A Christian duty composed by B. Bernard Francis.

DISCOURS XXV. OF FASTING. And the Institution of Lent. (Book 25)

1. IF the Apostle S. Paul were now on earth he would bewaile extreamly the horrible blindness of those, who prefer the pleasure of their mouthes before the precept of the Church, and the Salvation of their soules: He would say to us what he sayd to the Philippians, there are many amongst you, of whom I weeping tell you, that are ene∣mies * 1.1 of the Cross of Christ, that abho••r all mortification of the flesh, that have the belly for their God, and shal have eternal dam∣nation for their end. for our fasts, are not things indifferent, or workes of supererogation: they are workes of precept and obligation.

Some will say to me, your fasts are not prescrib'd in Scrip∣ture: they are commandements of men: and therefore ob••ige not other in Conscience. But if a Dissenter should command his child a thing very profitable or necessary for his family: and his child should say to him: Father you are a man: the Comman∣dements of men oblige not in conscience; I find not In the Scrip∣ture, that God commands me to go to such a place, or to do such a thing; No, he wi••l say to him; But he commands thee to obey thy Father and thy Mother; So I say to you: It is not in Scripture, that you must fast such a day: that you keep su••h a holy day; But God commands you in ma∣ny * 1.2 places of the Scripture, to obey the Church your Mother. For the Apostle that sayd in the behalfe of God Children obey your Pa∣rents: the same sayd also, Obey your Prelates. If men have not power to command other men, nor to oblige them in Conscience:

whence comes it that JESUS-CHRIST sayd to his Apostles and * 1.3 to their successours. who heares you, heares me, and who despi∣ses you despises me. And to the people do all that they shal say to you. whence is it that JESUS-CHRIST hath sayd, He that heares not the Church esteeme him as a Pagan or a Publican: Whence is it that S. Paul said, He that resisteth Supe∣riour power, resists the ordinance of God, and they that resist it purchase to themselves damnation; But 'tis to resist Superior power, and to disobey the Church, not to observe the fasts which She commands; 'tis to transgress an Apostolical command, not to fast the Lent, when you have not a legitimate excuse: I say, Apostolical command.

2. And to prove this Verity, I might alledg many testimo∣nies of the ancient Fathers: but becaus JEUS-CHRIST does say, that we ought to give credit to two or three good Wit∣nesses, I will alledge the depositions of three or four, of three parts of the world, Africa, Europe, and Asia.

In Affrica Tertullian reports an objection which the Catholicks * 1.4 made against him, who would have had them to keep three Lents: the Apostles, sayd they, imposed no other Lent com∣mon to all, then that, in the time when CHRIST was taken from the Church his spouse by his death and Passion.

S. Hierome in Europe, speaking of the Novelty of the Mon∣tanists, says, they observ'd three lents, as if three Saviours had suffered: but we observe but one of them according to the Tradition of the Apostles. And the same holy Father writing to Marcella tels her the Ember dayes as well as the Lent were instituted by the Apo∣stles.

In Asia S. Gregory of Nazianzen, reprehending a Perfect na∣med * 1.5 Celusius, sayd to him, you dispensing with your self from fasting, do injury to the Lawes: how will you keep humane la∣wes, since you contemne divine.

4. You wi••l not thinke the precept of fasting too severe, if you consider the reasons which moved the Apostles to institute the Lent. It was first to commemorate and honor the retreat and the penance of our Saviour in the desert: to honor it, I * 1.6 say, by imitation, according to our power; For S. Paul says,

his servants must follow and imitate him, to be one day with him. In what must they follow and imitate him? Not in prea∣ching, and in working miracles: but in fasting or suffering for the love of him; his Apostle declares it in these ex∣press words: Let us shew, that we are the Ministers or servants of God by our fasts, our watchings, our labors, and other practises of * 1.7 vertue. Note, in Fasts, not in fasting once or twice a year, as many do when they form some designe, but many dayes, as our Saviour hath given us example.

In the second place the Lent was instituted for the conversion of souls; to purify our consciences from the ordure of sin by the practise of penance: and by this sanctification to dispose us to receive worthily the Eucharist. For the Prophet Ioel says, fasting conduces much to a true conversion: that it is one of the parts of penance convert your selves to me in fasting. * 1.8

The Lent is moreover fasted, to make the anniversary funerall of our Saviours death; But sorrow and funeralls are incompatible with good cheer: for the holy Ghost distinguishes and opposes them to one another:: It is better, says He, to go to the house of mourning, then to the house of banqueting.

4. S. Paul tels us that many have their Belly for their God; for this reason they are very eloquent and zealous to plead its cause: they fight for their God with many arguments; With some they would shew fasting to be superfluous or superstitious: with others, hurtfull or pernicious. If you are predestinated, will you not be saved say they, without your fasting? do you thinke God did expect your fasting to predestinate you? Answer, God did not expect our fasts, but He foresaw them and other good workes, for which He predestinated us to glory: or this He did predestinate, and this He does decree: that by these means we shal obtaine that end: not otherwise.

