive you through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the tradition of men (Col. 2:8). We must therefore abstain from foods, but much more must we fast from errors: that the mind, given over to no carnal pleasure, may be captive to no falsehood:

because, as in times past, so also in our own days there are not wanting enemies of the truth, who dare to stir up civil wars within the catholic Church, so that, leading whatever unskilled persons they can into consent to impious dogmas, they may glory that those increase to them whom they have been able to separate from the body of Christ. For what is so opposed to prophecy, so repugnant to the Gospels, so finally rebellious against the apostolic teachings, as to preach one single nature in the Lord Jesus Christ, born of Mary and eternally coeternal, without time, with the eternal Father? Which, if it is to be understood only of the man, where is the Deity that saves?

if only of God, where is the humanity that is saved? But the catholic faith, which resists all errors, refutes both these impieties at once, condemning Nestorius who divides the divine from the man, and detesting Eutyches who empties the human within the divine: because the true Son of the true God, having unity and equality with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, the same deigned to be true man, and was separated from the flesh neither in the conception of the Virgin Mother nor in the birth: so uniting humanity to Himself that He remained unchangeably God; so imparting Deity to the man that He did not consume it by glorification, but increased it.

For He who was made in the form of a servant did not cease to be in the form of God, nor is one thing with the other, but one is in both: so that, from the time the Word was made flesh (John 1:14), our faith may be disturbed by no varieties of the dispensations; but whether in the miracles of His powers, or in the reproaches of His sufferings, we may believe both that He who is man is God, and that He who is God is man. Beloved, uttering this confession with the whole heart, spurn the impious inventions of the heretics, so that your fastings and alms may be defiled by the contagion of no error; for then is the offering of the sacrifice clean, and the giving of mercy holy, when those who render these things understand what they do. For when the Lord says:

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you (John 6:54), you ought so to partake of the sacred table, that you doubt nothing at all concerning the truth of Christ's body and blood. For that is taken by the mouth which is believed by faith; and in vain is Amen answered by those who dispute against that which is received. And since the prophet says: Blessed is he who understands concerning the needy and the poor (Ps. 41:1), he is a praiseworthy distributor of garments and foods among the poor, who knows how to clothe and feed Christ in the needy: since He Himself says: As long as you did it to one of My brethren, you did it to Me (Matt. 25:40).

Therefore true God and true man, Christ is one, rich in His own things, poor in ours, receiving gifts and pouring forth gifts, partaker of mortals and the life-giving of the dead: that in the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow, of things heavenly, earthly, and infernal; and every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:10-11), living and reigning with the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen.