Sermon 207

SERMO 207

In Lent

What greater mercy could there be from the Lord?

With the help of the mercy of the Lord our God, the temptations of the age, the snares of the devil, the labor of the world, the enticement of the flesh, the waves of tumultuous times, and all bodily and spiritual adversity, are to be overcome by alms, fasting, and prayers. These things must be fervent through the whole life of a Christian; especially as the solemnity of Easter approaches, which with its annual return awakens our minds; renewing in them the saving memory that our Lord, the only Son of God, showed mercy to us, fasted, and prayed for us. "Alms," indeed, is Greek for "mercy." For what greater mercy could there be upon the wretched than that which brought the creator of heaven down from heaven, and clothed the founder of the earth in an earthly body; him who, remaining equal with the Father in eternity, equated himself with us in mortality, took the form of a servant upon the Lord of the world; so that he, the bread, hungered, the satisfaction, thirsted, the virtue, weakened, the health, was wounded, and the life, died? But this was so that our hunger might be fed, our dryness watered, our infirmity consoled, our iniquity extinguished, our love might kindle. What greater mercy than that the creator be created, the Lord serve, the redeemer be sold, the exalter be humbled, the reviver be killed? We are commanded to give alms and give bread to the hungry; he, so that he might give himself to us who hunger, first handed himself over to those who rage against us. We are commanded to receive the stranger: he came for us into his own, and his own did not receive him. Bless our soul, indeed, him who has mercy on 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. Therefore, let us exercise our alms-giving all the more diligently and frequently, as the day on which the conferred alms are celebrated approaches nearer to us. For fasting without mercy is nothing to him who fasts.

Pleasures should be diminished, not changed.

Let us fast, also humbling our souls, as the day approaches on which the master of humility humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto the death of the cross. Let us imitate his cross, fixing our desires, tamed by the nails of abstinence. Let us chastise our bodies and subject them to servitude, so that we do not fall into illicit desires through an unchecked flesh, and let us deny ourselves even permissible things to this end. Gluttony and drunkenness must be avoided even on other days; but during these days, even permitted meals should be avoided. Adultery and fornication are always to be detested and fled from; but in these days, even relations with spouses should be tempered. Your flesh will easily obey you, not to cling to foreign things, it being accustomed to be restrained from its own. Certainly, one must take care not to change pleasures, not to diminish them. For you see some who, in place of their usual wine, seek unusual drinks and, from the expression of other fruits, make up for what they deny themselves from the grape with far more delicious things; they seek foods outside of meats with various varieties and delights; and the pleasures which at other times they are ashamed to follow, they conveniently gather up for this time: so, indeed, the observance of Lent is not the repression of old desires, but the occasion for new delicacies. Brothers, as much as you can, provide with vigilance that these things do not sneak in and persuade you. Parsimony should be joined with fasting. Just as the fullness of the stomach is to be chastised, so the irritations of the palate must be avoided. It is not human foods that are to be hated, but carnal delight that is to be restrained. Esau was rejected not for a fattened calf or birds, but for the lentil soup he desired immoderately. Holy David repented for desiring water more than he should have. Therefore, the body is to be refreshed, or rather supported, not with elaborate or costly foods, but with those which are at hand and more humble.

Always fast from hatred, always nourish prayer with love.

In these days, our prayer is uplifted to the heavens by the supports of pious alms and frugal fasts: for mercy is not shamelessly sought from God when it is not denied by man to man, nor is the serene intention of the praying heart obstructed by the cloudiness of carnal pleasures. However, let prayer be chaste, so that perhaps we may not wish for what greed, not what charity, seeks; let us not wish harm upon enemies; let us not, by praying, rage against those whom we cannot harm or avenge. Indeed, just as we become fit for prayer by almsgiving and fasting, so too does our prayer itself perform almsgiving when it is directed and poured out not only for friends but also for enemies, and it fasts from anger and hatred and the most pernicious vices. For if we fast from food, how much more from poisons? Thus, at appropriate and opportune times, we are refreshed by the consumption of food; let us never indulge it with such foods. Let this fasting be perpetual: for it has its own proper food, which it is commanded to take without interruption. Therefore, let it always fast from hatred, always be nourished by love.