Reading: Lenten Weekday

On Despising the Things of This World and
On the Hope of Heavenly Things 3
A sermon by Alan of Lille

…The hope of earthly goods leads only to promises for the future; it
destroys our joys before they arrive. [Earthly hope] corrupts the mind by too
much anxiety, for fear trips up hope and mortgages the joys to come; it stretches
desire into infinity. O man, you depend on earthly things; you rely upon what is
uncertain; you lean upon a reed cane which is easily broken. Do not therefore
trust in that which is fragile and slippery; it quickly sinks away and destroys you.
Set your mind on the clouds of adversity rather than on the clear skies of
prosperity. If you set your hope on earthly prosperity… not only will you fail to
find there what you hope for, but you will discover instead the tinder of sin and of
ruin, a snare for your soul and the leavening of justice.

Rather direct your hope towards tribulations, which although they present
an external bitterness, yet – for those who stand firm – they bring forth in the
spirit the sweetness of the hope of heaven. Nor may he who has not been pricked
by the bitterness of tribulation enjoy the sweet fruit of patience. Tribulation is
the furnace which refines gold, the file which burnishes iron, the flail by which
the grain is separated from the chaff. In this warfare of tribulation, patience is
exercised, fortitude does battle, constancy is strengthened, hope is summoned
heavenwards…

O how happy is that heavenly hope, which fear does not overpower, in
which fear is not engendered by falsehood, where desire does not dream
reason invite us to believe and hope in this. What fear is able to weaken the
human mind, if heavenly hope pleads for it before God? What harm will the
thundering of tyrants, the precipices of fortune, the weaknesses of the body, the
groanings of poverty do to the man whose mind is fortified with heavenly hope?
This is the hope which governs the assemblies [of men], and directs their actions.
This it is which finds its height in charity, that we may direct our actions towards
God; this it is which expands its breadth in charity, that we may extend charity to
our enemy. This it is which stretches out its length in charity, that we may
persevere in charity to the very end of life.

Between this [hope] and fear, as between two millstones, the Christian
should be ground smooth and fine. Whence it is said in Deuteronomy: ‘You shall
not accept the upper or the lower millstone as a pledge’. The upper millstone is
hope, the lower, fear. The one must not be accepted without the other. Anyone
who hopes and does not fear is neglectful; anyone who fears and does not hope is
downcast.

3 Alan of Lille. The Art of Preaching. CF 23. Trans. Gillian R. Evans. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian
Publications, Inc., 1981. 58-61.