Homily On The Beginning Of The Holy
Season Of Lent
(On fasting)
By John Chrysostom
I arose this morning
with more than the usual enthusiasm since I wanted to become a herald for you
of the approach of Lent — the
medicine, I might say, for your souls. Like a loving father, you see, the
Lord of us all, in his desire that we be cleansed of the sins we have committed
with the passing of time, desired a remedy for us through holy fasting. So let no
one be gloomy, no one look sullen, but exult and be glad, and glorify the
guardian of our souls, who shows us the best way, and welcome with great joy
his approach.
Let the pagans be ashamed and the Jews dismayed to see the
love revealed by our welcoming the approach of this season with such
excitement, and let them learn through the experience of these things the
extent of the difference between them and us. Let them designate as
their feasts and festivals, drunkenness and all other kinds of licentious and
shameful behavior, which is typical of them to wallow in, but let the church of
God, unlike them, identify feasts with fasting, neglect of the appetite and all
the virtues that accompany it. This,
in fact, is a true feast, where there is saving of souls, where there is peace
and harmony, where the harsh realities of daily life are missing, without
tumult and din and the antics of good cooks and slaughter of brute beasts.
Utter rest and quiet, love and joy, peace and gentleness, and a thousand other
good things are the order of the day in place of that other behavior.
It
is not, after all, idly and to no purpose that we have come here, for one
person to do the talking and the other simply to applaud what is said, and so
for us to off home. Instead, it is for me to utter something useful and
relevant to your salvation, and for you to profit from what is said and so to
leave here for home after gaining much benefit. The church, you see, is a pharmacy of the spirit, and those who come
here ought to acquire some appropriate remedies, apply them to their own
complaints, and go off the better for it.
I mean, blessed Paul
confirms this, that mere listening without showing practical response is of no
value, when he says: “It is not, after
all, the listeners to the law who are at rights with God, but doers of the law
who are set at rights.” Christ, too, in his preaching said: “Not everyone saying to me, Lord, Lord, will
enter the kingdom of Heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father in
Heaven.” Accordingly, dearly beloved, since we know that no benefit
comes to us from listening unless it is brought to its completion in the good
works that follow, let us not be listeners only but doers, so that the works
following the words may be for us grounds for confidence.
I
know, of course, that what I say today will strike many of you as novel.
I beg you, however, not to let ourselves heedlessly become the slaves of habit,
but let us subject these matter affecting ourselves to the process of
reason. After all, do you get any benefit from daily gluttony and extreme
indulgence? Far from benefit, all you get is harm and intolerable
damage. You see, whenever reason becomes sodden through drinking to
excess, immediately the benefit gained from fasting is wiped out without
trace. I ask you: what could be more distasteful, what more unseemly than
people quaffing wine right up till midnight, up to the dawning of the first
rays of the rising sun, reeking to high heaven from drinking all that wine, a
disagreeable spectacle to people they meet, an object of contempt to their
household, the laughing stock of all who have some little idea of correct
behavior and in the eyes of everyone when they draw on themselves the
displeasure of God through this extreme intemperance and ill-timed, mindless
indulgence. “Drunkards,”
scripture says, “will not inherit the
kingdom of God.”
God
forbid that anyone of you gathered here should be overcome by that weakness.
May you instead celebrate each day as it comes with restraint and sobriety, and
be free of the storms and tempests that indulgence is accustomed to cause, and
thus reach the harbor of your souls — I mean fasting — so as to be in a
position to gain its advantages in abundance. I mean, just as indulgence
proves to be cause and promoter of countless evils for the human race, in like
manner fasting and neglect of appetite have invariably proved the cause of
innumerable benefits to us. God, you remember in forming human beings in
the beginning, knew that they had particular need of this remedy for the
salvation of their souls, and so from the outset he gave the first human
creature this command: “From all the
trees in the garden you are to eat your fill, but from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil do not eat.” That text about eating and
not eating refers figuratively to fasting.
Although man was
obliged to keep that command, he did not do so: overcome by intemperance and
guilty of disobedience, he incurred a sentence of death. When the devil,
as you remember, evil spirit and enemy of our nature as he is, saw the first
human being living in the garden, how his life was carefree and how he lived on
Earth in bodily form yet like an angel, he wanted to trip him up and dislodge
him with the hope of greater promises, and so he cheated him of the possession
of what he had. This is the extent of the evil of not keeping within
proper limits but aspiring to greater heights. A wise man has made this
clear in the words: “Through the
devil’s envy death entered the world.” Do you see, dearly beloved,
how from the beginning it was from intemperance that death had its entry?
Notice likewise that later, too, sacred scripture repeatedly accuses
indulgence, in one place saying, “The
people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to entertain themselves:” in
another, “He ate and drank, grew fat and
heavy and for his love returned him scorn.” The inhabitants of Sodom,
too, brought that implacable anger upon themselves from this sin, not to
mention their other faults. Listen again to the words of the prophet, “This was the sin of the Sodomites;
indulgence amid plenty.” In short, it crops up repeatedly like some
fount of source of every evil.
Do you now recognize the harm caused by
intemperance? Look in turn at the instances of good behavior due to
fasting. The great Moses, after keeping his fast for forty days, was able
to get the tablets of the law; and when he came down from the mountain and saw the
people’s sin, the tablets which he had been successful in obtaining through
such intercession he threw down and smashed, thinking it was preposterous that
an indulgent and sinful people should receive laws of the Lord’s own
making. Accordingly, that remarkable prophet had again to undergo forty
days of fasting so as to be able to receive again tablets like the ones he had
broken through the people’s sin, and bring them down the mountain.
