Universal Mortification

MY PRECIOUS FRIEND, the vital truth behind this particular aspect of a Christian's life seem to be so remote in the awareness of many so as to be very vulnerable at being twisted and corrupted by the widespread lies that belittle the good that indeed, many people do and sensationalize what great evil there already exists in our world.

What good there is that God allows us to witness in other people must pull us up to God, for good things not only edify the Christian soul, good things also unify the elect of God. For this is our work and we love it to bits. We love to do it and we love others who do it. But those who would think of pulling it down, however little it is, like the parable of the widow who gave what little she had to God, have a sure contempt for good and therefore secretly relish what evil there is that live in their hearts. They should take heed the caution of our Lord that only God is good and no one else.

What is real mortification? Simply put, mortification is the ability to consistently bear the pain of right choice. Real mortification is not just the pain of our dying to this life of corruption in order to live again in the incorruptible truth of Jesus Christ, our Savior, our All. Mortification is more correctly, the correct way of enduring this revivifying pain, the pain of our becoming alive. At the very heart of this pain is our Crucified Savior with Whom we unite all our suffering. For it is the love for Jesus Christ Crucified and the steadfast belief in the everlasting promise of the Gospel of our salvation that inform the true spirit of all Christian mortification. Therefore, either pain by itself or its blind endurance is not Christian mortification, for mortification in the Christian sense is not an ends to itself but is a means to an end. We mortify ourselves to die the necessary death, to be crucified with Christ in our sins, in order that we might hope with Christ in the resurrection into the glory of the life that never ends.

Real mortification and true contrition are the two halves to the one synergistic whole of the virtue of penance. Penance being a virtue that is born of faith and hope and matures in charity, a virtue that is necessary to all who aspire to serve and advance the cause of Jesus Christ, our All and the one Redeemer of humankind.

The love at the heart of Christian mortification is the same essential truth that must inform and animate the inspiration behind all the varied expressions of true Christian asceticism. One must always remember that Christian asceticism is a science of life, a pure science. And the same with all pure sciences, its necessary expression in our world must first be founded on sound spiritual principles, on moral choices that lead to the good and the good which are expressions of truths both ascendant and absolute. Christian asceticism therefore, it is not a mere expression of man's ability to conquer pain for it is never an open exhibition of masochism or misguided masculinity. It is the outward manifestation of an inward desire, an expression of man's divine trust founded on Love's mysterious desire to endure for it's own sake, the birth pains that bring out into our tremendous world of common human hopes, the fullness of the age of Jesus Christ. Mortification and its adequate practice is the inward pruning of the self, an enduring that by the grace of God brings sure increase to life; an expression of God's ability to conquer death.

Now the actual practice of mortification takes on many shapes and forms. In the Solidarity, we must remember that we are laity. Any practices of mortification must not take away from our vital ability to advance the mission and vision of the apostolate deep into the world. Let us not think of practically aspiring to those severe mortifications undertaken by our great Saints at the moment but let us not overlook either the same spirit that have lead those elect souls to exercise freely those great acts of self-denial for love of God, others in God and true self. If we are called to be common, we must bear in mind that we are not less important for we are called by the same Holy Spirit that have called all the elect of God, from our greatest of Saints, our Immaculate Queen, the Blessed Virgin Mary, to the very least of the nameless in heaven - all of whom enjoy the unfathomable bliss of their face to face vision of God.

