|
SERENUS: If we had this knowledge. or rather faith, of which I treated
above; viz., to believe that all things were brought about by God, and
ordered for the good of our souls, we should not only never despise them,
but rather pray without ceasing for them as our own members, and sympathize
with them with all our hearts and the fullest affection (for "when one
member suffers, all the members suffer with it"), as we know that we
cannot possibly be perfected without them inasmuch as they are members of
us, just as we read that our predecessors could not attain the fulness of
promise without us, as the Apostle speaks of them as follows: "And these
all being approved by the testimony of faith, received not the promise, God
providing some better thing for us that they should not be perfected
without us." But we never remember that holy, communion was forbidden
them; nay rather if it were possible, they thought that it ought to be
given to them daily; nor indeed according to the words of the gospel which
you incongruously apply in this sense "Give not that which is holy to
dogs," ought we to believe that holy communion becomes food for the
demon, and not a purification and safeguard of body and soul; for when it
is received by a man it, so to speak, burns out and puts to flight the
spirit which has its seat in his members or is trying to lurk in them. For
in this way we have lately seen Abbot Andronicus and many others cured. For
the enemy will more and more abuse the man who is possessed, if he sees him
cut off from the heavenly medicine, and will tempt him more often and more
fearfully, as he sees him removed the further from this spiritual
remedy.
|
|