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CLAD, therefore, in these vestments, the soldier of Christ should know
first of all that he is protected by the girdle tied round him, not only
that he may be ready in mind for all the work and business of the
monastery, but also that he may always go without being hindered by his
dress. For he will be proved to be the more ardent in purity of heart for
spiritual progress and the knowledge of Divine things in proportion as he
is the more earnest in his zeal for obedience and work. Secondly, he should
realize that in the actual wearing of the girdle there is no small mystery
declaring what is demanded of him. For the girding of the loins and binding
them round with a dead skin signifies that he bears about the mortification
of those members in which are contained the seeds of lust and
lasciviousness, always knowing that the command of the gospel, which says,
"Let your loins be girt about, " is applied to him by the Apostle's
interpretation; to wit, "Mortify your members which are upon the earth;
fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence."And so we find in
Holy Scripture that only those were girt with the girdle in whom the seeds
of carnal lust are found to be destroyed, and who sing with might and main
this utterance of the blessed David: "For I am become like a bottle in the
frost," because when the sinful flesh is destroyed in the inmost parts
they can distend by the power of the spirit the dead skin of the outward
man. And therefore he significantly adds "in the frost," because they are
never satisfied merely with the mortification of the heart, but also have
the motions of the outward man and the incentives of nature itself frozen
by the approach of the frost of continence from without, if only, as the
Apostle says, they no longer allow any reign of sin in their mortal body,
nor wear a flesh that resists the spirit."
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