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3rd Pastoral Letter of the Bishop of Acqui

quam prohibitum tangere nutrimentus (Homily 6 to the people
of Antioch).
You see from this, Venerable Brothers and Dearly
Beloved Children, how much the discipline of fasting has been
mitigated today. Unfortunately, the harmful progress of vice
and the decrease in good works, which would demand more
penance from men, led instead to the seeking of more ease and
comfort. However, if the Church, that wise and loving mother,
adapting herself to the circumstances of the times and peoples,
tries to help our frailty by alleviating and mitigating the law of
penance in order to facilitate the practice, she wishes and
likewise imposes, as the tireless guardian and avenger of the
divine precepts, that the more she remits the external rigors, the
more exact we must be in the observance of her more moderate
law: let love make up for what is lacking in works. She wants to
revive in us that spirit of compunction that keeps us humble
before God because of our sins, covers our face with salutary
shame, fills our souls with sorrow, and very justly makes us fear
the divine judgments. Since unfortunately our debt with God is
open, she wants us to seek every means to satisfy it, and if not
with hair shirts, vigils and scourgings, as the Saints did, at least
by submitting patiently to the weight of the painful events of
life, to the misfortunes, privations, sicknesses, and all that men's
evil or the injuries of the times can accumulate on our path, and
makes us moan and weep. Could we consider that anguish and
pain too great when compared to the eternal fire and eternal
damnation that we deserve a thousand times with our sins?
Therefore, let us love and embrace penance with all our
heart, because while it is a just reparation for the past it is also a
guard against falling again and a useful means to increase our
merits before God; and with penance let us love prayer, which
was no less imposed on us by the Divine Savior with these
words: "You must pray always, without tiring": "oporet semper
orare et non deficere (Lk. 18, 1).

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