The Sermon on the Mount (Bossuet)/Day 28
Twenty-eighth Day
Of Fasting. — Matt. vi. 16-18.
JESUS CHRIST here joins the doctrine of fasting to that of prayer and almsgiving. These are three sacrifices that go together, as we find in a verse of the Book of Tobias: — Prayer is good with fasting and alms.[1] By alms, we sacrifice our possessions; by fasting, we -make our bodies into victims; by prayer, we offer to God our affections: — we may say, the purest incense of His own Spirit.
What is said here of fasting is like what has been said of prayer and alms: — that we must do it for God alone, and in His sight, without any thought of man. If, however, one has disedified the Church by neglecting due observance, it is right to give edification, unaffectedly, by repairing the neglect with stricter outward conduct. But this needs great precaution; and, in doing it, we must avoid ostentation as the curse of good works.
By ‘fasting' must here be understood all other austerities that are used to mortify the body. They must be carefully hidden. ‘Be not, like the hypocrites, sad.' ‘Anoint thy head and wash thy face.’ That is, we are to show meekness and joy to everyone; we are not to be like people who bear austerities impatiently, and who seem, by treating all those they come across harshly and irritably, as if they laid the blame of their sufferings on them. Austerity to ourselves ought to make us gentler and more docile: — to correct, and not to increase, bad temper. This is the meaning of ‘anointing the head and washing the face': they are acts typical of meekness and joy.
- ↑ Tobias xii. 8.