On Elijah and Fasting 79–85

We are athletes; we compete in a kind of spiritual stadium. Indeed the good athlete said: 'We have become a spectacle to this world,' and elsewhere: 'So I run, not as uncertainly; so I strive, not as beating the air, but I chastise my body,' and elsewhere: 'Forgetting what lies behind and reaching for what lies ahead, I press toward the goal, toward the prize.' We are athletes, then; we must contend lawfully. There are many bouts, and he who is defeated today recovers himself tomorrow. First one strives for the prize, afterward for the crown. Does an athlete take leisure once he has given his name for the contest? He trains daily, is anointed daily. A competitor's diet is given him, discipline is required, chastity is kept. You too have given your name for the contest of Christ, you have enrolled for the competition for the crown: practice, train, be anointed with the oil of gladness, with ointment poured out. Let your food be the food of sobriety, having nothing of intemperance, nothing of luxury; let your drink be more sparing, lest any drunkenness creep in; guard the chastity of your body, so that you may be fit for the crown, lest your reputation offend the affection of the spectator, lest your supporters see you negligent and desert you. The archangels watch you, and the powers and dominions, and those ten thousand times ten thousand angels. Consider how shameful it is to blush before so many. When you have entered the stadium, rouse the vigor of your soul, shake out your arms. When you have advanced into the pit, you must take the dust and endure the burning of the summer sun. Heavy is the heat, but sweet the victory; troublesome the cloud of dust, but beautiful the endurance. No one enters the stadium dusty, but the contests make him dusty: dust is gathered where the palm is set forth. No one, again, is crowned clean; victory befits the dusty.

Come, then, Lord Jesus; let your crown come forth; send the victors to rest, the vanquished to compunction. Even if you lay waste the world, your invisible works are more than those we have seen. One of narrower mind does not see them and grieves that you lay waste the world; but one who knows how to look at what is invisible rejoices that you come and free all. The athletes rejoice who can say: 'Your kingdom come, your will be done, as in heaven so on earth.' The creation of the world will rejoice to be freed from the vanity of this world, which now groans and is in labor, because that creation too was subjected to vanity until the adoption of sons is multiplied and the redemption of the whole body is completed. For good, then, he will lay waste the world. For there will be a new heaven, and there will be no more night. Indeed, it says, he will unveil its face, so that with unveiled face we may behold the glory of Christ.

We notice, then, set in the stadium, how great a delight or grief we shall be to those who now support us, lest they begin to blush for us. For as there will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, so there will be sorrow over one who has finished the course of this life without obtaining pardon. Let us chastise our body, then, with fasts; let us flee unseemly revels. Let us beware lest it be said to us: 'Howl from wine,' lest Moses come and call the Levites. Let whoever is ready for the Lord bear an armed right hand and separate himself from those who by eating and drinking have contracted grave sins. And today Moses comes, when the law is read; Moses calls, when the law commands.

The apostle teaches that we should separate ourselves from every brother who walks disorderly. Let us strike him with the spiritual sword, which is the word of God. Let us not respect the person of brother or kinsman, but let us separate every unclean person from the altars of Christ, so that he may cleanse and correct his lapses and deserve to return to the sacraments of Christ.

But if anyone is not baptized, let him be converted with more confidence, receiving the remission of sins … like a kind of fire it consumes sins, because Christ baptizes with fire and the Spirit. Indeed you read this type in the books of Kingdoms, where Elijah put wood on the altar and told them to pour water on it from jars. And he said: 'Do it again,' and they did it again. And he said: 'Do it a third time,' and they did it a third time; and when the water was flowing, Elijah prayed, and fire came down from heaven. You are the man on the altar, who are washed with water, whose guilt is burned up so that life may be renewed; for fire consumes wood and stubble. Do not fear the fire by which you are enlightened. Therefore it is said to you: 'Come to him and be enlightened.' Take up the yoke of Christ. Do not fear because it is a yoke: hasten, because it is light. It does not crush necks but honors them. Why do you hesitate, why do you put off? It does not bind the neck with chains but joins the mind with grace; it does not constrain by necessity,

… Why do you say there is still time? Every time is fit for pardon. If I offered you gold, you would not say to me: 'I will come tomorrow,' but you would demand it at once. No one delays, no one excuses himself; the redemption of the soul is promised, and no one hastens. John baptized for repentance, and all Judea gathered; Christ baptizes in the Spirit, Christ dispenses grace, and people come with reluctance. Elijah showed a type of baptism and opened heaven, which had been shut three years and six months. How much greater are the gifts of the truth! It opened heaven, surely, not by rain coming down, but by grace going up; for no one goes up into the kingdom of heaven except through water and the Spirit. Faithlessness had shut heaven to men, but faith opened it.

This heaven was open to men before too: indeed Enoch was caught up to heaven. Again it was shut, but Elijah, who was caught up in a chariot, opened it. You too can ascend, if you obtain the grace of the sacrament. How long delights, how long revels? The day of judgment presses; while you put off grace, death draws near. Who would say: 'I have no time now, I am busy; do not show me the light; I do not want you to redeem me so soon; I do not yet need the heavenly kingdom'? Does not one who excuses himself from baptism say this? And with how great a grace you are renewed, O man! You are <purified> and not burned, healed and not pained, re-formed and not dissolved; you do not receive the stroke of death, and you rise again. And still you dissemble, still you wait to live for the world and keep yourself for God afterward? Do you not know that Cain's sacrifice displeased because he did not offer the first-fruits, but, having himself used the first-fruits, tried to offer God a gift from what came after; while Abel, preferred for his offering of first-fruits, deserved the mark of piety?