let us give our meal to the hungry. And think not that fasts alone suffice to heal the wounds of sins, unless they are restored by the medicine of almsgiving. Let your fasting therefore chastise yourself, but gladden another; and so your straits will be fruitful, if they grant breadth to another. So fast, that you may rejoice to have dined in another who eats. For God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor. ix, 7). For when the poor man eats of your goods, Christ dines, who testifies that He hungers in the poor. SERMON 145. On Lent, VI. 1. The length of holy Lent is not to be disdained. These days of holy Lent, most beloved brethren, we ought to receive with all veneration, nor to disdain the longer number of this season:
for the more days of fasting there are, the greater is the occasion of remedy; the longer the course of abstinence, the more copious the redemption of salvation; the more austere the care of the wounds, the more healthful the medicine of sins. For God, who is the physician of our souls, has appointed a fitting time, which may be enough both for the just to pray and sufficient for sinners to entreat; for the former who ask rest, for the latter who beg pardon. For the time of Lent is fitting, neither too short for prevailing in prayer, nor too long for meriting. For by the fasts of forty days any iniquity of the sinner can be won over by entreaty, and any severity of the judge softened.
To him perhaps the time seems long and tedious, who neither prays concerning his fault nor hopes for pardon. For despair knows neither how to confess concerning wrongdoing, nor to hope for indulgence from the judge. Holy therefore and salutary is the course of Lent, whereby the judge is brought to mercy, the sinner to penitence, the just to rest. For in these days the Divinity more than usual shows mercy, and delinquency is entreated for, and righteousness is merited. For all things lie open — both the heavens for pardoning, and the sinner for confessing, and the tongue for petitioning. 2. The number forty is mystical. The flood was an effect of mercy. Salutary, I say, and mystical is the number forty.
For first, when the iniquity of men possessed the face of the world, in the course of so many days God, having opened the rains from heaven, overwhelmed the whole earth with a flood (Gen. vii, 4). You see therefore that already at that time a mystery was arranged in figure. For just as then it rained forty days to cleanse the world, so also now God shows mercy for forty days to purify man. Although the flood of that time too must be called a mercy, whereby iniquity was overwhelmed and righteousness preserved. For it was done out of mercy, both that the just should escape, and that the wicked should sin no more. Out of mercy plainly we see that flood to have been, whereby, as by a kind of baptism, the face of the whole world was renewed:
namely, that what by the crime of ruined men was foul unto sins, might by the dwelling of blessed Noah flourish unto grace; and what was then the brothel of iniquity, might now become the dwelling-place of holiness. 3. The flood is a likeness of our Baptism and also of the Lenten fast. That flood, I say, was a likeness of this our Baptism. For that was then done which is now enacted: that is, that as the fountains of the waters overflowed, vices were imperilled, righteousness alone reigned, sins were sunk into the deep, holiness was borne up near to heaven. For then, as I have said, that was being done which is now being done in the Church of Christ. For as Noah's ark was borne up, matured, when all the vices of sinners were submerged (a);
so by the font of Baptism the Church is borne up near to heaven, and, when all the superstitions of idols are blotted out, faith reigns on earth, which proceeds from the ark of the Saviour. Holy therefore and consecrated is the season of Lent, which from the very beginning began to discern between the just and the unjust, to separate the good from the evil by a kind of judgment. And we perceive this to be done likewise even in this our observance of Lent. For through these forty days the evil are separated from the good; that is, the lustful from the chaste, the intemperate from the fasting, the Gentile from the Christian: there is separated, I say, the bad from the good; that is, the sinner from the just, the devil from the saint, the heretic from the faithful.
For all these being left behind, after the likeness of the flood, as in the shipwreck of the world, the Church alone, after the pattern of that ark, is lifted on high with her virtues. 4. The Church is an ark of three chambers. The voice of Noah preaching, the destruction of the world. For we too, though sinners, in imitation of holy Noah announce to you that there is to be a destruction of the world; and we say that those only will escape the peril whom the threefold ark has enclosed within itself in the bosom of religion. For the Church is a threefold ark, because it contains the sacrament of the Trinity. For when Scripture says that it was of two chambers and of three chambers, it surely shows that it was distinguished by the threefold grace of the Godhead (Gen. vi, 16, according to the Seventy).
