Friday, February 16 : Saint Maximus of Turin

Following this time consecrated to the observance of fasting, the soul comes to baptism, purified and exhausted. But it regains strength through being submerged in the waters of the Spirit. Everything in it that had been consumed by the flames of its ills is born again from the dew of heaven’s grace. Abandoning the corruption of the old man, the neophyte gains fresh youth… By a new birth he is reborn another person although he is the same as the one who sinned. Elijah merited, through an uninterrupted fast of forty days and forty nights, to end a long, hard drought over the whole earth thanks to water from heaven; he quenched the ground’s burning thirst by bringing it a heavy rain (1Kgs 19,8; 18,41). These events came about as an example for us all that we might merit, after a forty day fast, the blessed rain of baptism, so that water from heaven might sprinkle all the earth, for so long arid amongst our brethren in all the world. By a fast of the same number of days and nights, holy Moses merited to speak with God, to remain and stay with him and receive from his hands the commandments of the Law (Ex 24,18)… So let us, too, my dearest brethren, fast fervently throughout this time so that… the heavens may open for us too, and hell be shut.
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team