Atkinson, The Passions and the Homilies from Leabhar Breac (1887). A homily on Matthew vi. 16–18 (“When you fast”). Atkinson’s own note records that the body of this homily is almost wholly in Latin and was relegated to his Appendix, so only his English rendering of the exordium is printed here; the file closes where the next homily (The Fast of the Lord in the Desert) begins — see the separate file “LB - De Ieiunio Domini in Deserto”.

¹ Matt. vi. 16 “When you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad; for they disfigure their

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² faces, that they may appear to men to fast; amen I say to you,

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³ they have received their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint

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⁴ your head and wash your face, that you appear not to men to fast, but

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⁵ to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you."—

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⁶ O teacher of every truth, O bestower of every

⁷ goodness,

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⁸ O redeemer of the human race, Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, God and

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⁹ man in the unity of one person: it is he who spoke these words to instruct

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¹⁰ his Church, that they might know in what manner they should fast and

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¹¹ keep abstinence — that they should not put on a face of sadness in their

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¹² sorrow outwardly, as the liars do, seeking their praise from

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¹³ men; but that they should display a countenance joyful and radiant;

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¹⁴ saying, “when you fast”.

¹⁵ Matthew, then, wrote in the body of the Gospel so that it might be remembered in

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¹⁶ the Church. The relation of this exposition goes back further: he is

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¹⁷ the kinsman [i.e. near relative] of Jesus, even as he said formerly, while teaching

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¹⁸ the truth, “Take heed that you do not your justice before men, that you may be

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¹⁹ seen by them; otherwise you shall have no reward with your Father

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²⁰ who is in heaven”; and so it is on the track of those words that Jesus says this,

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²¹ “when you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad”.

[See Appendix for this Homily, which is almost wholly in Latin.] ²² This sermon not included with translations and Latin texts in final section.

²³ Here begins THE FAST OF THE LORD IN THE DESERT, and of the temptations wherewith the devil tempted him.