Office Of Readings | Saturday, Lent Week 2 | Treatise Of Saint Ambrose, On Flight From The World
‘Loyalty to God, one and true and good.’
Saint Ambrose
Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan and Doctor of the Church, reflects on the soul’s journey toward God, urging believers to set their hearts on God alone. Echoing Christ’s teaching—’Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also’ (Matthew 6:21)—Ambrose emphasizes that God, who never refuses good gifts, calls us to seek God with our whole being. This recalls the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-5), which commands love for God with all our heart, soul, and strength.
Ambrose describes God’s goodness as the foundation of all things, an unchanging source of life and joy. He insists that divine goodness is pure, without any admixture of evil. This reinforces the biblical understanding that God is the ultimate good—’No one is good but God alone’ (Mark 10:18). The believer’s response is to reach out to possess this good, to live in it, and to find in it lasting peace. This call to communion with God aligns with the Church’s Lenten journey, which urges detachment from fleeting things and a deeper union with the eternal.
Ambrose also develops the theme of divine nourishment. He recalls the words of Deuteronomy: ‘The good things of the land will be your food,’ showing that God’s gifts sustain those who remain faithful. This anticipates the Eucharist, the true spiritual food that nourishes the soul. Saint Ambrose’ reference to resting in God as a ‘banquet’ highlights how divine joy is not merely future but something to be experienced even now by those who trust in God.
The theme of refuge is central to Ambrose’s reflection. He calls believers to take refuge in God, citing the psalmist: ‘I fled to you for refuge, and I was not disappointed’ (cf. Psalm 31:1). This is not an escape from life but a call to anchor oneself in divine strength. The image of the deer thirsting for water (cf. Psalm 42:1) further illustrates this yearning—just as water is necessary for life, so is God for the soul’s survival. Ambrose’s words resonate in a time of distraction and uncertainty, reminding believers that only in God is true security found.
Finally, Ambrose speaks of the Christian’s participation in Christ’s death and resurrection. Since we have died with Christ, we must also rise with him—living a life of holiness, simplicity, and virtue. This is not just a moral obligation but a transformation into the life of Christ himself. The call to ascend in Christ so that ‘the serpent may not wound us in the heel’ recalls Genesis 3:15 and the victory of Christ over sin and death.
Ambrose’s meditation is a call to radical trust in God. In Lent, we are invited to thirst for God, seek refuge in God, and embrace the life of Christ within us. As the psalmist affirms, ‘With you is the fountain of life; in your light, we see light’ (Psalm 36:9).
From The Treatise Of Saint Ambrose, On Flight From The World
Where a man’s heart is, there is his treasure also. God is not accustomed to refusing a good gift to those who ask for one. Since he is good, and especially to those who are faithful to him, let us hold fast to him with all our soul, our heart, our strength, and so enjoy his light and see his glory and possess the grace of supernatural joy. Let us reach out with our hearts to possess that good, let us exist in it and live in it, let us hold fast to it, that good which is beyond all we can know or see and is marked by perpetual peace and tranquillity, a peace which is beyond all we can know or understand.
This is the good that permeates creation. In it we all live, on it we all depend. It has nothing above it; it is divine. No one is good but God alone. What is good is therefore divine, what is divine is therefore good. Scripture says: When you open your hand all things will be filled with goodness. It is through God’s goodness that all that is truly good is given us, and in it there is no admixture of evil.
These good things are promised by Scripture to those who are faithful: The good things of the land will be your food.
We have died with Christ. We carry about in our bodies the sign of his death, so that the living Christ may also be revealed in us. The life we live is not now our ordinary life but the life of Christ: a life of sinlessness, of chastity, of simplicity and every other virtue. We have risen with Christ. Let us live in Christ, let us ascend in Christ, so that the serpent may not have the power here below to wound us in the heel.
Let us take refuge from this world. You can do this in spirit, even if you are kept here in the body. You can at the same time be here and present to the Lord. Your soul must hold fast to him, you must follow after him in your thoughts, you must tread his ways by faith, not in outward show. You must take refuge in him. He is your refuge and your strength. David addresses him in these words: I fled to you for refuge, and I was not disappointed.
Since God is our refuge, God who is in heaven and above the heavens, we must take refuge from this world in that place where there is peace, where there is rest from toil, where we can celebrate the great sabbath, as Moses said: The sabbaths of the land will provide you with food. To rest in the Lord and to see his joy is like a banquet, and full of gladness and tranquillity.
Let us take refuge like deer beside the fountain of waters. Let our soul thirst, as David thirsted, for the fountain. What is that fountain? Listen to David: With you is the fountain of life. Let my soul say to this fountain: When shall I come and see you face to face? For the fountain is God himself.
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As they travel on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus throws his disciples into confusion by telling them about the suffering and death he must undergo. The disciples simply do not understand. For centuries, the Jews have awaited the coming of the Messiah, whom they envisaged as a glorious warrior king, not as one who would suffer and die the most ignominious of deaths, on a cross, of all things. A person condemned to die on a cross could not be the Messiah; rather, according to the Old Law, he had to be “cursed by God” (Deuteronomy 21: 22-23). The disciples cannot see the divine plan for our salvation, while the command for all who would be saved to ‘take up his cross and follow me’ must have seemed both strange and terrifying. To reassure his disciples, Jesus allows them to witness his glorious body through the transfiguration [ … ]
