Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering: It is the burnt offering, because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning on it.
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Bede
AD 735
A holocaust is burned on the altar when a good work is performed with the burning fire of charity in the heart of any elect person who is devoted to God completely (that is, with both body and soul). This is done all night until the morning when one does not cease to persevere in good works throughout all the time of his life, until one is taken from the body and merits seeing the morning of the world to come. The fire will be on the same altar, because we ought to be burning with that charity alone which the Lord gives to his church through the Holy Spirit.
Holocaust. The regulations respecting it, as they regard the priests, are here given, as chap. i., directions were given to those who presented the victims.
Morning. All the parts of the victim were not laid on at the same time. The like was observed during the day also, when no other sacrifices were to be offered on this altar.
Of the same, not strange, unhallowed fire, but such as was kept continually burning on the altar of holocausts, as the Hebrew intimates; "the fire of the altar shall be burning in it. "During the marches in the desert, it is not written how this fire was preserved. The Persians believed that their eternal fire came down from heaven, and the vestal virgins kept their sacred fire at Rome, with superstitious care. Theophrastus (ap. Eusebius, præp. i. 9,) mentions the keeping of fire in the temples, as one of the most ancient rites of religion.
That fire is perpetual that is never extinguished on the altar. The altar of God is our heart. Fire must always burn in it, for the flame of charity must always burn on it for God. Day by day, the priest puts wood on the fire, lest it go out. Everyone who has faith in Christ has been made a member of the high priest. The apostle Peter says to all the faithful, “You are an elect people, a royal priesthood.” The apostle John says, “You have made us a kingdom and a priesthood for our God.” The priest who feeds the fire on the altar and puts wood on it each day is each one of the faithful. To keep the flame of charity from going out in himself, he does not cease to gather both the examples of the elders and the testimonies of Holy Scripture. To call to mind the examples of the fathers or the precepts of the Lord in the practice of charity is to put fuel on the fire. Since this inner newness of ours grows old in the daily living of life, wood must be used to feed that fire. While the fire g...
