The goods of fasting, brethren, we touched upon, as far as we were able, in the preceding sermon; and what prayer is akin to fasting, we made plain in the very conclusion of the sermon. But since fasting without mercy fails, fasting without piety [merely] fasts, prayer without compassion is weakened, prayer without generosity grows faint, let us refresh our fasting by the exhibition of mercy, let us raise up our prayer by the hearing of piety, let us employ mercy as the patroness of fasting. For fasting without mercy is the hunger of avarice, and fasting without piety is the punishment of covetousness; it is vengeance, not devotion, to fast not for God but for the money-bag; to wear oneself down by abstinence, and to be swollen with dropsical covetousness; to unburden the belly of foods, and to overburden the mind with the weight of money.
He reduces himself into a money-bag, who knows not how to pay out money, but to shut it up: this man is the keeper of others' goods, not the lord of his own; for he prepares for another, denies to himself, while the merciful man pays out what the miser has hoarded. Fasting without compassion is a tilled field without seed. A tilled field is free of thorns, avoids weeds, escapes all that belongs to neglect, all that belongs to squalor. But just as without seed it is barren, and by its very tillage yields no fruit, gives only labor, and cannot attain to good produce; so the one fasting thus tills the soul, purges the senses, cleanses the heart, cuts off vices, eradicates crimes, gives cultivation to the mind, gives beauty to the body; yet without mercy he does not attain to the fruit of life, does not go to the reward of salvation.
What a royal hall is without a king, that fasting is without generosity. The king's hall gleams with gold, shines with marble, is splendid with paintings, expands in spaciousness, is raised on high with its roof, is made pleasant with green plots, and is awesome in its very seclusion: but without the king it has no honor, lacks glory, is an empty solitude, is a closed wilderness, is a horrid desert. So fasting is bright with innocence, radiant with chastity, gleams with deed, is adorned with morals, glitters in its bearing, is magnified with the whole ornament of holiness; but without mercy it has no glory, lacks reward, holds no palm, loses the confidence of supplicating, receives not the merit of obtaining, as the Scripture attests, which says:
He that stoppeth his ear so as not to hear the weak, he also shall cry, and there shall be none to hear him (Prov. 21). How shall he ask for mercy, who has denied it? Judgment, it says, shall be without mercy to him that hath not done mercy (James 2). He who gives not mercy to another, takes it away from himself. Mercy shall be his own, who scatters to the poor. He hath dispersed, it says, he hath given to the poor, his justice remaineth for ever and ever (Ps. 111). He who sows mercy to the needy, shall reap it for himself. They that sow, it says, in tears, shall reap in joy (Ps. 125). Not so does the rain flood the earth, as the tears of the poor water fasting.
O man, cast the seeds of thy fasting into the tears of the poor, for the virtues of fasting dry up, the harvests of those fasting wither, which have not been watered by the weeping of the poor. The rain of heaven floods the earth; the tears of the poor water heaven; therefore heaven thirsts, and awaits from the lamentation of the poor the office of dew, because mercy plows the fields of heaven, piety draws furrows through the heights, there mercy sows; for where the hand of the poor has received, there it reaps; there he gathers the crop, who has entrusted his seed to the poor, to be sown here. Blessed is he for whom, thus sowing, eternal barns are prepared unto perpetual life. Him thus sowing the blessed Apostle described, when he said: But this I say: He who soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly:
and he who soweth in blessings, of blessings shall also reap: every one as he hath purposed in his heart, not out of sadness or of necessity; for God loveth a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9). Great are the works of the Lord, but the greatness of mercy surpasses their greatness: for when the prophet had said, Great are the works of the Lord (Ps. 110), he added elsewhere: His mercies are above all his works (Ps. 144). Mercy, brethren, fills heaven, replenishes earth. O Lord, it says, thy mercy is in heaven (Ps. 35). And the same again: The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord (Ps. 32). And truly, brethren, all that God had made would have perished, had not mercy come to its aid. Fault and vengeance were taking away whatever had come into this world;
for both frailty always tended to a fall, and the censure of the Judge was always constrained to vengeance. Thus the angel is cast down from heaven (Isa. 14); thus man is exiled from paradise (Gen. 3); thus the world is destroyed by a flood (Gen. 7); thus the nations are confounded in their tongues (Gen. 11), are given to the sword (Gen. 14); thus cities are burned up by divine fire (Gen. 19); thus the people led out of Egypt were hidden away in the desert (Exod. 19); thus the earth, gaping open, devours the people (Num. 16); and, not to be lengthy, thus the Roman army, avenger of Christ's blood, destroyed Judaea (Matt. 24).
This is the great, bountiful, sole mercy of Christ, which reserved all judgment for one day, and allotted to man the whole time as a respite for repentance, that what infancy takes up of vices, adolescence seizes, youth invades, at least old age may correct; and that he may repent of sin at least then, when he feels that he can now no longer sin; and that he may at least abandon guilt then, when guilt has already abandoned him, making of necessity a virtue, that he may die innocent who lived wholly in crime. Hence it is that the prophet runs wholly to mercy, because he had no confidence in his own righteousness: Have mercy on me, he says, O God, according to thy great mercy (Ps. 50).
And why great? Because thy mercy, he says, is great toward me; and thou hast delivered my soul from the lower hell (Ps. 85). And if God renders back through mercy what had perished through judgment, O man, how didst thou think that thou couldst stand, couldst hold firm, without mercy? It is proved to thee, therefore, that not fasting alone, but all the virtues waver without mercy. Abraham, ardent kindness, spent upon God, makes him the chief guest of the heavenly banquet (Gen. 18): for because he received two, along with God, at an earthly table, he received the people of the East and of the West at the heavenly table. They shall come, it says, from the East and the West, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 8).
Lot, because he received angels with hospitality, forestalled judgment (Gen. 19). Hence he overcame hell in the flesh; the divine fire knows not how to strip the merciful man. He therefore does mercy, who wishes not to fear the burning of hell. Finally, Christ, when he comes, disputes concerning mercy before he judges concerning guilt. When he shall sit, it says, upon the throne of his glory, he shall say: I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat (Matt. 25). He said not, You slew, you stole; but, I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat. He will not demand the grounds for crime, for whom the ground for mercy shall stand firm.
Why? Because: Give alms, and behold, all things are clean unto you (Luke 11). He shall not be judged for fault, to whom praise for generosity is offered by the Judge; he demands no vengeance who confesses the debt of kindness. I was hungry, he says, and you gave me not to eat (Matt. 25). God eats in heaven the bread which the poor man has received on earth. As long as you did it to one of these least, you did it to me (Matt. 25). Give therefore bread, give drink, give clothing, give shelter, if thou wouldst have God as thy debtor, not thy judge; nothing shall harm us on earth, if in heaven mercy be our patroness.