Sermons to the People 207.1–209.3

With the help of the mercy of the Lord our God, the temptations of the world, the snares of the devil, the toil of the world, the allurement of the flesh, the waves of turbulent times, and every bodily and spiritual adversity are to be overcome by alms, fasts, and prayers. Though these ought to be fervent in the Christian throughout his whole life, they should be so above all as the Paschal feast draws near, which by its yearly return rouses our minds, renewing in them the saving memory that our Lord, the only Son of God, showed us mercy, fasted, and prayed for us. For eleemosyna in Greek means mercy. And what greater mercy toward the wretched could there be than that which brought the creator of heaven down from heaven and clothed the founder of the earth with an earthly body; which made him who remains equal to the Father in eternity equal to us too in mortality, and laid the form of a slave on the Lord of the world; so that the Bread might hunger, Fullness thirst, Strength be made weak, Health be wounded, Life die? And this so that our hunger might be fed, our dryness watered, our weakness consoled, our iniquity extinguished, our love set aflame. What greater mercy than that the creator should be created, the ruler serve, the redeemer be sold, the exalter be humbled, the raiser of the dead be killed? Concerning the giving of alms we are commanded to give bread to the hungry; he, in order to give himself to us in our hunger, first handed himself over for us to those who raged against him. We are commanded to welcome the stranger; he came for our sake to his own, and his own did not receive him. Let our soul, then, bless him who is merciful to all its iniquities, who heals all its diseases, who redeems its life from corruption, who crowns it with compassion and mercy, who satisfies its desire with good things. Let us therefore practice our almsgiving all the more generously and all the more frequently, the nearer the day draws on which the alms bestowed on us is celebrated. For fasting without mercy is nothing to the one who fasts.

Let us fast also humbling our souls, as the day approaches on which the teacher of humility humbled himself, becoming obedient even to the death of the cross. Let us imitate his cross, nailing our tamed desires with the nails of abstinence. Let us chastise our body and bring it into subjection; and lest through untamed flesh we slip into unlawful things, let us, in taming it, withdraw from it somewhat even of lawful things. Dissipation and drunkenness are to be avoided on other days too; but on these days even permitted meals are to be put off. Adulteries and sexual immoralities are always to be abhorred and shunned; but on these days one must refrain even from one's spouse. Your flesh will readily obey you not to cling to what belongs to others when it has grown used to being restrained even from what is its own. Care must certainly be taken not to change your pleasures rather than reduce them. For you may see some people seeking out unusual drinks in place of their usual wine, and by pressing other fruits making up much more sweetly for what they deny themselves from the grape; seeking out foods other than meat in manifold variety and delight; and collecting, as if at the right season, delicacies that they would be ashamed to pursue at another time: so that the observance of Lent becomes not a repression of old desires but an occasion for new delights. Brothers, guard with all the vigilance you can lest these notions creep in on you. Let frugality be joined to fasting. Just as the belly's surfeit is to be chastised, so the stimulants of the palate are to be avoided. Not that kinds of human food are to be abhorred, but fleshly delight is to be reined in. Esau was rejected not for a fatted calf or fattened birds but for a lentil stew immoderately craved. Holy David repented of having desired water more than was right. So the body is to be refreshed, or rather propped up, after fasting, not with elaborate or costly foods but with whatever cheaper foods are at hand and set before us.

In these days our prayer is lifted on high by the supports of devout alms and frugal fasts: for mercy is not shamelessly asked of God when it is not denied by man to man, nor is the serene intent of the heart of the one asking hindered by the clouds of the phantasms of fleshly pleasures. But let prayer be chaste, lest perhaps we long for what greed seeks rather than what love seeks; lest we call down some evil on our enemies; lest we rage by praying against those whom we cannot harm or take vengeance on. Certainly, just as we are made fit to pray by alms and fasts, so our prayer itself also gives alms when it is directed and poured out not only for friends but also for enemies, and fasts from anger and hatred and from the most pernicious vices. For if we fast from foods, how much more should it fast from poisons? Finally, we are refreshed by taking food at due and fitting times; let us never feed our prayer with such fare. Let it undertake these fasts perpetually, because it has its own proper food, which it is commanded to take without ceasing. Let it, then, always fast from hatred and always feed on love.