We announce therefore, like Noah, that there is to be a shipwreck of the world, and we admonish all men to flee to this house. And as Noah received his sons into the ark, so also we desire to receive our sons into this ark. For whoever wishes to dwell with us in this house is our son. But someone says that the voice of holy Noah's preaching is nowhere written in the Scriptures. Attend, therefore. Even if Noah was silent in voice, he spoke by work; he was silent with his tongue, but cried out by his building. For surely, when he was working a new work, never at any time known to any, he was admonishing all that new dwellings were being prepared against new perils. He spoke therefore by work, and uttered that word of the Gospel spoken by the Lord:
If you will not believe me, believe the works (John x, 38); and by believing, you will be able to escape the peril: through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen. SERMON 146. On Lent, VII. 1. Fasting is useless to those who do not depart from iniquity. On the previous Lord's Day we said that this is the first work of our faith, that in the course of these forty days we should most devoutly fast, and that this is the cause of our salvation, if at this time we bestow our labour upon abstinence. And therefore, most beloved brethren, we ought to examine what is the form of this fasting; that we may look back upon how great is its usefulness.
For there is sometimes a useless and empty fast, which, although it drains the belly and all the entrails of the juice of satiety, is nevertheless not acceptable to God; because it in no way empties the mind and inmost senses from the bond of iniquity. For what does it profit to fast in the entrails, and to run riot in the hunt; to abstain from food, and to stray into sins; to chastise the body with hunger, to exercise the mind in wickedness; perchance to drink no wine, and to walk about drunk with the thought of malice? Except that the case of the sated or the drunken is more excusable than that of the man who is at once wicked and fasting. For he who is at some time drunk at least at some time ceases to sin, for he falls asleep; but this man ceases not to stray, who, practised in evil, is ever wakeful even amid his fasts.
Useless and empty is such a fast, which weakens the members with hunger, and delivers not the soul from perdition. Concerning which fast the holy prophet says in the person of the Lord: Why do you fast to me? I have not chosen such a fast, says the Lord (Isa. lviii, 5). 2. Also to those not engaged in pious exercises, but in hunting. Do you think, brethren, that he fasts who at earliest dawn keeps no vigil at the church, seeks not the holy places of the blessed martyrs; but rising gathers his servants, arranges his nets, leads out his dogs, ranges through the glades and forests; drags along, I say, his servants with him, who perhaps desire rather to come to church; and heaps up upon his own pleasures the sins of others, not knowing that he will be guilty
as much for his own offence as for the perdition of his servants. All day therefore he lingers in the hunt, now uttering an immoderate clamour, now silently commanding silence; glad if he has found something, angry if he has lost that which he did not have; and he goes about it with such zeal, as if the fast had been enjoined for this very purpose, that he should hunt. In these luxuries, therefore, brethren, tell me what worship of God there can be, what devotion of mind can there be; who for this reason fasts, not that he may give leisure to God or to prayers, but that all day, idle and free, he may exercise his own pleasures? Although, therefore, you who are such, brother, return home at evening, although you eat when the sun is now declining, you may seem to have taken your meal later, yet not to have fasted unto the Lord.
For you cannot seem, while exercising your own will, to have done the will of the Lord. For this is the will of the Lord, that we fast from food and from sins alike. We proclaim abstinence to the body, that we may the more be able to make the soul abstain from vices. For the exhausted body is a kind of bridle to the luxuriating soul. For whoever fasts and sins is seen to have cut off the gain of food, not of salvation; and by sparing to have filled his storeroom with plenty, not to have fattened his mind with virtues. 3. The wickedness of masters toward their servants. The servant, yesterday a brother, yet set below the dogs.
But some, forgetful of the divine precepts, so exercise the power of domination over their servants and those subject to them, that in these very days they do not hesitate to beat them with lashes, to afflict them with punishments, to hobble them with fetters; and if perchance, when it is come to the refreshing, the servant has been late in attending, at once they tear him with blows, and satiate themselves with the blood of the little servant sooner than with the pleasure of the banquet. The fast of such men is as though the fast were undertaken, not to provoke the mercy of the Divinity, but to pour out the cry of the household groaning. But whoever desires to merit the mercy of God ought himself first to be merciful.
