21 — THE SPIRIT OF MORTIFICATION

Presence of God. — I return to Your feet, O Jesus crucified, with the desire to understand more deeply the spirit of mortification.

Meditation

1 — The spirit of mortification is not limited to physical mortification, but also embraces renunciation of self, of will, of understanding. As in our body and in our senses there are disordered tendencies to material enjoyment, so in our self there are disordered tendencies to self-assertion. Self-love and complacency in one’s own excellence are often so great that, even unconsciously, man tends to place his self almost at the center of the world.

The spirit of mortification is truly complete when, without neglecting to mortify the body, it aims first of all to mortify self-love in all its many manifestations. The Pharisee who habitually fasted, but had his heart swollen with pride, so much so as to reduce his prayer to self-praise and contempt of neighbor, did not possess the spirit of mortification and therefore was not justified before God. It is worth little to impose bodily mortifications on oneself if one does not know how to renounce one’s own way of seeing in order to adapt to another’s, if one does not know how to get along with one who is contrary to us, to bear calmly an injustice, a stinging word, or to keep silent instead of a biting answer.

“Why - asks St. Teresa of Jesus - shall we show ourselves so reluctant to mortify our interior [that is, self-love, will, judgment] when this mortification makes all the others more perfect and meritorious and helps us practice them with greater peace and gentleness?” (Way 12, 1). As long as mortification does not strike self-love, it remains halfway and does not reach its goal.

2 — The true spirit of mortification embraces first all occasions of physical or moral suffering permitted by divine Providence. Sufferings arising from illness, fatigue and effort required by fulfillment of one’s duty or by a life of intense work, privations imposed by a state of poverty are excellent physical penances. A soul that loves to let itself be guided in everything by divine Providence will not try to escape them nor even to lighten them, but will embrace them wholly, just as God places them on its path. It would be absurd not to accept one single one of these providential occasions of suffering in order to seek voluntary mortifications of one’s own choosing. So too, for one who has embraced religious life, it would be unreasonable to neglect the least exercise imposed by the rule in order to do a penance of one’s own will.

The same in the moral field. Does it not happen at times also to you to avoid an unpleasant person whom the Lord has placed beside you, or to seek every means to avoid a humiliation, an obedience that costs you? In this way you avoid precisely the best occasions to deny and mortify your self-love; even if you wish to replace them with others, these will never be as effective as those God Himself had prepared for you. Indeed, in mortifications permitted for you by Providence there is nothing of your own will, your own tastes, and they strike you precisely where you most need it and where you, with voluntary mortification, could never reach.

To attain holiness, everyone is not required to practice a determined measure of voluntary penance - which varies according to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the judgment of superiors, and each one’s physical strength - however, what is required of all is that upright and profound spirit of mortification which knows how to embrace generously every occasion of renunciation prepared or permitted by God.

Colloquy

O Lord, who asked for adorers in spirit and truth, preserve me, I pray You, from that spirit of Phariseeism that You fought so much on earth and that is so contrary to You, infinite Truth and Simplicity. Grant that, while I mortify my body, I may know still more to mortify my pride, or rather mortify it Yourself.

You, who know all the most hidden recesses of my heart, all the darkest impulses of my selfishness, prepare for me the most effective medicine to heal and transform all. You alone know where the most harmful microbe hides, and You alone can destroy it. But how many times, alas, in the varied circumstances of life, have I not known how to recognize Your hand, Your work, and have sought in so many ways to escape the physical and moral sufferings, the mortifications, humiliations, and contradictions that You Yourself had prepared for me.

How blind I am, O Lord, and how little I know how to recognize Your ways, so different and so far from my short human views. Give me, my God, a supernatural gaze that knows how to judge events in Your light, that knows how to discern the intimate meaning of the suffering You place on my path. And all the more, I beg You, intensify this light precisely when the contradictions You prepare for me strike my self, my pride, my points of view, my rights, because especially then I am terribly blind and, groping in the dark, I reject the medicine You offer me. Shall I then lack, O Lord, the means to carry through to the end the purification of my self, so foolish and proud? But nothing can be lacking to You, who are the All, who in Your infinite mercy immeasurably surpass my misery. Lord, I confess it, so many times I have erred like the lost sheep that, leaving its shepherd, has taken a false path. But once more I want to return and I return with full trust because I know that You never tire of waiting and forgiving. Here I am, O Lord, I place myself in Your hands: mortify me, purify me as You best please, because where You strike, every evil is healed; where You mortify, life springs up.