Daily Reading for March 29 • The Fifth Sunday in Lent
At all times and every day, dearly beloved, certain signs of the divine goodness are set up before us, and no part of the year is estranged from the holy mysteries, so that, while protections for our salvation meet us everywhere, we may always look more eagerly for the welcoming mercy of God. But whatever it is that is given in different works of grace, and in gifts for the restoration of human souls, all of it is now more clearly and more fully presented to us when things are not to be done one by one, but all are to be celebrated together.
When the Paschal Feast is nearing, we are in the great and holy fast, which announces its observance to the faithful without exception. None are so holy that they cannot be holier, none so devout that they ought not to be more so. Who is there, living in the uncertainty of this life, who is either immune to temptation or free from blame? Who is there who wishes to add no virtue or to remove no fault? Adversity harms us and prosperity corrupts us, and it is no less dangerous to lack what is desired than to be full of what is granted. There are snares in the abundance of wealth, there are snares in the distress of poverty; the former raises us to pride, the latter goads us into complaint. Health is a trial, infirmity is a trial, for the first is a reason of negligence, the second a cause of sadness. There is a trap in security, and a trap in fear, and it makes no difference whether the mind held by affections for earth is occupied by joys or cares, since the sickness is the same whether one is weakening under empty luxuries or suffering under anxious care.
From Sermon 49 of Leo the Great (21 February 443), quoted in The Fathers of the Church: St. Leo the Great, Sermons, translated by Jane Patricia Freeland, C.S.J.B. and Agnes Josephine Conway, S.S.J. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996).