Mortification (Self-denial)

VI. Mortification, in the present order, is altogether necessary for removing the impediments of perfection, specifically⁶ a) for the progressive healing of the wounds of original sin; b) for the destruction of personal sin and its consequences; c) for the perfect subordination of natural activity to the life of grace, Gal. V, 24. For it is necessary that we live not only as rational beings, under the guidance of reason, but also as sons of God, under the guidance of faith and the Holy Spirit; and therefore it is necessary to restrain merely natural activity and even to repress the first inordinate movements, lest this natural activity grow too much and distract us, to the detriment of the higher activity of grace. But the impediments of perfection to be removed are internal and external; the internal arise either from inordinate internal senses or from unmortified passions; the external are from riches, honor and glory, delightful things, or persons loved too much or pleasurably.

⁶ Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange in the journal Vie Spirituelle, t. XI and XII.

In this matter, however, the confessor must proceed moderately according to Christian prudence, by which he should beware of every excess and defect. For just as it is a harmful error to place perfection in fasts, vigils, hair-shirts, scourgings, etc., so it is the greatest error to contemn mortification as useless to spiritual progress, or absolutely to assert that external mortifications profit nothing or little.⁷ For although internal mortifications of the passions and appetites of the soul are rather to be exercised, such as: not responding to injuries, yielding in contentions, following the will of others, not seeking oneself, etc., nevertheless external and bodily mortifications help the internal ones and are necessary for restraining the senses; hence they were also frequent among all the Saints.

⁷ St. Alphonsus, o. c., n. 145.

Yet let the confessor take care 1) that he not be too facile in conceding them, especially in the first warmth of devotion; and let him enjoin on the penitent that he do none except according to the prescriptions handed down to him;

2. nor generally let him concede them unless asked; for they do not profit unless they are much desired; hence let him so instruct penitents that they spontaneously ask for them;

3. let him concede less than they ask;

4. let him concede by degrees, so that he tempers the excessive fervor of beginners, to whom he permits only a few things; let him be more liberal with those who are well rooted in virtue;

5. let him concede according to strength, capacities, conditions, and circumstances of health, duties, and the fervor of each one;

6. let him concede according to choice: a) especially let him persuade to mortification of gluttony, which is less usually attended to and is harder than others, and yet is most useful; b) let him be sparing in conceding mortification in necessary sleep, which weakens the body and renders it unfit for exercises of piety; c) let him watch that they be exercised constantly in negative mortifications, as being more useful, e.g., that they abstain from curious things to be looked at, heard, or read, speak sparingly, be content with foods unpleasant to them, take nothing outside the time of refreshment, not approach the fire in winter, rejoice over the lack of some necessary thing, not complain about inconveniences, infirmities, persecutions, and command their passions;

7. yet let him add, that he may remove every occasion of pride, that those mortifications are altogether nothing if they are compared with those which the Saints did, or with the pains which Christ suffered.

Therefore the following are to be mortified:

1. The external senses, by constant custody: touch by circumspection in use, or even by afflictive penances; - taste by means of temperance, abstinence, fasting; - speech by vigilance, by which words are weighed before they are uttered, and by silence, by which we do not speak unless it is fitting; - sight by custody and modesty of the eyes, especially toward persons of the different sex; - hearing by turning away from evil speech against modesty, the neighbor, superiors; - smell by abstaining from perfumes and by enduring foul odor, especially if charity toward the poor or the sick demands it.

2. Inordinate passions, which give origin to the capital vices and all arise from inordinate love of self;⁸ these are to be restrained and weakened, though they can never be fully extinguished. Here three things are to be noted:

⁸ Cf. St. Thomas, I-II, q. 77, a. 5.

a) first of all the predominant passion by which we more frequently fall into defects is to be investigated and fought;

b) the first motions of passion are to be repressed, lest they grow so much that they can scarcely be overcome;

c) not only a notable passion, but the least passion and every appetite for a licit but unnecessary thing is to be mortified.

3. The appetite for external causes which impede perfection: a) the appetite for riches by poverty of spirit and perfect indifference toward them; b) the appetite for honor and glory, which is sought even from good works, by weighing one's own nothingness and our absolute dependence on God, so that all things are gifts of God and from ourselves we have nothing except nothingness and sin; - by referring all works to the glory of God; - by concealing one's own gifts and not speaking about oneself; c) love of delightful things or of persons: by never acting for delight;⁹ by mortifying affection toward relatives and dealings with them and care concerning their affairs; by avoiding every merely natural friendship, especially one founded in tender and sensible love which draws its origin from gifts of body or disposition alone.

