A reflection from Pope St Leo the Great – Sermon 46: The right practise of abstinence is needful not only to the mortification of the flesh but also to the purification of the mind; we desire your observance to be so complete that, as you cut down the pleasures that belong to the lusts of the flesh, so you should banish the errors that proceed from the imaginations of the heart.
For he whose heart is polluted with no misbelief prepares himself with true and reasonable purification for the Paschal Feast, in which all the mysteries of our religion meet together.
For, as the Apostle says, “all that is not faith is sin” (Romans 14:23); the fasting of those will be unprofitable and vain whom the father of lying deceives with his delusions, and who are not fed by Christ’s true flesh.
As then we must with the whole heart obey the Divine commands and sound doctrine, so we must use all foresight in abstaining from wicked imaginations.
For the mind then only keeps holy and spiritual fast when it rejects the food of error and the poison of falsehood, which our crafty and wily foe plies us with more treacherously now, when by the very return of the venerable Festival, the whole church generally is admonished to understand the mysteries of its salvation.
For he is the true confessor and worshipper of Christ’s resurrection, who is not confused about His passion, nor deceived about His bodily nativity. This reflection initially appeared in the “Devotional” section of the February 2024 edition of the Catholic Herald magazine.
The pontificate of Pope Leo I spanned the middle of the fifth century (440-461), notes the Vatican. It was an era marked by great disturbances, both in the world and in the Church. One of the most famous events in his papacy occurred in the year 452, when the whole of the Italian peninsula was trembling in the face of invasion by Attila the Hun. Leo headed a delegation to persuade Attila to withdraw his forces. According to a later legend, during the negotiations, Attila had a vision of the Apostles St Peter and St Paul, carrying drawn swords, and threatening Attila if he dared to attack the city of Rome. The story can be seen portrayed in the Apostolic Palace, in frescoes by Raphael.
Photo: Pope St Leo the Great (Credit: Wikimedia Commons.)
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