It is therefore recommended that our necessary corporal labors here on earth, expressed in particular according to our own present states of life as our individual jobs in the world as well as the good corporal works that await us each day that we must do with great generosity alone or in community not only as members of the Mystical Body of Christ but also as active elements of the apostolate of His peace in this world being done with authentic Christian charity, utmost integrity and due diligence constitute the first of three primary means toward our common mortification in the Solidarity. Also just as vital as the above are those necessary labors of the soul, the spiritual works that effect the mortification of our hearts that include the patient putting up with the weaknesses, faults and sins of others as well as the self, forgiveness of the weaknesses, faults and sins of others as well as the self, the edification of other Christians, our most loyal support of the local as well as the universal Church, all the ascendant paths that lead to truth and virtue, the building up of the peace the common good of our nations, the courageous resisting and withstanding of temptation, the effective purgation of the self from sin and the remnants of sin, persecution, and even martyrdom, if God shall ask of it. Lastly, my Companion, our necessary labors in this world involves not only the things that we do or don't do, body and soul, but also must include our humble and loving acceptance of the vicissitudes and accidents of daily human life, those things that are in general beyond our control as physical pain, separation, discomfort, inclement weather, catastrophes, sorrow, illness, disability, senescence and ultimately temporal death.

The two other primary means of our common mortification is our adequate practice of the three eminent good works; prayer (both private and in community), fasting (the practice of universal moderation, anything more about fasting itself as a practice, please refer to the guidelines of the Roman Church, to your peers and superiors in the Solidarity and/or to your parish priest or other ecclesial authority), and alms giving (both spiritual as well as material service to our Lord's poor willingly, freely and joyfully given) as well as the evangelical counsels; chastity (all states of life, the wholesome discipline of the senses, the correct understanding, respect and application of human sexuality and the subordination and rational control of the passions), obedience (tactful submission to the right reason of peers as well as subordinates, the avoidance of uneccessary, vain arguments, absolute obedience to all lawful, moral authority, the commandments of God, the laws of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the precepts of the Church) and poverty (detachment from material wealth; not to have material riches in the heart nor the heart in material riches, to possess everything like it is to possess nothing).

These three mortifications: 1) necessary labor, 2) three eminent good works, 3) the evangelical counsels, constitute in their differing particular degrees of practice according to each individual, the recommended common practice of universal mortificationall for all able and eligible members of the Solidarity. Indeed, all mature, active and able elements of our community must work to mortify the spirit and subdue the flesh and therefore, to cleanse the soul of sin and the remnants of sin, making one docile to the workings of the Holy Spirit, without hindering our vital ability as common laity united in strength within the charism our apostolate to build and to struggle to advance the necessary peace of our Lord in our hearts, in our lands, in our world and in our times. To add anything more (besides fasting i.e. cords, whips, hair shirts, etc), if it becomes necessary, must be left to the prudence and discretion of your parish priest or spiritual adviser.

One last thought: Remember at Holy Mass, my Companion, when we say peace one to another after our Lord's peace have been given to us? I imagine it is like saying, "Beloved of God in Jesus Christ, you are my Home. I love you and I have complete faith in our ability to see each other through this life because our Lord has given us the assurance of His peace and so we have become one in our hope as His Bride, the universal Church. So my peace be with you."

My Companion, the beauty of our Lord's peace and our consequent exchanges of our own peace one with another is that it prepares us first in our hearts, unifying us one to another in love and trust and then it prepares our wills to be received as one community of hope as we ascend into the one most loving heart of our Savior by our worthy reception of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, our Savior, our All, in the Eucharist as a foretaste of the greater reality of the one whole holy communion of the Saints of God in God.

Why did our Savior give us His peace publicly when He could have kept it to Himself? Because our Lord's peace is a joy and Love withholds nothing when it beholds the beloved. Our Lord's Peace is our sacred trust, it is both our Christian responsibility to each other as the one universal Christian Church as well as our public promise to the greater world of our common human hopes. Why? Because we must love as He loves and our Lord loved enough to be immolated for the everlasting good of all mankind. Why? Simply because there is love that abides in us and indeed, God is love. Hence, Love is one. Love unifies, uplifts, purifies and ascends to the same unity of the one reality of our LORD God.

My precious friend, this is the same Love at the heart of self-denial, it is the same heart that animates and informs the spirit of Christian mortification. Without this abiding love, any form of mortification is an empty, external practice with neither promise nor merit, it is a waste of life's real promise or much worse, a sin.

Glory to God in the highest
Adoration to Jesus Christ
Peace to all men of good will.