We read that very many overcame the wars of nations, whom yet we read did not conquer the battles of the flesh; and we have heard that they gave their breasts to their sins, who gave not their backs to their enemies. Alas the grief! that conquerors of nations were captives of vices, that lords of peoples served their crimes in shameful bondage: that they stood firm amid raging swords, and fell amid enervating seductions; that they were a terror to kingdoms, a laughingstock to sins; that fasting they crushed opposing battle-lines, and drunken they dissolved the camp of their own virtues; that they lay prostrate by spilled wine, who knew not how to lie prostrate by spilled blood. Whence is this? Whence? Because this is not reason, but sickness; not life, but fever; frenzy, not nature.
For as often as the crudity of foods casts down the vital parts, weakens the stomach, corrupts the blood, taints the humors, and kindles the bile, at the last it begets the burning of a fever; so often the sick man loses his mind, forfeits his sense, is carried away by desires, is driven by contrary things, spurns what is wholesome, seeks what is harmful, flees the cure. Then the physicians take pains to come to his aid with the remedy of abstinence, that he may be healed, that abstinence may heal what voracity had wounded. And if for a temporal cure the sick obey their physicians and keep an arduous frugality, why, for eternal salvation, should it be hard to obey Christ with moderate fasts, to govern the body by measure, to rule the mind by frugality, to bridle the sense by sobriety? As clouds darken the sky over the earth, so intemperate banquets darken souls;
as the whirlwinds of the winds confound the elements, so heaped-up dishes throw the stomach into turmoil; as the wave sinks a ship, so drunkenness sinks the body, casts a man into the deep, robs him of the gains of life, makes him undergo the shipwreck of death. There is therefore a fever, there is a fever which the blessed Apostle so laments to gasp within human bowels: I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is, in my flesh, that which is good (Rom. 7): if not good, then surely evil. What evil? Frailty assuredly, which, while it creeps in the flesh, seethes in the veins, enters the bones, is hidden in the marrow, boils in the blood, thus bursts forth into the frenzy of vices. Frailty is the fever of nature, the mother of languors, the parent of passions; frailty it is that imposes upon us necessities of this kind:
and where there is necessity, not will; where captivity arises from condition, judgment upon one's power does not stand. It is frailty by which a man goes, not where will invites, but where necessity leads. Hear the Apostle saying: Not what I will, that I do (Rom. 7). Frailty, while it prepares for a man what is needful, makes him come to what is not needful; while it prepares food, it leads to surfeiting; it persuades to drunkenness while it supplies drink; it offers sleep, that it may hand over slothfulness; it attends to the burdens of the belly, that it may take away care for salvation; it gives all to the flesh, that it may leave nothing to the soul: it makes the body a pageant of passions; it makes a man his own death, the life of vices.
Wherefore, if a man perceives himself thus sick, let him deliver himself to the heavenly Physician, let him confidently acquiesce in his admonitions, let him restrain himself from foods, let him keep measure in drink, that he may thus be able to overcome the languor of frailty, to flee the frailty of the passions, to avoid the fever and frenzy of vices. Abstinence is a man's first medicine; but for full healing, O mercy, it requires expenditure. Abstinence extinguishes the fever, but limbs parched by the burning of a long fever, unless they be flooded with abundant ointment, unless they be moistened with the gentlest fomentations, unless they be aided by the outlay of medicine, cannot return to entire health: so fasting, although it shuts out the diseases of vices, cuts off the passions of the flesh, drives away the causes of crimes;
yet without the ointment of mercy, without the stream of piety, without the outlay of almsgiving, it does not restore perfect health to minds. Fasting heals the wounds of sins, but without mercy it does not cleanse the scars of the wounds. Hear the Lord saying: Give alms, and behold, all things are clean unto you (Luke 11). Fasting with singular cultivation roots out vices, eradicates crimes, prepares the field—of both mind and body—for good fruits: but unless mercy has laid the foundations, [vain is] the old age and zeal of the one fasting. Fasting is the victim of holiness, the sacrifice of chastity; but without the incense of mercy it cannot ascend into the divine sight as an odor of sweetness. What the soul is to the body, that mercy is agreed to be to fasting:
when fasting lives by mercy, then it gives life to the one fasting. Fasting, the ship of virtues, carries the merchandise of life, brings home the gain of salvation. But he who enters the sea of the flesh, cleaves the waves of vices, passes among the rocks of crimes, sails past the shores of the passions—unless he speedily enters the harbor of piety, cannot exercise the virtues, cannot have the gain of virtues.
He who knows himself to stand on the slippery ground of this life, who understands himself to pass along the way of the flesh through slipping, who feels himself subject to the incursions of ignorance and the falls of negligence, let him so hold to fasting that he does not abandon mercy. Fasting opens heaven to us, fasting admits us to God; but unless mercy then be present to us as the patroness of our causes, we who cannot be assured of our innocence will not be secure of pardon, the Lord saying: Judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy (James 2). The day is pleasant, but more pleasant when serene: our fasting therefore shall be brighter than that day, if the splendor of mercy makes the days of Lent serene for us. God cries out: I desire mercy (Hosea 6).
O man, give to God what he wills, if thou wilt have given to thee by God what thou wilt. I desire mercy is the voice of God; God asks mercy of us, and if we give it, what is he about to say? That which was read today: I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink. And what then? Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which was prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Matt. 25). He who gives bread to the hungry, gives to himself a kingdom; they who deny to the thirsty a cup of water, deny to themselves the fountain of life. For love of the poor God sells his own kingdom: and that every man may be able to buy it, he sets a fragment of bread as the price, because he wills to have all, who asks so great a price as he knows a man to have. God sells his kingdom for a fragment of bread;
who shall be able to excuse himself for not buying, whom so great a cheapness of the sale accuses? Brethren, let our dinner be the poor man's supper, that the table of Christ may be prepared as our dinner, he himself promising when he says: You shall eat at my table in my kingdom (Luke 22). Brethren, let the delights of the poor be our fasts, that our temporal fasting may be able to be changed for us into eternal delights. O man, in giving to the poor thou givest to thyself; for what thou shalt not have given to the poor, another shall have. That alone which thou shalt have given to the poor, this shalt thou have.