CHRIST fasted for you to deliver uou from this labor; Why do you then afflict your selves in vain by fasting, as if Christs fast did not suffice for your salvation, without your little fasts? Answer; CHRIST also would be baptised, and indeed for us, not for himself: and yet it follows not, that I ought not to be baptized: so though He fasted for me, yet I ought to fast by

his Example; He suffered for us, says S. Peter leaving us an exam∣ple, * 1.9 that we may follow his footsteps; and S. Paul, if we suffer with Him, we shal be also glorifyd with him.

Since you are resolv'd to fast, why do you not chose rather to fast voluntarily, than necessarily? Have you not read in the Psalmist, I will Sacrifice to you voluntarily? Answer: a fast com∣manded by the Church is better than that we take up by our own election; for this proceeds out of one vertue, to wit Temperance: that from two, Temperance and Obedience: And if a comman∣ded fast should proceed from obedience obly: yet it would be so much better, and more Excellent than the other, how much the ver∣tue of obedience is better than that of Temperance: Obedience is * 1.10 better than Victimes, sayd Samuel to Saul. And obedient Souls fast not as you suppose, unvoluntarily, with regret and sorrow: but vo∣luntarily, with alacrity and gladness.

5. The Epicurians, and the Advocats of self love urge, as they imagin, yet more forcibly: and to justify themselves make this remonstrance; We must love our bodys as well as our souls for God created both, and loves both, and wills that we do love them: But fasting and other austerities hinder sleep, punish the body and weaken it: prejudice health, and shorten life: and con∣sequently by fasts and other austerities, we act against the will of God, the law of nature, and are injurious to our selves.

Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he seem to himself wise, God Would have us to love our Body; True: but He wills us to love it truly; and to love it truly, is to procure it, by the means of fasting, prayer, and other exercises of vertue, true, perfect, and everlasting health. What does it profit the flesh. that You nourish it delicately, if you nourish it for hell? If you feed it so, that it becoms the fuel of eternal fire? would you not love it better if you curb it, and afflict it here a little with hunger and with thirst, to have it sound and glorious for all Eter∣nity? This is that which our Saviour says, Qui amat animam su∣am perdet eam: et qui odit in hoc mundo animam suam, in vitam E∣ternam * 1.11 custodit eam; He that loves this temporal life, and there∣fore permits not his flesh to be molested, nor afflicts it with fasting watching, and other vertuous labors, does not keep it to everlas∣ting life.

Fasting hinders sleep: I believe it: and it was also instituted to hinder too much sleep: that so you may have more time for prayer, spiritual reading, and other exercises of a Christian.

Fasting punishes and afflicts the body; I doubt not of it, if well practi∣sed; And do you thinke it was instituted for other purpose than to punish it; you will not then go to heaven if the way be not easy and pleasing to the flesh? if it be not strew'd with flowers and sweet herbs? And where then is the law of christi∣anisme, which is a law of mortification and of the Cross? And what will becom of these words of our Saviour: Strive to enter by the narrow gate? You say fasting does prejudice health and shorten life; The Church, the Canon law, good Phisitians, and experience * 1.12 say quite the contrary; the Church in the Collect of the first sa∣turday in lent says, this solemn fast was holily instituted for the health both of soul and body. And in the Decretalls of Gratian we read, that many who had infirmities, their goods being confis∣cated, and they reduced to poverty, so that they could not ma∣ke good cheer, were cured by this forced dyet. All good Phisi∣tians will tell you, that for one hurt by fasting, fifty are killed by eating and drinking: And Experience shews that the more ab∣stemious usually enjoy better health, and longer life.

It is true, that Fasting macerates and weakens bodys that are not well accustomed and hardned by it: But it strengthens souls and makes them reign: they are disposed by it to prayer and con∣templation: they please God by it, satisfy his justice, merit and impetrate of Him Benefits, temporal and eternal: The servant body then must indure theses paines and labours. by which accrew so many, and so great advantages to the lady soul nor does the Soul do injury to the body making it to fast, but much obliges it; She exempts it from punishments which it merited by rebel∣lions; for nothing appeases more the anger of God, nothing averts better the thunderbolts of his justice then fasting and other macerations of the body, which proceed out of true conversion and compunction of heart: Witness the Ninivites.

It is doplorable▪ that they who glory in the name of Christians have not so much sight and judgment, as those poor Pagans; the Son of God hath reason to say, that they shal rise in judgment and

condemn them; Ionas sayd not to the Ninivites, fast, put on hair-cloth, do pennance, but only fourty days and Ninive shal be subverted: and yet Pagans as they were, had the light to know, that to appease God, it was necessary to fast, and to do penance; they published a fast so general and severe, that all from the greatest to the least, from the eldest to the youngest, also bruit beasts, fasted three days and nights without any meat or drink: Should the Church command such a fast, how would they cry-out against her? but he Creatour approv'd this Edict, and pardoned the sins of those that had so fasted.

