Transcript

The Word of God feeds your mind as you set about fasting in the body. And in this way, the inner self, nourished by its proper food, may undertake the chastisement of the outer, and sustain it all the more stoutly. It goes well with our devotion, after all, that as we are very soon going to celebrate the Passion of the Crucified Lord we should also make a cross for ourselves out of the curbing of the pleasures of the flesh to ensure that we aren’t conformed to this world and don’t cling to it. If you don’t want your footsteps to sink in the earthly quagmire, don’t come down from this cross. What you deprive yourself by fasting, add by being generous to the alms you give. All of you be of one mind and heart. All of you, faithfully faithful. All of you in this time of exile and wandering, full of heartfelt sighs and fervent love for the one, common home country. See to it that none of you envies, none of you mocks in another the gift of God which you don’t have in yourself. Before everything else, brothers and sisters, fast from quarrels and discord. If you want to shout, use the kind of shouting about which it says, “With my voice I shout to the Lord.” That indeed is not a shout of quarreling, but of loving. Not of the flesh, but of the heart. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given you. These are the two wings of prayer on which it flies to God if you pardon the offender what has been committed and give to the person in need.