For it is written: With what measure you have measured, with the same measure shall it be measured back to you (Luke vi, 38). And what is more to be lamented, a Christian master in these days spares not his Christian servant, taking no account that although he is a servant in condition, yet by grace he is a brother. For he likewise has put on Christ, partakes of the same sacraments, uses the same God the Father as you do; why then should he not treat you as a brother? For there are very many who, returning from the hunt, take more care of their dogs than of their servants, who make them recline or sleep beside themselves, ministering to them daily food by their own presence, who yet know not whether their servants are dying of hunger:
and, what is more grievous, if this has not been diligently prepared for them, the servant is treated worse than a dog. You may even see in the houses of some sleek and fat dogs running about; but men going about staggering and pale. Will these then at some time pity the poor, who pity not their own servants? 4. The fast acceptable to God. We ought therefore to know, brethren, that a fast is acceptable to God, not only that we chastise our bodies by abstinence, but also that we clothe our souls with humility. Let us be mild toward our servants, gentle toward strangers, merciful toward the needy, peaceable toward all. Rising at earliest dawn let us hasten to the church,
let us render thanks to God, let us ask pardon for our sins, entreating indulgence for past offences and caution for those to come. Let all day be for us either assiduous prayer or reading. Let him who knows not letters, seeking out a holy teacher, be fed by his converse. Let no acts of the world hinder the acts of the Divinity: let no gaming board call away the mind, let no pleasure of song draw off the senses, let no advantage of business pervert the mind by greed. For whatever else you do besides the commandment of God, though you abstain, you do not fast. For this is the salutary fast, that as the body is abstained from banquets, so also the soul be reined back from vices. 5. Meals are to be bestowed on the poor. A fast without almsgiving is a kind of trafficking.
This too, brethren, must not be passed over in silence for the perfection of fasting: that we who abstain and do not dine, should at this time bestow our meals upon the poor. For this is true righteousness, if while you hunger, another be filled from your food; and you entreat the Lord for your offences, and he, being satisfied, may pray for you. Both will profit you — both your hunger and the satiety of the beggars. But he who so abstains that he bestows nothing on the poor from his banquets, is seen to have made his fast a profit for himself, and to have carried on trafficking by his sparing. For to this end he abstained, not that he might please God, but that he might not spend more; and therefore almsgiving with fasting is good.
For it is as if a kind of trafficking, that he lives so sparingly that by his abstinence he outdoes monks and clerics. Except that this difference exists, that they do this for the sake of gain, not of salvation: they wear out their souls for the profit of money; we chastise our bodies for the gain of souls. SERMON 147. On Lent, VIII. 1. Lent, consecrated by Christ, must of necessity be kept. If your Charity well remembers, brethren, this we preached on the previous Lord's Day, that the Lord Himself consecrated holy Lent by abstaining, and, taking no food at all through the course of so many days and nights, completed the one and solid body of the fast: which not to keep at all is sacrilege;
but to violate it in part is sin. For He did this for the cause of our salvation, that He might not only teach a useful thing by words, but also instruct by examples: that by the same footsteps by which we run to faith, we might advance to abstinence. But let us see what cause there was, that the Saviour should enjoin fasting upon Himself, and He first, the good physician of the human race, should fast. For a good physician first himself tastes the cup which he is about to give to the sick, that he may first demonstrate in himself the skill of his art: that the sick man, receiving the trial, may be secure concerning the cup, more secure concerning his health. Then in what place He arranged this very time of fasting.
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DicitenimevangelistaabstinuisseDominumquadragintadiebusetnoctibusindeserto (Matth. IV, 2). i. Institutionisilliusrulio. Castitatisprodigasaturitas. Adæprimietsecundicomparatio. Arbitroritaquecausamhancessejejunii, utquiaprimusAdaminparadisoconstitutus, perintemperantiamgulæ, gloriarnimmortalitatisamiserat (Gen. III, 17), eamdemimmortalitatemsccundusAdamChristuspcrabstinentiamrepararet. EtquiacontramandatumDeigustansdeinterdictaarborepeccatummortisinciderat; nuncsecundummandatumDominijejunansviLejustitiammereretur. HocenimagitSalvator, uteisdemvestigiis, quibusadmissafuerantdelicta, purgentur :
For the evangelist says that the Lord abstained forty days and nights in the desert (Matt. iv, 2). 2. The reason of that institution. Satiety is prodigal of chastity. A comparison of the first and second Adam. I think, therefore, that this is the cause of the fast: that whereas the first Adam, set in paradise, through the intemperance of gluttony had lost the glory of immortality (Gen. iii, 17), the second Adam, Christ, might repair that same immortality through abstinence. And whereas, tasting of the forbidden tree against the commandment of God, he had incurred the sin of death; now, fasting according to the commandment of the Lord, He might merit the righteousness of life. For this the Saviour does, that by the same footsteps by which offences were committed, they may be purged:
that is, that because man had offended by eating, he might correct it by abstaining; or, because by feasting he had known the woman, now by fasting he might despise her. For Adam did not know Eve except at intemperance's prompting. But as long as unstained frugality remained in them, undefiled virginity also remained; and as long as they fasted from the forbidden banquets, so long did they also fast from shameful sins. For hunger is the friend of virginity, the enemy of lasciviousness; but satiety is prodigal of chastity, and nurtures allurement. Therefore, as I have said, the Lord does this, that man may be freed from those prejudices to which he had been liable in sins.
