Augustine, Sermones 195-209 (Classis II, de Tempore)

are to be avoided. It is not the kinds of human foods that are to be detested, but carnal delight that is to be reined in. Esau was rejected not for a fat calf or fattened fowls, but for lentils immoderately craved (Gen. 25:30–34). Holy David repented of having desired water more than was right (1 Chron. 11:18–19). Therefore the body is to be restored after fasting, or rather propped up, not with elaborate or costly foods, but with whatever cheaper foods are at hand and set before it.

3. Let the prayer of one who fasts be free from cupidity and hatred. How prayer gives alms. In these days, by the supports of devout almsgiving and frugal fasts, our prayer is lifted up to the heights: because mercy is not asked of God shamelessly when it is not denied by man to man, nor is the serene intention of the heart of the one asking hindered by the cloudy phantasms of carnal pleasures. But let prayer be chaste, lest perhaps we wish for what not charity but cupidity seeks; lest we call down some evil upon our enemies; lest we rage by praying against those whom we cannot reach by harming or avenging. Certainly, just as we are made fit for praying by almsgiving and fasting, so also our prayer itself gives alms when it is directed and poured out not for friends only but also for enemies, and it 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 at due and suitable times by the taking of food: let us never delight it with such foods. Let it undertake these fasts perpetually: because it has a food proper to it, which it is commanded to take without intermission. Therefore let it always fast from hatred, let it always be fed with love.

Sermon CCVIII. In Lent, IV.

1. What Lenten abstinence ought to be. Delicacies are to be restricted, not exchanged. The solemn season has come in which we should admonish and exhort your Charity in the Lord: although the season itself, even if we were silent, sufficiently admonishes and exhorts you to be fervent in fasts and prayers and almsgiving more earnestly and more eagerly than usual. But the ministry of our sermon is added, so that by the trumpet of this voice too your spirit, which is about to fight against the flesh, may receive its strength. Let your fasts therefore be without quarrels, shouting, beatings: so that even those who are under your yoke may feel a remission that is cautious and kind; so that harsh severity may be reined in, not so that wholesome discipline may be dissolved. But when, for the sake of chastising the body, you abstain from some kind of food, even of foods allowed and lawful, remember that all things are clean to the clean: so that you do not think anything unclean except what unbelief has defiled. For to the unclean and unbelieving, says the Apostle, nothing is clean (Titus 1:15; Rom. 14:20). But clearly, when the bodies of the faithful are subjected to servitude, there accrues to spiritual

health, whatever is taken away from bodily pleasure. And therefore you must beware of seeking out costly foods, or 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 (1 Cor. 9:27), delights are to be restrained, not changed. For what difference does it make in what kind of food immoderate craving is blamed? Not indeed concerning meats alone, but also concerning certain fruits and products of tillage was the craving of the Israelites condemned by the divine voice (Num. 11:5, 33, 34). And Esau lost his birthright not on account of a morsel of pork, but on account of a dish of husked lentils (Gen. 25:30–34). Not to mention what the Lord, when He was hungry, answered the tempter concerning bread itself (Matt. 4:3–4): He was certainly not taming His own flesh as though it were rebellious, but was mercifully admonishing us what we ought to answer in such temptations. Therefore, dearly beloved, from whatever foods it may please you to abstain, remember to keep your resolution with devout temperance, not to condemn the creature of God with sacrilegious error. Whoever of you, moreover, are bound to spouses, now above all do not despise the apostolic admonitions, that you abstain from one another for a time, that you may be free for prayers (1 Cor. 7:5). For what is profitably done on other days too, it is exceedingly shameless if it is not done now. I think it ought not to be burdensome for married people to do on the solemn days, by a yearly observance, what widows have professed for a certain part of their life, what holy virgins have undertaken for their whole life.

2. The works of almsgiving are to be enlarged. A kind of almsgiving: to spare one's enemies. Now to increase almsgiving in these days is in a certain manner a matter of debt. For where do you more justly spend than in showing mercy what you take away from yourselves by abstaining? And what is more unjust than that what abstinence pays out less, abiding avarice should keep, or deferred luxury consume? Consider, therefore, to whom you owe what you deny yourselves, so that what temperance takes away from pleasure, mercy may add to charity. What now shall I say of that work of mercy in which nothing is spent from storehouses, nothing from the purse, but something is let go from the heart; a thing which begins to be harmful if it remains rather than if it departs? I mean anger kept in the heart against someone. And what is more foolish than to avoid an enemy outside, and to retain a far worse one in the innermost depths of the breast? Hence the Apostle says, Let not the sun go down upon your wrath; and straightway he adds, Neither give place to the devil (Eph. 4:26–27). As though he who does not quickly drive anger from his mind were doing this: that through it, as through a door, he affords entrance to the devil. First of all, therefore, it must be brought about that this sun does not go down upon anger, lest the Sun of justice desert the mind itself. But in whosoever's breast it has remained even until now, let at least the day of the Lord's passion, now very near, drive it out, the passion of Him Who was not angry with His slayers, for whom, hanging on the wood, He poured out both prayer and blood (Luke 23:34). In the breast of whichever of you, then, up to