The great Elijah, too,
underwent a similar period of fasting, escaping the power of death and going up
as it were into Heaven with a fiery chariot, and to this day he has not
experienced death. Likewise Daniel, passionate man though he was, spent
many days fasting and received as recompense an awesome vision so that he tamed
the fury of the lions and turned them into the mildest of sheep, not by
changing their nature but by diverting their purpose without loss of their
ferocity. The Ninevites made use of this remedy, too, and won from the
Lord a reprieve, ensuring that animals as well as human beings should apply the
remedy and so abstain each of them from evil practices; thus, they won the
favor of the Lord of all.
We could list many
other examples celebrated in both Old and New Testaments — but why refer to
servants when we should come to the case of the common Lord of us all?
Our Lord Jesus Christ, you know, himself underwent fasting for forty days, and,
thus prepared, he entered his contest with the devil, giving us an example that
through fasting we should arm ourselves and by acquiring strength from that
exercise we should come to grips with that formidable enemy.
At
this point, however, someone who looks critically at things and keeps his
faculties alert may perhaps post the question: why is the Lord seen to fast for
the same number of days as his subjects, and why did he not surpass that
number? It was not idly or to no purpose that this happened, but
according to the Lord’s own wise purposes and his loving kindness. I
mean, in case it would appear that he had simply come on Earth without taking
flesh and becoming a human being except in appearance, he fasted for the very
same number of days to make this point, not adding any days, so as to curb the
rivalry of people wanting to act unrestrainedly. You see, if there are
still those rash enough to speak this way even when the Lord acted as he did,
what would they not have attempted to say if he had not in his providence
robbed them of any pretext? So he resisted the temptation to fast for a
longer period of days than his subjects; thus he taught us a lesson, that he
has taken the human condition on himself and is not living apart from our human
situation.
Since
it is now clear to you from the example both of the Lord and his subjects that
the value of fasting is considerable, and that great benefit accrues to the
soul from it, I beg you, my dear people, now that you know its benefit not to
resist its saving power through indifference nor lose heart at its approach,
but rejoice and be glad, as blessed Paul says, “The more our external selves are destroyed, the more the inner person
is renewed.” Fasting is nourishment for the soul, you see, and just
as bodily nourishment fattens the body, so fasting invigorates the soul,
provides it with nimble wings, lifts it on high, enables it to contemplate
things that are above, and renders it superior to the pleasures and attractions
of this present life.
And just as the
lightest ships cross the seas more rapidly whereas those weighed down with much
cargo take on water, in like manner fasting leaves the faculty of reason nimble
and enables it to negotiate the problems of life adroitly and fly to Heaven and
the things of Heaven, despising the things of this life as being no less
evanescent than shadows and dreams. Indulgence and intemperance, on the
other hand, weigh down our reason, fatten the body, and shackle the spirit,
hemming it in on all sides; they deprive the judgment of reason of any
dependability, inducing it to follow dangerous courses, and thus work in every
way against our salvation.
Let
us not be careless, dearly beloved, in dealing with matter concerning our
salvation; recognizing instead the troubles that could come from that evil
source, let us avoid the harm it produces. After all, we are warned
against intemperance not only in the new dispensation by its greater attention
to right thinking, its more frequent struggles and greater effort, its many
rewards and ineffable consolations. Not even people living under the old
law were permitted to indulge themselves in that way, even though they were
sitting in the dark, dependent upon tapers, and brought forward gradually into
the light, like children being weaned off milk. Lest you think I am idly
finding fault with intemperance in what I say, listen to what the prophet says:
“Woe to those who fall on evil days in
sleeping on beds of ivory, luxuriating on their couches, living on a diet of
goats picked from the flocks and suckling calves from the herds, and drinking
strained wines, anointed with precious unguents — like men treating this as a
lasting city, and not seeking one to come.”
Do you see the heavy
accusation the prophet levels against intemperance in charging the Jews with
these faults of stupidity, sensuality, and daily gluttony? I mean, note
the accuracy of the words: after attaching their gluttony and their drinking to
excess, he added, “like men treating this
as a lasting city, and not seeking one to come,” all but stating that their
satisfaction got as far as lips and palate, and they went on to nothing better.
Pleasure, however, is brief and fleeting, whereas pain never lets up and
has no end. The truth of this comes from experience, the true meaning of
lasting realities — “like men treating
this as a lasting city” — and fleeting things — “not seeking one to come” — that is, not lasting for a moment.
All
human and carnal things, after all, are of this kind like pleasures, human
glory and power, like wealth and all the prosperity of this present life; these
things have nothing firm about them, nothing steady, nothing fixed, but shift
more rapidly than the currents of a river, leaving naked and desolate those
swept along in them. Spiritual things, on the other hand are not like
that — quite the opposite, in fact: firm and immovable, not subject to change,
lasting forever. What folly, then, would it be to exchange the immovable
for the tottering, the permanent for the passing, the enduring for the
fleeting, what promises to give joy in eternity for what offers us terrible
punishment there?
Considering
all this, therefore, dearly beloved, and placing great store on our salvation,
let us despise intemperance as mindless and harmful, let us embrace fasting,
and right attitudes along with it; let us display a renewed lifestyle, and
address ourselves daily to performance of good deeds. In this way, having
spent all the holy season of Lent dealing in spiritual goods and amassing great
wealth of virtue, we would thus merit to arrive at the day of the Lord and
approach with confidence that awesome spiritual banquet, and with conscience
pure share in those ineffable and immortal goods, being filled therefrom with
grace and with the prayers and intercessions of those well-pleasing to Christ,
our loving God, to whom the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory, power, and
honor, now and forever, for ages of ages.
Amen.
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