As summer gives way to fall, the world returns to a kind of stasis. By September, summer vacation has ended, students have returned to their studies, and the pace of work accelerates. The months ahead continue without major interruptions until Thanksgiving in late November.
The reality is much the same in the life of the Church. During the long stretch of Ordinary Time from July to November, there are fewer solemnities than other times to remind us of spiritual realities. While consistency in spiritual life is good, even necessary, stability brings the danger of sliding into laxity. The fifth-century Pope and Doctor of the Church, St. Leo the Great, knew this danger well. He cautioned the faithful in Rome that “it could happen, by chance, from the opportunity for more pleasant relaxations, that the habit of an agreeable life should fall into some faults of negligence.”[1]
Although in a routine we may be lulled into a spiritual slumber, St. Leo warned that “the interior human being, even if already reborn in Christ, has constant conflicts with the flesh. As long as people live through their growing years, they suffer in fighting against them. In this struggle, there is not easily obtained a victory so perfect that the things which should be broken may not still bind, and the things which ought to be slain may not continue to wound.”[2]
The devil exploits the very weakness of our flesh and never lets down his guard. Rather, “our adversary incessantly ensnares us with various arts of temptation.” The temptations offered to us are rarely harsh, but on the contrary pleasingly seductive.[3]
While certain periods of both the secular and the liturgical year seem to offer a stasis, it is not so in the natural world. The cosmos is always in motion. The cyclical movement of the seasons gives poetry to the world. As winter approaches, the leaves of the trees change color, the nights grow ever darker, and the weather grows ever colder. Nature never stands still.
To St. Leo and the ancient mindset, the changing of seasons was a form of divine instruction: “The elements of the world themselves serve to train souls and bodies to holiness. As the distinctly varied recurrence of days and months reveals certain pages of its rules to us, even the seasons are expressing clearly in a certain way what the sacred laws advise.”[4]
To this end, the early Church marked the seasons with fasts called Ember Days. According to St. Leo, these seasonal fasts had their roots in the Old Testament and were of Apostolic origin.[5] Traditionally, they were celebrated in mid-December, the first week of Lent, the week after Pentecost, and mid-September. The faithful would fast on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, and were encouraged to give alms and perform other works of charity. St. Leo dedicated much of his preaching to the Ember Days because they called Christians out of spiritual sloth to be vigilant spiritual warriors for Christ.
By participating in these penitential days, Christians would “fortify themselves against all the allurements of sin by the sanctification of self-restraint.”[6] Fasting is a particularly appropriate tool in our struggle with the flesh. Just as “the first cause of sin crept in from the enjoyment of food,” in fasting Christians restrain themselves from even lawful enjoyment to train their redeemed liberty, subduing their passions to the spirit, and their spirit to God.[7] As St. Leo says elsewhere, “As self-indulgence was the beginning of sins, self-control is the source of virtue.”[8]
In addition to subduing sinful passions and fostering virtue, fasting is also a useful weapon against evil spirits. According to St. Leo “The prayer of someone fasting pleases God and terrifies the devil.” To illustrate this point, he recounts that “on occasion, certain spirits of fierce demons have not been driven out of possessed bodies by any commands from the exorcists but have been expelled only through the power of fasting and prayer.”[9]
Through penitential acts, not only do we grow in virtue, but we work out our salvation[10] and are transformed in Christ. St. Leo admonished the faithful that “propitiation of God is sought by prayer, concupiscence of the flesh is extinguished by fasting, and ‘sins are redeemed by almsgiving.’”[11] In engaging in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, “the image of God is renewed in us.”[12]
While the Church no longer obliges us to keep the Ember Days, many Catholics, especially those who belong to the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter (Anglican Ordinariate) and those attached to the Traditional Latin Mass, choose to keep them. This year, we celebrate the September Ember Days on September 24, 26, and 27.[13]
Joining with others to celebrate these traditional days of fasting builds up the body of Christ and glorifies God.[14]The fifth-century Doctor teaches that when “the camp of Christian fighters” join in fasting, they become an unstoppable force, infuriating to the devil. “Although the watchful fury of the cruel enemy rages and spreads out hidden snares everywhere, he can take no one, he can wound no one, if he finds everyone armed, everyone active, everyone sharing in the works of mercy.”[15]
Therefore, if you find yourself in need of a revival, consider participating in this ancient fast of the Church. Join your prayers with the intercession of St. Leo the Great and use these three days as a retreat to break out of your everyday routine and reorient yourself to Christ with works of penance. And, if in these works of penance, we encounter difficulty, let us remind ourselves that God is the true “author of good deeds”[16] and that “the Lord also promises that the things which are impossible to human beings from their own feebleness are possible from divine strength.”[17]
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[1] Serm 81.3
All quotations are taken from St. Leo’s “Ember Day” Sermons, i.e. Sermons 12 – 20: De Jejunio decimi mensis; Sermons 78 – 81: De Jejunio Pentecostes, and Sermons 86 – 94: De Jejunio septimi mensis.
The translation is taken from St. Leo the Great, Sermons, trans. J.P. Freedland – A.J. Conway, Washington 1996 (Fathers of Church 93).
[2] Serm 90A.1
[3] Serm 88.1
[4] Serm 91A.1
[5] St. Leo went as so far as to allege that Ember Day was among the first things revealed to the Apostles at Pentecost. Cf. Sermon 81.1.
[6] Serm 81.1.
[7] Serm 81.1.
[8] Serm 71.1
[9] Serm 87.2.
[10] Cf. Phil. 2:12.
[11] Serm 12.4.
[12] Serm 12.2.
[13] Those in Personal Ordinariate to the Chair of St. Peter (Anglican Ordinariate) calculate the September Ember Days differently than was done in the Western Church prior to the Second Vatican Council. For the Anglican Ordinariate, September Ember Days are celebrated on the September 17, 19, and 20.
[14] Serm 88.4
[15] Serm. 88.2
[16] Serm. 79.4.
[17] Serm 90.2.
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