The solemn season has come for us to remind and exhort Your Love in the Lord; although the season itself, even if we kept silent, sufficiently reminds and exhorts you to be fervent in fasts, prayers, and alms more urgently and eagerly than usual. But the ministry of our sermon is added, so that by the trumpet of this voice too your spirit, about to do battle against the flesh, may receive strength. Let your fasts, then, be without quarrels, shouting, and beatings; so that even those who are under your yoke may feel a relief that is careful and kind, so that harshness may be restrained, but not so that wholesome discipline may be loosened. And when for the sake of chastising the body you abstain from some kind of food, even what is permitted and lawful, remember that to the clean all things are clean: think nothing unclean except what unbelief has defiled. “For to the unclean and unbelieving,” says the Apostle, “nothing is clean.” But plainly, when the bodies of the faithful are brought into subjection, whatever is taken from bodily pleasure profits spiritual health. And so care must be taken not to seek costly foods, whether some in place of others, or even more costly ones without the flesh of animals. For when the body is chastised and brought into subjection, delicacies are to be restricted, not changed. For what difference does it make in what kind of food immoderate desire is blamed? It was not only for meat, but also for certain fruits and produce of the fields, that the craving of the Israelites was condemned by the divine voice. And Esau lost his birthright not for a dish of pork but for a dish of crushed lentils. Not to mention how the Lord, when he was hungry, answered the tempter concerning bread itself: he was certainly not taming his own flesh as if it were rebellious, but was mercifully showing us what we ought to answer in such temptations. Therefore, dearly beloved, from whatever foods you choose to abstain, remember to keep your purpose with devout temperance, not to condemn God's creation by sacrilegious error. And all of you who are bound to spouses, now above all do not despise the apostolic counsel to abstain from one another for a time, so as to be free for prayer. For what is usefully done on other days too, it is quite shameless not to do now. I think it ought not to be burdensome for married people to do on the solemn days of a yearly observance what widows have professed for a certain part of their life and holy virgins have undertaken for their whole life. [2] Now to increase alms in these days is in a way a matter of debt. For where can you spend more justly, by showing mercy, what you take from yourselves by abstaining? And what is more unjust than that what abstinence pays out by reducing, lasting avarice should keep, or enriched luxury consume? Consider, therefore, to whom you owe what you deny yourselves, so that what temperance takes from pleasure mercy may add to love. And what shall I say now of that work of mercy in which nothing is spent from storerooms, nothing from the purse, but something is released from the heart; something which begins to be harmful if it remains rather than if it departs? I mean anger kept in the heart against someone. What is more foolish than to avoid an enemy outside and keep a much worse one in the innermost heart? Hence the Apostle says, “Let not the sun go down on your anger,” and at once adds, “And do not give place to the devil”: as if whoever does not quickly drive anger from his mind does this, that through it, as through a door, he gives the devil entry. So first of all we must see to it that the sun does not go down on anger, lest the sun of righteousness desert the mind itself. But in whoever's breast it has remained until now, let at least the day of the Lord's passion, now near, drive it out: for he was not angry with his killers, for whom, hanging on the wood, he poured out both prayer and blood. In the breast of whichever of you, then, it has persisted with most shameless brow until these holy days, let anger at least now depart from it, so that prayer may go forth in security, and may not stumble, or tremble, or fall silent under the goads of conscience when it comes to the place where we must say, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” You are going to ask for something not to be repaid to you, and for something to be given you. “Forgive,” then, “and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.” These things, brothers, you ought to attend to in constant meditation even if I did not remind you. But since our voice, the servant of so many divine testimonies, is helped also by the celebration of the present day, I need not fear that any of you may perhaps despise me, or rather the Lord of all in me; I may rather hope that his flock, recognizing that what is said is his, will hear him to good effect, as he is to be heard.

The solemn season has come when I should remind Your Love to think more attentively of the soul and to chastise the body. For these are the forty most sacred days throughout the whole world, which, as Easter draws near, the whole world, which God is reconciling to himself in Christ, celebrates together with praiseworthy devotion. If any enmities, which ought either never to have been born or to have died quickly, have nevertheless been able to last among brothers until this time, whether through negligence, or obstinacy, or a shame that is not modest but proud, let them at least now be ended. On these the sun ought not to have gone down; at least after many risings and settings of the sun, let them too at last be extinguished by their own setting, and never again be renewed by any rising. The negligent forget to end enmities; the obstinate will not grant pardon when asked; the proudly ashamed disdain to ask for pardon. By these three vices enmities live; but they kill the souls in which they themselves do not die. Against negligence let memory keep watch; against obstinacy, mercy; against proud shame, humble prudence. Whoever recalls that he has neglected concord, let him wake up and shake off his torpor; whoever wants to exact payment from his debtor, let him think that he is God's debtor; whoever blushes to ask his brother to forgive him, let him overcome evil shame by good fear: so that, harmful enmities being ended and dead, you may live. All this love does, which does not act wrongly. Love, my brothers, so far as it is present, let it be exercised by living well; so far as it is lacking, let it be obtained by asking.

So that our prayers may be helped by fitting supports, since in these days we ought to make them more fervent, let us also pay out alms more fervently. Let there be added to them what is taken from us by fasting and abstaining from our usual foods. And whoever cannot abstain because of some need of his body and his habit of eating ought to give larger alms: not adding for the poor what he takes from himself, but giving more to the poor precisely because he does not take from himself; so that, since he is less able to help his prayers by chastising his body, he may shut up a more abundant alms in the heart of the poor, which can pray for him. For from the holy Scriptures comes this most wholesome counsel, to be embraced: “Shut up alms,” it says, “in the heart of the poor, and it will pray for you.”

We also remind those who abstain from meat not to avoid as unclean the vessels in which meat has been cooked. For so the Apostle says: “To the clean all things are clean.” For what is done in such observances by sound doctrine is done not to avoid uncleanness but to rein in desire. Hence those who so refrain from meat that they seek other foods, both harder to prepare and more costly, are much mistaken. For this is not to undertake abstinence but to change one's luxury. How are we to tell such people to give the poor what they take from themselves, when they give up their usual food in such a way that their expense is increased in procuring another? Be, then, in these days, more frequent in fasting, more sparing in spending on yourselves, and more generous in giving to the needy. These days also call for continence from marital intercourse: “For a time,” says the Apostle, “so as to be free for prayer; and come together again, lest Satan tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” It is not hard or difficult for the married faithful to do for a few days what holy widows have undertaken from a certain point of life until its end, and what holy virgins do for their whole life. And in all these things let devotion be fervent and pride be suppressed. Let no one so rejoice in the good of generosity that he loses the good of humility. All the other gifts of God are of no profit unless the bond of love is present.