For therefore He willed to be born in all things according to the likeness of Adam, that according to the likeness of Adam He might dissolve all the sins of man. For Adam was born of the virgin earth; and Christ was begotten of the Virgin Mary. That one's maternal soil had not yet been cut by hoes; this one's maternal secret had never been violated by concupiscence. Adam is molded by the hands of God from clay; Christ is formed by the Spirit of God in the womb. Each therefore arises with God as Father, each has a virgin for mother, each, as the evangelist says, is the Son of God; but Adam is the creature of God, Christ indeed is His substance (Luke iii, 38, and i, 32). 5. Why Christ fasted in the desert. How perilous is the presence of a woman.
This therefore the Lord does, as the second Adam: that what the former man had lost by eating, this other might recover by fasting, and might keep in the desert the law of abstinence given in paradise. For He knew the precept of God to be the law not of a place, but of the world. For it makes no difference to the Godhead whether you keep the commandment at home or in the field; since He who commanded is everywhere. In the desert therefore the Saviour fulfils the command of God, that He might there preserve the erring Adam, where he had been cast out from the possession of paradise. For Adam, expelled from paradise, endured the uncultivated deserts of the world. In the desert, then, salvation is first restored to man, where banquets are lacking, where delights are lacking, where — what is the cause of all evils — the woman too is lacking.
For Adam could have stood unshaken amid those delights of paradise, if Eve had not been there with the diabolical snares. Fitting therefore is the desert for salvation, where there is no Eve to persuade, no woman to flatter. See a wondrous thing: in paradise the devil contends with Adam, in the desert the devil fights with Christ; everywhere he lies in wait for man, everywhere he joins battle: but where he finds the woman, he conquers; where he finds not the woman, he departs conquered. 4. A certain fasting and chaste body is a desert. God therefore gave us a form in this deed, that in the time of fastings, dwelling as it were in the desert, we should abstain from banquets, from pleasure, from woman; nor let Eve be joined
to us, lest she subvert us from chaste observance by alluring persuasion. For in some manner he is seen to dwell in the desert, who in the time of Lent is fasting and chaste. Plainly a certain desert is the very body of the Christian, when it is not filled with foods, nor watered with cups, but is neglected in parched hunger and squalor. A desert, I say, is our body, when the flesh withers with abstinence, pallor is drawn over it with thirst, and by contempt of things the whole appearance of the man grows unkempt and squalid. Then Christ the Lord inhabits the desert of our breast, when He finds our land squalid with hunger and dry with thirst; according to what the prophet David says:
As in a land desert and pathless and waterless, so in the holy place I appeared to you (Ps. lxii, 5). For otherwise we cannot appear to Him as in the holy place, unless the land of our body has been made a desert to worldly delights, pathless to diabolical concupiscences, and waterless to lustful allurements. Then the Saviour, dwelling in this desert of our body, overcomes there all the factions of the devil, and makes His dwelling secret and secure from the thoughts of the world: so that thenceforth we, set within ourselves as it were in solitude, should look upon nothing but heaven and earth; that is, we should think of no other than the Lord of the heavenly kingdom, and the Author of the earthly resurrection. SERMON 148. On Lent, IX. 1.
We must constantly labour at our own renewal. The operation of God and man is undivided. Why God gives commandments. The apostolic teaching, most beloved, admonishes us that, putting off the old man with his deeds, we should be renewed from day to day by holy conversation (Eph. iv, 22, 23). For if we are the temple of God, and the Holy Spirit is the inhabitant of our minds, as the Apostle says, For you are the temple of the living God (1 Cor. iii, 16); we must labour with much vigilance, that the receptacle of our heart be not unworthy of so great a guest. And as in houses made by hand it must be provided for with laudable diligence,
so that if any part of the fabric has decayed either by the pouring of rains, or by the whirlwind of storms, or by very age, so the hand of our Maker builds us up, that together with its Craftsman that which is repaired may also be adorned. Let human obedience therefore not withdraw itself from the grace of God, nor fail from that Good, without which it cannot be good; and if it finds anything impossible or arduous in the fulfilling of the commandments, let it not remain in itself, but have recourse to Him who helps: who therefore gives a commandment, that He may excite desire, and furnish aid, as the prophet says: Cast your care upon the Lord, and He Himself will nourish you (Ps. liv, 23).
