Page:Ninety-nine homilies of S. Thomas Aquinas upon the epistles and gospels for forty-nine Sundays of the Christian year (IA ninetyninehomili00thom).pdf/128



The Apostle does three things in these words—Firstly, he commands us that we should mortify the pleasure of the flesh, “ through the Spirit do ye mortify the deeds of the body.” Secondly, he places the necessity of mortifying it, “if ye live after the flesh ye shall die.” Thirdly, he places the profit of the mortification, “ye shall live.”

I. On the first head, it is to be noted, that in a threefold manner we ought to mortify the flesh. (1) By destroying its carnal desires and sin, Colos. iii. 5-10, “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth—fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry, for which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience ; in the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him.” (2) By macerating it by fasting and afflictions to the likeness of the passion of Jesus Christ, 2 Cor. iv. 10, “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.” (3) In afflicting it by spiritual meditations, Ecffles. xii. 12, “Much study is a weariness of the flesh.” Ecclus. xxxi. 1, “Watching for riches consumeth the flesh.” That is carnal pleasures ; the thought of it takes away sleep, i.e., the weariness of sluggishness. In the same chapter, v. 2, “ The thinking beforehand taketh away the understanding,” i.e., he who sees beforehand the rewards of gifts turns away sense—i.e., from all evil concupiscence; and heavy infirmity—i.e., of the body —makes the mind free from sin.

II. On the second head, it is to be noted that it is necessary we should mortify the flesh, since if we live after the