6. To be short: if austerities be unlawfull and forbidden: we must condemn all the ancient Anchorets, and a great part of the primitive Christians who fasted almost daily in bread and water, through the Spirit of penance and mortification; we must con∣demn the Religious of the present Church, who weaken their bodys by the exercises of penance; We must condemn our Sa∣vior who fasted, and spent whole nights in prayer upon mount olivet, to give us example; we must condemn the holy Ghost. who exhorts us by the Apostle earnestly, to shew that we are the Ministers or servants of God, by Patience, by Watchings: * 1.13 and fastings, by longanimity and sweetness, by the sincerity of our words, by chastity, and by cordial charity.

7. These are the vertues and dispositions which ought to accompany our fasts. They who have not health or strength for the one, ought to addict themselves with more zeal to the practise of the other, shewing that they are the faithfull servants of God, and true Children of the Church.

By much patience. You say you cannot fast because you are big with child, or you are a nource. And well says S. Chrysostome, God excuses you from this fast; But He requires another of you: * 1.14 which is that you abstain from anger; this abstinence will do no hurt to the fruit you bear; on the contrary, the too ardent Passion by which you are transported, may hurt it much, and make it to dye without Baptisme.

By longanimity and sweetness; If God say to you in judgment, why have you not fasted? if you answer: I had a great we∣akness of stomake, a continual and great giddiness of my head

when I fasted; And well: if you say true, God will admit of this excuse. But what will you answer, when He will reply: why have you not pardoned your ennemie? Why have you not thrown that hatred out of your heart? which filled you with gall and betterness? One sweet word sayd to salute your neighbor, and to gain his heart, would it have burnt your mouth, or caused dizziness in your head?

By sincerity of words? you are sick: they command you to eate flesh; obey your Phisitian and Confessor; but eate not that flesh which is forbidden you. I fear I shal see one day, that many eate flesh in the Lent: not boyled, but raw, and also hu∣mane flesh, by calumny, and detraction: it is the Scripture that speaks so: the harmfull approach upon me, and eate my flesh, sayd the Royal Prophet. And holy Iob, why do you persecute me. * 1.15 and are filled with my flesh? They make a conscience to put their teeth into a piece of dead flesh, and they make no scrupule to tear with their tongue the living flesh of their neighbor by calumnies and murmurations, which is wors.

By Chastity; fast not only with the mouth; for it is not the mouth only that offends God; make all the members of your body to fast. Impure looks. touches, lacivious thoughts and de∣lectations are carnal meats; these are prohibited in all times, and chiefly in the Lent; he that fasts not commits but one or two sins a day: but he that consents to dishonest thoughts com∣mits sometimes more than ten.

By cordial Charity; The holy Fathers say fasting is not only insti∣tuted to punish the body, but also that we may have more me∣ans and leasure to give alms, to viset sick, and to practise other workes of charity: fiat refectio pauperis abstinentia jejunantis. Either you fast or not: if you fast, you should give to the poor what you would spend in a supper; if you do not fast, seeing you honor not God by abstinence, honour him by mer∣cy corporal, or spiritual. We ought to fast so in charity towards our neigbor; We must fast in charity also towards God, and not for terrene and temporal Ends.

8. The Son of God says to us, When you fast, wash your face * 1.16 that is to say, purify your intention; Make not a fast of Gallen,

to be well and in good health: nor the fast of the Avaricious, to spare the purse: but the fast of a Christian, to obey the Church: to have more means to give alms, more leasure to practise good works: the spirit more free to pray: to satisfy the justice of God: to make the funerall of our Saviours death: to dispose our selves to communion: to honor and imi∣tate the fast of JESUS in the desert; so having accompanied Him in his penance and fast on earth, we may merit to be sa∣tiated by the torrent of pleasure with him in heaven. Amen.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Philip. 3. 18.
• * 1.2

  Ephes. 6. Coloss. 3. 20. Heb. 13. 17.
• * 1.3

  Luke 10. 16. Matth. 23. 2. Matt. 18 17. Rom. 13. 2
• * 1.4

  de Ieiu∣nio C. 1. 3. 13. cont. Psychicos
• * 1.5

  Epist. 74
• * 1.6

  Rom. 8. 26.
• * 1.7

  2. Cor. 6. 6.
• * 1.8

  Ioel. 2. 14.
• * 1.9

  S. Peter 1. 2. Rom. 8. 17.
• * 1.10

  I. Kings 15. 22.
• * 1.11

  1. Iohn. 12.
• * 1.12

  Quicqd Etc. legi¦mus de Consecra. dist. 5.
• * 1.13

  2. Cor. 6. 6.
• * 1.14

  S. Chry••. hom. 22. ad pop.
• * 1.15

  Psal. 26. 2.
• * 1.16

  Matt 6. 18.