⁹ Let this be understood in the manner in which it is usually explained in the treatise on Human Acts.

The FIRST opinion is, that it is mortal to use penances imprudently applied, which one has recognized will gravely harm, even if life be shortened on account of satisfying God. So D. Thom. 2. 2. quaest. 147. art. 5., Tolet. lib. 5. summae, cap. 6. concl. 4., Navar. summa Lat. cap. 15. num. 12., Petrus Navarrus lib. 2. restit. cap. 3. num. 88., Couar. lib. 1. variar. cap. 10., Aragon. 2. 2. quaest. 64. art. 5. ad 5., Lopez p. p. instruct. cap. 64., Sayrus lib. 7. cap. 9., Bassaeus V. Homic. 1. num. 8., Diana part. 5. tract. 4. Resol. 33., Pasqual. de ieiunio, disp. 27.

Fagundez SUBSCRIBES, num. 18., that it is deadly to feed on raw herbs, or on other gravely harmful foods, and he cites Victoria num. 43., Aragonius, and Lopez above; yet these excuse one who does not advert to it.

Indeed I am lifted up in wonder, and moved by unblemished examples, when I read through the life of the saints, who pleased God most of all, and among them the Seraphic Father Francis; of whom S. Bonaventura relates in the legend, especially cap. 5., that the most holy Patriarch so crucified, through the whole course of his penitential life, his flesh with its concupiscences, that he scarcely ever in sound health admitted cooked foods, and when he did admit them, he finished them with ashes, or spoilt them with water. And of water he never dared to drink as much as nature would suffice: the bare earth was his bed, wearing a hairshirt, his clothing torn, trembling in the utmost rigor of winter, and he continually devised other new kinds of penance. Now on a certain night, when he was passing the night at the hermitage of Sarthianus, he heard a voice calling him three times: FRANCIS, FRANCIS, FRANCIS. To which he: What? The voice answered: There is no sinner whom God does not spare; but whoever kills himself with harsh penance will not find mercy in eternity: Immediately the man of God perceived the voice of the enemy, and recognized the cunning of the veteran serpent, for he was so inflamed by the temptation of the flesh: But the Holy Father, suddenly stripping himself and scourging himself sharply, thus addresses his body: Come, brother ass. Thus it befits you to undergo the scourges. Soon indeed he rolled among the snows; then he composed seven great heaps of snow, and said: See, this household must be fed by you: this is the wife; these the sons; these the daughters to be clothed; but if this care oppresses you, return; and serve God.

For thus he called his body brother ass, as if to be subjected to laborious burdens, to be beaten with frequent scourges, and to be refreshed with vile fodder. This is D. Bonaventure.

The same Saintly Doctor in the Diaeta, tit. 2. cap. 6., commends gravely the fasting of Elias and of other saints, and says it was instituted by the true Hippocrates, God.

And in Lib. 4. of the Pharetra, cap. 45., he relates of D. Bernard, sermone 66. in Cantica: Abstinebo a vino, quia in vino luxuria est, aut si infirmus sum, medico utar, iuxta consilium Apostoli. Abstinebo a carnibus, ne dum mihi nimis carnem nutriunt, simul et carnis nutriant vitia, etc.

But in the sermon on S. John the Baptist, he observes the austerity of S. John, Matth. 3. erat in deserto ab aetate tenella, vestimentum e pilis camelorum, cibus locustae, ac mel Sylvestre, et Lucae primo insinuatur: Vinum, et siceram non bibet.

Praebuit hirtum tegumen camelus Artubus sacris, strophium bidentes Cui latex haustum sociata pastum Mella Locustis.

Likewise in cap. 7. it is said: Venit Ioannes, non manducans panem; neque bibens vinum, Et tamen aequaliter nunquam peccavit. Sane maior esse debet poenitentia peccatorum, and D. Gregorio homil. 20. in Euangelia, and he subjoins: si Ioannes, et Elias, et omnes SS. P. P. in desertis AEgypti, tantis se vigiliis, et ieiuniis macerarunt, tam aspera, et inculta vestimenta portaverunt, quidnos pleni peccatis omnibus facere debemus? These words of the Saintly Doctor: certainly those Anchorites and Monks fed on herbs and water, and were nourished by them.

The Saintly Doctor confesses in the Apologia pauperum that now indeed more is required on account of weaker natures, but one must beware of self-love, which is accustomed to indulge itself too much.