On the Fast of the Tenth Month, Eighth Sermon

When the Savior wished to instruct his disciples about the coming of God’s kingdom and the end of the world’s times, and to teach his whole church in the person of the apostles, he said, “Take care that your hearts are not weighed down with overindulgence and drunkenness and the cares of this life.” And certainly, dearly beloved, we recognize that this command applies more especially to us, to whom the day foretold is undoubtedly near, even though it is hidden. It is for that coming that every man must prepare himself, so that it does not find him given over to gluttony or tangled in the cares of this life. For daily experience proves, beloved, that the mind’s edge is blunted by overindulging the flesh, and the heart’s vigor is dulled by too much food, so that the pleasures of eating even work against the health of the body, unless reasonable moderation resists the temptation and the thought of the discomfort to come holds us back from the pleasure. For although the flesh desires nothing apart from the soul, and receives its sensations from the same source as its movements, it is still the work of that same soul to deny certain things to the body that is subject to it, and by its inner judgment to hold the outer parts back from what is out of season. It does this so that it may more often be free from bodily lusts, and have leisure for divine wisdom in the palace of the mind, where, away from all the noise of earthly cares, it may enjoy holy meditations and eternal delights in silence. And although this is hard to keep up in this life, the attempt can often be renewed, so that we may more often and for longer be occupied with spiritual rather than fleshly concerns; and as we spend ever greater portions of our time on higher concerns, even our temporal actions may end in gaining the riches that do not decay. [a]

This profitable practice, dearly beloved, is laid down especially for the fasts of the church, which, following the Holy Spirit’s teaching, are spread over the whole year so that the law of abstinence may be before us at all times. So we keep the spring fast in Lent, the summer fast at Pentecost, the autumn fast in the seventh month, and the winter fast in this, the tenth month. For we know that nothing stands apart from the divine commands, and that all the elements serve the Word of God for our instruction, so that from the very hinges on which the world turns we learn without ceasing, as if from four gospels, what to preach and what to do. For when the prophet says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky shows his handiwork; day to day utters speech, and night shows knowledge,” what is there through which the Truth does not speak to us? By day and by night his voices are heard, and the beauty of the things made by the workmanship of the one God never stops instilling the teachings of Reason into the ears of our hearts, so that “the invisible things of God may be perceived and seen through the things that are made,” and people may serve the Creator of all, not his creatures. Since, then, all vices are destroyed by self-restraint, and whatever greed thirsts for, pride strives for, or luxury lusts after is overcome by the solid strength of this virtue, who can fail to understand the help that fasting gives us? For in it we are told to restrain ourselves not only in food but in all fleshly desires. Otherwise it is wasted labor to endure hunger and yet not put away wrong wishes, to afflict oneself by cutting down on food and yet not flee from sinful thoughts. That is a fleshly fast, not a spiritual one, in which only the body is stinted, and those things are persisted in that are more harmful than all pleasures. What good is it to the soul to act outwardly as mistress and inwardly to be a captive and a slave, to give orders to the limbs and lose the right to her own freedom? The soul that does not pay God the service it owes usually meets with rebellion, and deservedly, in her own servant. So when the body fasts from food, let the mind fast from vices, and judge all earthly cares and desires by the law of its King. [b]

Let us remember that we owe love first to God and second to our neighbor, and that all our affections must be so ordered that they do not draw us away from the worship of God or from doing good to our fellow slave. But how will we worship God unless what pleases him also pleases us? For if our will is his will, our weakness will receive strength from him from whom the will itself came: “for it is God,” as the apostle says, “who works in us both to will and to do, for his good pleasure.” And so a man will not be puffed up with pride or crushed by despair if he uses the gifts God gave for God’s glory, and holds his inclinations back from the things he knows will harm him. For by abstaining from malicious envy, from luxurious and dissolute living, from the disturbances of anger and from the lust for revenge, he will be made pure and holy by true fasting, and will be fed on the pleasures of delights that do not decay. And so he will know how, by the spiritual use of his earthly riches, to turn them into heavenly treasures, not by hoarding for himself what he has received, but by gaining a hundredfold on what he gives. So we urge you, beloved, with a father’s affection, to make this winter fast fruitful for yourselves by generous alms, rejoicing that through you the Lord feeds and clothes his poor. He could certainly have given them the possessions he has given you, had he not, in his unspeakable mercy, wished to justify them for their patient labor, and you for your works of love. Let us therefore fast on Wednesday and Friday, and on Saturday keep vigil with the most blessed apostle Peter, and he will be pleased to support with his own prayers our supplications and fasts and alms, which our Lord Jesus Christ presents, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen. [d]