The Lives of the Saints Volume 1 - St. Patrick's Basilica

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occupation. These divine canticles were sung by them in all times of
joy, in marriages and festivals; by day, and in the night vigils, &c.
His eight homilies, On the three first Chapters of Ecclesiastes, are an
excellent moral instruction and literal explication of that book. He
addressed his fifteen homilies, On the Book of Canticles, which he had
preached to his flock, to Olympias, a lady of Constantinople, who, after
twenty months' marriage, being left a widow, distributed a great estate
to the church and poor, a great part by the hands of our saint, whom she
had settled an acquaintance with in a journey he had made to the
imperial city. St. Gregory extols the excellency of that divine book,
not to be read but by pure hearts, disengaged from all love of
creatures, and free from all corporeal images. He says the Holy Ghost
instructs us by degrees; by the book of Proverbs to avoid sin; by
Ecclesiastes to draw our affections from creatures; by this of Canticles
he teaches perfection, which is pure charity. He explains it mystically.
He has five orations On the Lord's Prayer. In the first, he elegantly
shows the universal, indispensable necessity of prayer, which alone
unites the heart to God, and preserves it from the approach of sin.
Every breath we draw ought also to be accompanied with thanksgiving, as
it brings us innumerable benefits from God, which we ought continually
to acknowledge. But we must only pray for spiritual, not temporal
things. In the second, he shows that none can justly call God Father,
who remain in sin, without desires of repentance, and who consequently
bear the ensigns of the devil. Resemblance with God is the mark of being
his son; that title further obliges us to have our minds and hearts
always in heaven. By the next we pray that God alone may reign in us,
and his will be ever done by us; and that the devil or self-love never
have any share in our hearts or actions. By the fourth we ask bread,
_i.e._, absolute necessaries, not dainties, not riches, or any thing
superfluous, or for the world, and even bread only for today, without
solicitude for to-morrow, which perhaps will never come: all irregular
desires and all occasions of them must be excluded. "The serpent is
watching at your heel, but do you watch his head: give him no admittance
into your mind: from the least entrance he will draw in after him the
foldings of his whole body. If Eve's counsellor persuades you that any
thing looks beautiful and tastes sweet, if you listen you are soon drawn
into gluttony, and lust, and avarice, &c." The fifth petition he thus
paraphrases, "I have forgiven my debtors, do not reject your suppliant.
I dismissed my debtor cheerful and free. I am your debtor, send me not
away sorrowful. May my dispositions, my sentence prevail with you. I
have pardoned, pardon: I have showed compassion, imitate your servant's
mercy. My offences are indeed far more grievous; but consider how much
you excel in all good. It is just that you manifest to sinners a mercy
suiting your infinite greatness. I have given proof of mercy in little
things, according to the capacity of my nature; but your bounty is not
to be confined by the narrowness of my power, &c." His eight sermons, On