In Quadragesima, I

Machine translation. This sermon has no published English translation in the public domain, so this rendering was made by software (Claude (Anthropic)). It is offered to make the sermon readable, not as a scholarly translation, and it has not been checked against the original by a human. The Latin text beside it is the sermon as it was actually printed.

1.

In the season of Lent the cross of chastising the body is to be taken up. A Christian ought to hang on the cross without a break. The cross of our whole life. Today we enter on the keeping of Lent, brought before us again in its solemn return: and on this day our exhortation too is owed to you as a solemn duty, so that the word of God, served up through our office, may feed in the heart those who are going to fast in the body; and so the inner man, refreshed with his own food, may be able to carry out the chastising of the outer, and to bear it more sturdily. For it fits our devotion that we, who are soon to celebrate the passion of the crucified Lord, now drawing near, should make for ourselves as well a cross for holding down the pleasures of the flesh, as the Apostle says: Those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires. On this cross the Christian ought to hang without a break through this whole life, which is led in the midst of temptations. For this life is not the time for pulling out the nails of which it is said in the Psalm: Nail my flesh with nails from the fear of you. The flesh means the desires of the flesh; the nails are the commandments of justice: with these the fear of the Lord nails the flesh down, and that fear crucifies us as a sacrifice acceptable to him. And so the Apostle says again: I beg you therefore, brothers, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God. This cross, then, on which the servant of God is not only not ashamed but even glories, saying, God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world — this cross, I say, is not a matter of forty days but of this whole life, which is signified by the mystical number of these forty days: whether because a man who is to lead this life is, as some maintain, formed in the womb in forty days; or because the four Gospels agree with the Law of ten commandments, and four times ten marks out this number and shows us that both sets of Scriptures are necessary to us in this life; or for any other more likely reason, which a better and clearer understanding may find. Hence Moses and Elijah and the Lord himself fasted for forty days: so that it might be impressed on us, in Moses and in Elijah and in Christ himself — that is, in the Law and the Prophets and in the Gospel itself — that this is what is being done with us: that we should not be conformed to this world and stick fast to it, but should crucify the old man, not living in feasting and drunkenness, not in beds and shameless acts, not in strife and rivalry; but let us put on the Lord Jesus, and make no provision for the flesh in its desires. Live here always like this, Christian: if you do not want to sink your steps in the mud of the earth, do not come down from this cross. And if this is to be done through this whole life, how much more through these days of Lent, in which this life is not only lived out but also signified?

2.

Works of devotion to be practised more fervently during Lent. On other days, then, let your hearts not be weighed down with over-eating and drunkenness; but on these days, fast as well. On other days, do not touch adulteries, fornications, and all forbidden corruptions; but on these days, abstain even from your wives. What you take away from yourself by fasting, add to what you pay out in alms. Let the time that was taken up in rendering the marriage debt be spent on prayers. Let the body that was loosened by fleshly affections be laid low in pure prayers. Let the hands that were tangled in embraces be stretched out in prayer. And you who fast on other days as well, on these days increase what you do. You who on other days crucify the body by unbroken continence, on these days cling to your God with more frequent and more intent prayers. All of you with one mind, all of you faithful in your faith, all of you in this journey sighing with longing for the one homeland and burning with love for it. Let no one envy in another a gift of God which he does not have himself, and let no one make fun of it. In spiritual goods, count as your own what you love in your brother; let him count as his own what he loves in you. Let no one, under the appearance of abstinence, aim at changing his luxuries rather than cutting them off — looking for costly foods because he does not eat meat, and unusual drinks because he does not drink wine — lest, on the pretext of taming the flesh, he should rather be doing the business of pleasure. To the clean, all foods are indeed clean: but in no food is self-indulgence clean.

3.

Above all we must fast from quarrels. Before everything else, brothers, fast from quarrels and disagreements. Remember the prophet reproaching certain people and crying out: In the days of your fast your own wishes are to be found, in that you goad all who are under your yoke and strike them with your fists; your voice is heard in shouting — and so on. And when he had mentioned these things, he added: This is not the fast I have chosen, says the Lord. If you want to shout, take up that shout of which it is written: With my voice I cried to the Lord. For that shout is not the shout of a quarrel but of love; not of the flesh but of the heart. It is not the sort of thing of which it is said: I waited for it to do judgement, and it did wickedness; and not justice, but shouting. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. These are the two wings of prayer, by which it flies to God: if a man pardons the offender for what has been done against him, and gives to the needy.