The Time and Measure of Refreshment

So we should keep the observance of these days in such a way that the relaxation allowed is helpful rather than harmful to the good of body and soul. For the joy of no festival can blunt the goads of the flesh, and that fierce enemy of ours cannot be pacified by any respect for days. So that the customs appointed for festival seasons may be kept, and yet the most wholesome rule of abstinence not be exceeded at all, it is enough for us to let the permitted relaxation go this far: out of respect for the festival season, we take the food that ought to be taken at the ninth hour a little earlier, that is, at the sixth hour. But this is on condition that the usual amount and kind of food are not changed. Otherwise the purity of body and uprightness of soul gained by the abstinence of Lent may be lost by the relaxation of the Easter season, and it will profit us nothing to have acquired by our fast what careless overeating soon makes us lose. This is all the more so because our enemy, with his well-known cunning, attacks the stronghold of our purity chiefly when he sees that our guard over it is somewhat relaxed during the celebration of some festival. [a]

So we must keep the most vigilant watch that the vigor of our soul is never weakened by seductive flatteries, and that we do not lose, through the rest and carelessness of the Easter season, the purity of our chastity gained, as I said, by the continual efforts of Lent. And so no addition at all should be made to the kind or the amount of our food. Even on the greatest festivals we should abstain in the same way from the foods whose avoidance preserves our uprightness on ordinary days. Otherwise the joy of the festival may stir up in us a most deadly conflict of bodily desires and so be turned to grief, and put an end to that most excellent festival of the heart which exults in the joy of purity; and after a brief show of bodily joy we would begin to mourn our lost purity of heart with a lasting sorrow of repentance. We should also strive that this warning of the prophet’s exhortation may not be spoken against us in vain: “Celebrate your festivals, O Judah, and pay your vows.” For if the coming of festival days does not break the continuity of our abstinence, we will enjoy spiritual festivals continually, and so, when we rest from servile work, “there will be month after month and Sabbath after Sabbath.”