Since we behold that the springtime of the fast and the season of spiritual warfare has come, let us, as soldiers of Christ, laying aside the sluggishness of body and soul, advance to the field of the virtues, so that our limbs, softened by winter's idleness, may be strengthened by the exercise of heavenly arms. We have given a year to the body; let us give days to the soul. We have spent time upon ourselves; let us assign a time to our Maker. Let us live a little to God, we who have lived wholly to the world. Let us set aside domestic cares and abide in the camp of the Church; let us keep watch in the battle-line of Christ; let us not seek the sleep of our beds, but join ourselves to the strong; let us be parted from soft embraces; let the love of triumphs hold us, let the caresses of little ones not call us away; let the divine voice sound in our ears;
let no familiar din confound our hearing; let scanty food be taken from the heavenly store; let the abundance of earthly luxury not be sought; let a lasting supply be kept in the cups of sobriety; let not drunkenness unnerve our strength. Whatever overflows from our provisions, let the poor fellow-soldier take up; let no pestilent squandering lose anything; in the conflict you will have as an aid the hungry comrade whom you will feed. Thus fortified, brethren, and thus equipped, let us declare war upon our sins; let us appoint battle against our crimes, let us announce combat upon our vices, secure of victory, we whom earthly foes shall not be able to overcome with heavenly arms, nor shall worldly things be able to stand against the divine King; nor shall the hostile subversion be able to forestall those set in the array of faith;
nor shall the devil be strong enough to disturb by his assaults those who are wary, watchful, and sober; assuredly he will not even dare to provoke us, thus armed, to open combat; he will not presume to attack us by his wiles. Let the soul persevere in its heavenly watch-tower; let it beat down and turn aside the deceitful and hidden snares of the devil. The devil is indeed by nature wicked, yet he becomes more wicked when provoked. Hear the Apostle saying: 'The devil, like a roaring lion, goes about, seeking whom he may devour' (1 Peter 5:8). While we fast, the devil hungers, he who is ever sated from our faults. He turns our food into surfeit; he pours out our drink into drunkenness.
So that he may make the mind mad, render the flesh miry, and reduce the body — the dwelling of the soul, the vessel of the soul, the wall of the spirit, the school of the virtues, the temple of God — into a stage for crimes, into a parade of vices, into a theatre for pleasure. He gains satiety, he obtains pleasure, he is glutted with feasts, whenever luxury dissolves us, lust goads us, pomp seizes us, ambition drives us, wrath urges us, fury fills us, envy inflames us, greed enkindles us, cares harass us, lawsuits vex us, gains capture us, usuries bind us, promissory notes fetter us, moneybags press us, gold crushes us. When the virtues die, the vices live, pleasure gushes out, honor perishes, mercy fails, avarice abounds, confusion reigns, order gives way, discipline is laid low.
These are the things that make war against the soldier of Christ; these are the cohorts of Satan, these the legions of the devil; these are the things that have besieged the world with tombs, have subdued peoples, laid waste nations, and led the whole globe captive. These are the things which no mortal could withstand by his own strength; and therefore, to conquer these, God himself came, the King of heaven himself descended, the unique Conqueror himself arrived, establishing the fast of Lent in battle-array, that by the fourfold ten of the fast he might fortify the whole four-square world with an impregnable wall. The fast, brethren, we know to be the citadel of God, the camp of Christ, the wall of the spirit, the standard of faith, the sign of chastity, the trophy of holiness. Had Adam kept this in paradise, gluttony would not have dragged him out from there (Genesis 3).
This preserved Noah in the ark (Genesis 7), when drunkenness drowned the world. Through this Lot quenched the Sodomite conflagration, he who through the drunkenness of incest was scorched by the fire (Genesis 19). This made Moses shine bright with the light of divine fervor, when feasting and drunkenness had darkened the people of Israel with the errors of idols (Exodus 32). This carried Elijah up to heaven, when drunkenness cast down the impious Ahab to the depths below (2 Kings 2).
This made John greater among those born of women, when drunken revelry made prince Herod, at the bidding of a woman, a murderer (Mark 4[6]). The fast of Lent, brethren, disclosed and laid open the ancient snares of the devil. For the devil, who had despised Christ eating, and had reckoned him a man while drinking, when he saw him fasting, suspected him to be God, and confessed him the Son of God. 'If you are the Son of God,' he says, 'command that these stones be made bread' (Matthew 4). By speaking thus, the devil wishes to show him a man, not God: he wishes not to prepare food, but to amputate the fast.
'If you are the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.' After a fast, it is not divine power but human weakness that seeks bread; nor, if God had grown faint with hunger, does he renounce providing food for himself, which is within his power. And so from what follows the devil opens up what he attempts. 'If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down.' He wishes plainly to prove him a man, for whom he provided not an ascent but a ruin: the human condition is found difficult for ascent, easy for a fall. 'If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down.' You err, O devil: you know not even how to tempt: God cannot fall. 'Then he showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and said to him: All these will I give you, if falling down you will adore me.' O the audacity of the devil!
To God it says, 'Adore me': but soon it felt him to be God by his powers, a judge by his punishments, and the one whom it sought as a suppliant for rewards; for at the name of Christ, at the name of the one who fasted, it began to be put to flight from the bodies it possessed, and, trembling, to give glory to him upon whom, in its pride, it had cunningly heaped insults. By fasting he conquered, that he might thus bestow upon us the strength to conquer, and the manner of conquering. 'This kind,' he says, 'is not cast out except by fasting and prayer' (Matthew 17:21). Let us fast, therefore, brethren, if we wish to imitate Christ, if we wish to overcome the fraudulent cunning of the devil.