I believe, most beloved brethren, that you are troubled as to why we should keep Lent from the previous Sunday, and, since this day is its beginning, why we have begun to celebrate its festival a week beforehand. This observance cannot be blamed: for it is a sign of the best devotion to fulfil the law before you know the law's statutes, and to obey the precepts before the precepts compel obedience. For the former belongs to love, the latter to fear. This is exacted by command, that is offered from religious devotion. Here a debt is paid, there a gift is presented as an offering. Whence we too have presented a religious offering to God, in that we have fasted more amply. For a hastened festival cannot be blamed.
For in joys the solemn observance always anticipates the vows, and devotion, while it longs for it, forestalls the future gladness. Therefore this was done not only not blameworthily, but even prudently. For in doubtful matters it is always fitting to add something more for caution's sake, because what is more can be cut back, but what is less cannot be prolonged, as was done in this observance. For in that we fasted more on account of Lent, we did not diminish Lent: for it remains whole for us. But if we had fasted less than the number, we could not have restored it to the number. But perhaps this is the objection: that the fast with which we fasted does not profit us toward Lent.
It profits us plainly, because even if it does not profit toward Lent, it profits toward salvation. If it does not profit toward the number, it profits toward merit. For to whom has it ever not been of profit to pray, to read, to fast? To whom has chastity, sobriety, meekness not been of profit? Except that I think those the more to be blamed who, when they were prepared to fast, after they heard the solemnities to be doubtful, neglected to fast. They certainly showed that they did not wish to live religiously, but were compelled to. They feared, I believe, lest, prolonged by five days of fasting, their flesh and body should fail them, and being thin and feeble they should not be able to endure the abstinence of Lent.
Let them therefore hear, both the well-fed and the robust, the thin and the pale, that today is Lent. Let those, I say, hear, that they may begin to fast; and let these hear, that they may not cease to abstain, and that in common they may hasten to enter into the ark of Christ. Nay, let them hasten the more who began to abstain the later, that they may enter more chastened and more pure. For the ark of the Lord is able to sustain fasting in perils, but knows not how to endure the drunken. We admonish you therefore, as we have already said before, men of our time, that in the whirlwinds of this world each one may take refuge in eager rivalry at the house of God, just as Noah the just admonished the men of his time. For he admonished them of the coming flood, and did not cease to preach;
and although the voice of his preaching was not heard, yet even though the tongue was silent, his works spoke; even though the voices were silent, the structure resounded. For when he was building so great a work as that ark, he testified by the very work the reason why it was being made. For by the very preparation he testified that new dwellings would be of profit against new perils. For every wise man could understand that some shipwreck or other was impending, when such a house was being made as would not cling to the earth but float upon the flood;
when such a shelter was being prepared as would neither fix its floor to the ground nor be submerged in the waves by the flood. Who, I say, that was wise would not understand that a flood was at hand, when he saw such a dwelling being made, which would not so much enclose those received within it as carry them, which would not so much repel the showers of rain as ward off the storms of shipwreck? From what shelter, I say, did he not perceive the peril of man: a shelter in which one was not to dwell, but rather to be in exile; in whatever part of the world there was to be for them a wandering habitation together with those very beings? Holy Noah himself therefore preached to the peoples by his work, and spoke that gospel saying of the Lord: 'If you do not believe me, believe my works' (John 10:38).