Or does perhaps anyone so insolently grow proud, and presume himself to be so unharmed, so immaculate, that he now needs no renewal? That persuasion is utterly deceived, and grows old with excessive vanity, who amid the temptations of this life believes himself immune from every wound. 2. Life is full of perils. The perils of the just: the tongues of detractors, the scandal arising from the prosperity of the wicked. The stars have no power. All things are full of perils, all things full of snares; desires incite, allurements lie in wait; gains flatter, losses deter: bitter are the tongues of the gainsayers, nor are the mouths of those who praise always truthful. Hence hatred rages, thence a lying service deceives;
so that it is easier to shun a quarrelsome man than to escape a deceitful one. Yet in the very acquiring of the virtues the measure is so doubtful and the discernment so uncertain, that even if someone amid the borderlands of goods and greater goods could preserve the proportions of the most delicate distinction, it would still be hard for a probity conscious of its own uprightness not to be bitten by the tongue of detractors, or to escape the reproaches of the wicked, however dear justice may be to it. And when human thought turns to the very vicissitudes of temporal affairs, what dark clouds rise up against it, how many errors of perverse opinions spring forth, so that from the spectacle of contrary things material for complaints is taken!
For although the hearts of all the faithful do not doubt that in no parts and at no times of this world is the divine providence absent, nor that the outcomes of worldly affairs hang upon the power of the stars, which is nothing, but that all things are ordered by the most equitable and most merciful judgment of the supreme King — since, as it is written, 'All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth' (Ps. 24:10) — nevertheless, when certain things do not turn out according to our desires, and, under the error of human judgment, the cause of the unjust is very often superior to that of the just, it is all too near and close at hand that even great souls should be shaken by these things and be driven into some murmur of unlawful complaint.
Indeed, by these vicissitudes even that most excellent prophet David confesses himself troubled to the very brink of peril, and says: 'But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well-nigh slipped; because I was envious at sinners, seeing the peace of sinners' (Ps. 72:1–2). Wherefore, since so solid a fortitude belongs to few, that they are shaken by no disturbance of iniquities, and since not only adverse things but even prosperous ones corrupt many of the faithful, a diligent treatment must be applied to heal the wounds by which human weakness is injured. For this reason I shall briefly run through certain of the perils of which this world is full, so that, as Scripture says, 'Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?' (Prov.
20:9) — that all may understand that pardon for their offenses and the healing medicine of repair are necessary to them. 3. Penance is necessary for all. God is all-knowing. But when, most beloved, do we more opportunely have recourse to the divine remedies than when the very sacraments of our redemption are brought back to us by the law of the seasons? That we may celebrate them more worthily, let us most healthfully prepare ourselves by a fast of forty days. For not only those who are to be regenerated into a new life by Baptism through the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection, but even all the peoples of the reborn usefully and necessarily take upon themselves the safeguard of this sanctification: those, that they may receive what they do not yet have; these, that they may keep what they have received;
as the Apostle says, 'Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall' (1 Cor. 10:12). No one is propped up by so great a firmness that he ought to be secure about his own stability. Let us therefore make use, most beloved, of the venerable institutions of this most wholesome season, and with more anxious care let us cleanse the mirrors of our heart. For however chastely and soberly this mortal life be led, it is nevertheless sprinkled with a certain dust of earthly conversation; and the brightness of minds created after God's image is not so free from the smoke of all vanity that it can be soiled by no filth and does not always need to be burnished.
But if this is necessary even for the most cautious souls, how much more is it to be sought after by those who have perhaps passed whole years of their life either too securely or too negligently? These we admonish with the charity we owe, that they may not flatter themselves on this account, that the consciences of individuals cannot lie open to us; since the eye of God, who beholds all things at once, does not shut out the unheard-of things done in secret places nor the enclosures of hiding-holes; and to him are known not only things done and thought, but also things to be done and to be thought. This, then, is the knowledge of the supreme Judge, this is that dread gaze, to which every solid thing is passable and every secret is open; to whom dark things shine, mute things answer; silence confesses, and the mind speaks without a voice.
Let no one despise the patience of God's goodness because of the impunity of his own sins; nor let him reckon Him unoffended because he has not yet experienced Him wrathful. Not long is the reprieve of mortal life, nor is the license of foolish pleasures lasting — a license that is to pass over into the pain of eternal punishments, if, while the sentence of justice is suspended, the medicine of repentance is not sought. 4. How perilously the man greedy for vengeance prays. Mercy is at hand for the merciful. Let us flee, therefore, to the mercy of God, which is everywhere present; and that the holy Passover of the Lord may be celebrated with worthy observance, let the hearts of all the faithful be sanctified. Let savagery grow gentle, let wrath become mild;