Sunday, July 23 : Homily attributed to Saint Macarius of Egypt

If someone kneads bread without mixing leaven into it, they may well apply themselves to the task, knead and work at it, the dough will not rise and can’t be used as food. But when leaven has been mixed in it draws all the dough to itself and makes it all rise, as in the parable the Lord applied to the Kingdom… It is the same with meat: no matter how much care you take, if you neglect to put in salt to preserve it,… it will smell bad and become uneatable. In the same sort of way, imagine the whole of humanity as meat or dough and that the divine nature of the Holy Spirit is salt and leaven from another world. If the heavenly leaven of the Spirit and good salt of the divine nature… are not added to our lowly human nature and mixed into it, the soul will never lose its bad odor of sin and will not rise by losing the heaviness and impurities of the “leaven of wickedness” (1Cor 5,7)… If a soul only relies on its own strength and thinks itself able to achieve complete success of itself, without the help of the Holy Spirit, it is greatly deceived. It is not made for the dwelling places of heaven nor made for the Kingdom… If sinful man does not draw near to God, does not renounce the world, does not await in hope and patience a good that is foreign to its own nature, namely the strength of the Holy Spirit; if the Lord does not instil his own divine life from on high into that soul, that person will never taste the true life… On the other hand, if he has received the Spirit’s grace, if he does not turn away from it, if he does not offend him by his negligence and wrongdoing, if, after persevering a long time like this in the fight, he does not “grieve the Spirit” (Eph 4,30), he will have the happiness of winning eternal life.
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team