Tuesday, March 4, 2014

St. Anthony Sermon - The Forty-Day Fast Of Jesus

The forty-day fast of Jesus Christ teaches us how we may make satisfaction for our sins, and how we may work so as not to receive the grace of God in vain. As the Apostle says in the Epistle:
"We exhort you that you receive not the grace of God in vain. For he(i.e. the Lord, in Isaiah) said: In an accepted time have I heard you and in the day of salvation I have helped you. Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." [2Cor 6.1-2; Is 49.8]
He receives the grace of God in vain, who does not live according to the grace he has been given. He receives the grace of God in vain, who imagines that the grace freely given him is due to his own merits; he receives in vain, who after confessing his guilt in the acceptable time, the day of salvation, refuses to do penance for his sins.

May all of our readers have a blessed and fruitful Lent~