16 — BODILY MORTIFICATION

Presence of God. — O Jesus, grant that my love for You Crucified may go so far as to want to crucify with You and for You my flesh.

Meditation

1 — Following original sin, man has lost the dominion of spirit over senses, over flesh; hence all the evil tendencies that seek to push him downward. St. Paul confesses it humbly: “I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh... for I do not do the good I will, but the evil I do not will, this I do” (Rom. 7, 18 and 19).

Nevertheless, it is certain that God gives us grace to triumph over every evil tendency. But our effort is needed, and this must consist precisely in voluntary mortification: “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its concupiscences” (Gal. 5, 24). Bodily mortification does not aim at imposing discomforts and privations on the body for the pleasure of making it suffer, but to discipline and conquer every tendency of it that opposes the life of grace. The Apostle warns: “If you live according to the flesh you shall die; but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh you shall live” (Rom. 8, 13). It is a matter of setting restraints to prevent falls, of pruning useless or harmful branches to avoid deviations, of directing toward good forces that, left to themselves, can lead to sin. In this sense mortification, though never an end in itself and not even the principal element of Christian life, occupies in it a fundamental place and is a strictly indispensable means, insofar as it makes possible the life of the spirit. No one can escape this law without seeing access barred to eternal salvation, to holiness. St. Paul, who had done and suffered so much for Christ, did not consider himself exempt and said: “I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, after preaching to others, I myself should be disapproved” (I Cor. 9, 27).

2 — St. Teresa of Jesus warns that “prayer, to be true, must surround itself with practices [of mortification], for prayer and self-indulgent treatment do not go together” (Way 4, 2). It would be an illusion to think one can arrive at intimate converse with God without a serious exercise of physical mortification. In this regard we must watch lest love of one’s own body and physical well-being make us reject every practice of penance under the pretext of not wanting to ruin health. In reality there are many bodily mortifications which, without causing the least harm, have the great advantage of keeping awake the spirit of generosity, through the voluntary acceptance of some physical suffering. To be generous in this field, one must “detach oneself from [disordered] love of our body” (T.G. Way 10, 5), that is, from excessive concern for health, and set aside every refinement in food, clothing, rest, and comforts. “Our body - says St. Teresa - has this bad trait, that the more one sees it satisfied, the more demanding it proves... And since it lacks no pretexts, at the least need it feels, it deceives the poor soul and prevents it from advancing” (ibid., 11, 2).

Whoever wants to progress on the way of holiness and union with God must be disposed to give all, even in the physical field, up to “leaving - as St. John of the Cross said - skin and all the rest for Christ.” Nevertheless the same Saint teaches that in this matter one must always depend on superiors or on confessor: “bodily penance, without obedience - he says - is nothing but beastly penance” (N. I, 6, 2), because it puts obedience - “which is the penance of reason and of one’s own judgment” (ibid.) and is therefore the sacrifice most accepted and pleasing to God - beneath a material practice.

Colloquy

“Your servant, O my God, can no longer bear the unspeakable torment of seeing herself far from You. If I must still live, I beg You not to give me any rest, for here below I do not want it. I would rather feel myself free, because eating distresses me and sleeping torments me. I feel that I pass life in my comforts, while nothing can satisfy me outside of You. It seems to me I live in contradiction with nature, because I do not want to live in me, but wholly in You” (T.G. Life 16, 4).

Lord, I beg You, help me free myself from slavery to the body. Teach me to master its unjust demands, to mortify its claims. Do not permit that this envelope of flesh, which You gave me so that I might serve You on earth, become for me an obstacle and halt me in the generous and total gift of myself.

How far I am, my God, from the austerity and mortification of the saints! “Shall I perhaps believe they were made of iron and not rather as sensitive as I? O Lord, help me understand that when I truly begin to conquer this body of mine, it will leave me in peace and torment me no more” (T.G. Way 11, 4). And why should I let myself be frightened by the fear of losing health?

Health and sickness, life and death, all are in Your hands, my God, all depends on You. I resolve, therefore, to leave every care of it to You and reserve for myself only one concern: that of loving You and serving You with all my strength. Help me, O Lord, to master my body, to become fully its master, so as to attain that magnificent freedom of spirit which allows the soul to give itself undisturbed to the exercise of a profound interior life.