TUESDAY.
Christ's Fasting.
(Matt. iv.; Luke iv.)
I. "And when He had passed forty days and forty nights, He was afterwards hungry." (Matt. iv. 2.) Christ joins fasting and mortification to His prayer in the desert, for prayers and mortification are two sisters that wish never to be separated. Prayer excites mortification, and mortification refines prayer as fire refines gold. In this manner, Christ's prayer " ascended from the desert, like a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh and frankincense." (Cant. iii. 6.) Endeavor to pray in such a manner that your prayers may ascend in so grateful a manner to the throne of God. Remember that " prayer is good with fasting and alms." (Tob. xii. 8.)
II. Our Lord observed this rigorous fast, at the commencement of His preaching, to teach His followers that the first act of a spiritual life, much more of an apostolic life, is to tame and subdue the sensual appetites. Hence the ancient Fathers ordained, as Cassian informs us, that the taming of these appetites should be the first lesson. which was to be given, for he who cannot master the palpable and grosser vices will not be able to subdue those which are of a more subtile and secret nature. Examine your conscience on this point, and ponder the expressions of the Wise Man: "He that loveth good cheer shall be in want; he that loveth wine and fat things shall not be rich." (Prov. xxi. 27.) The man who does not subdue his sensuality will always be spiritually poor.