these holy days it has persisted with a most shameless brow, now at least let anger depart from there (Eccl. 11:10), so that prayer may go forward secure, and may not stumble, or tremble, or fall dumb under the goads of conscience, when it comes to that place where one must say, Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt. 6:12). You are going to ask for something, that it may not be paid back to you, and for something, that it may be given to you. Forgive, therefore, and it will be forgiven you: give, and it will be given you (Luke 6:37–38). These things, brothers, even if I did not admonish you, you ought to attend to in continual meditation. But since our voice, the servant of so many divine testimonies, is helped also by the solemnity of the present day, I ought not to fear that any of you may perhaps despise me, or rather the Lord of all in me; but rather to hope that His flock, recognizing that what is said is His, may hear Him effectively, as one that is itself to be heard.

Sermon 209. In Lent, 5.

1. Enmities are to be ended by the observance of Lent. The three vices by which enmities live. The solemn season has come in which I should admonish your Charity to think more attentively about the soul and to chastise the body. For these are the forty days most sacred throughout the whole world, which, as Easter draws near, the whole world, which God is reconciling to Himself in Christ, celebrates together with a devotion worthy of praise. If there are any enmities, which either ought never to have been born or ought to have died quickly, and which nevertheless, whether through negligence, or through obstinacy, or through a shame not modest but proud, have been able to last among brothers up to this time, let them at least now be ended. Upon them the sun ought not to have gone down (Eph. 4:26); at least after many risings and settings of the sun, let them too at last finally be extinguished by a setting of their own, and never again be renewed by any rising. The negligent man forgets to end enmities; the obstinate man will not grant pardon when he is asked; the proudly ashamed man disdains to ask for pardon. By these three vices enmities live; but the souls in which they do not die, they kill. Let memory keep watch against negligence, mercy against obstinacy, humble prudence against proud shame. Let him who recalls that he has neglected concord shake off his torpor by waking up; let him who desires to be the exactor from his own debtor consider himself God's debtor; let him who blushes to ask that his brother forgive him overcome evil shame by good fear: so that, these harmful enmities being ended, so that, they being dead, you may live. All this charity does, which does not act wrongly (1 Cor. 13:4). Charity, my brothers, in so far as it is present, let it be exercised by living well; but in so far as it is lacking, let it be obtained by asking.

2. Prayers are to be supported by almsgiving. Now, so that our prayers may be helped by fitting supports, since in these days we ought to make them more fervent, let us also give alms more fervently. To these very [alms]

let there be added what is taken away from us by fasting and abstaining from our usual foods. And yet he who, on account of some necessity of his body and his habit of nourishment, cannot abstain ought to have them [the alms] more generous: [not] so as to add to the poor man what he takes away from himself, but he should give more to the poor man precisely because he does not take it away from himself; so that, since he is less able to help his prayers by chastisement of the body, he may enclose a more abundant alms in the heart of the poor man, which may pray for him. From the holy Scriptures this is a most wholesome counsel, and one to be embraced: Enclose, it says, alms in the heart of the poor man, and it will entreat for you (Ecclus. 29:15).

3. What kind of abstinence is to be undertaken. We also admonish those who abstain from meats not to shun as unclean the vessels in which they have been cooked. For thus the Apostle speaks when he says: All things are clean to the clean (Titus 1:15). For what is done in observances of this kind according to sound doctrine is done not for the sake of avoiding uncleanness, but of restraining concupiscence. Hence those too who so refrain from meats that they seek out other foods, both of more difficult preparation and of greater price, err greatly. For this is not to undertake abstinence, but to change one's luxury. How are we to tell such people to give to the poor man what they take away from themselves, by whom their usual food is given up in such a way that the expense is increased in procuring another? Be, therefore, in these days both fasting more frequently, and spending more sparingly on yourselves, and bestowing more generously on the needy. These days also demand continence from conjugal intercourse: For a time, says the Apostle, that you may give yourselves to prayer; and return again to the same, lest Satan tempt you because of your intemperance (1 Cor. 7:5). It is not arduous and difficult for married believers to do for a few days what holy widows have undertaken from a certain point of life until the end, and what holy virgins do for their whole life. And in all these things let devotion glow, let pride be repressed. Let no one so rejoice in the good of generosity that he loses the good of humility. Indeed all the other gifts of God are of no profit at all unless the bond of charity is present.