_edited.png){kind=logo}
Fifteenth Saturday after Pentecost
- caelidomum
- Sep 26, 2025
- 6 min read
Fifteenth Saturday after Pentecost. Obligation of Self -Mortification.
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation.
After having meditated upon penitence, we will meditate to-morrow upon mortification, which is the consequence of it, and we will consider: 1st, the precept of it; 2d, the practice of it. Our resolution shall be: 1st, to combat the passion of enjoyment in us, the love of our ease, the search after pleasure, and never to do anything from motives so unworthy of a disciple of the crucified Jesus; 2d, to make a sacrifice to-day to Our Lord of something which pleases us, or of some repugnance with which we may meet in the accomplishment of our duties. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of Our Lord: “If any man will come after die, let him deny himself” (Matt. xvi. 24).
Meditation for the Morning.
Let us adore Jesus Christ declaring to us in the gospel that He will not admit effeminate, self-indulgent souls into His service, souls which do not look beyond the pleasure of the moment and think only of what will give satisfaction to themselves, sensitive members which are not in their place beneath a head crowned with thorns. He recognizes as His disciples none but strong and generous souls, strong to endure sacrifice, who are able to do themselves violence, attach themselves to the cross with Him, and mortify their evil nature in order that it may bend to duty. Let us offer ourselves to Him in these generous dispositions.
The Precept of Mortification.
Of all the points of Christian morals, none is so often recommended in the gospel as the precept of mortification, that is to say, to labor, by privation, by suffering, and by violence waged against one's self, to repress our evil nature and to combat its tendencies in order that we may keep it always in the path of duty; for the words of Our Lord, ordering us to renounce everything, to renounce ourselves and to bear the cross, cannot signify anything else except that we must mortify ourselves. The reason of this precept is that without mortification there is neither virtue, nor reason, nor happiness, 1st. No virtue, because in order to be humble we must mortify self-love with its pride, its susceptibilities, and its pretensions; to be meek we must mortify our temper, our hastiness, and our abruptness; to be obedient we must mortify self-will with its repugnances and its attachments, its fancies and its caprices; to be chaste we must mortify the love of pleasure and enjoyment, not flatter the flesh, but crucify it and be always on our guard against its seductions. It is the same with all the other virtues. In the same way that we cannot straighten a crooked limb without binding it up, we cannot bring back the soul to the primitive rectitude of any virtue except by doing violence to it. 2d. Without mortification there is no reason. It is humiliating to see how without mortification reason is so little reasonable; we find our pleasure, as an animal does, in eating and drinking; we make of it part of the happiness of life; we indulge in it to excess, even to the extent of bodily discomfort and sometimes of losing our senses. Is this reasonable ? Without mortification we live upon caprices and fancies; we do constantly what pleases us and not what we ought to do; we turn night into day by delaying to go to bed, and day into night by delaying the hour of rising; we neglect our affairs, the care of our household and our family, the superintendence of our children and our servants, order and economy in household matters, the proportion between what we have and what we spend. Is this reason able? Without mortification we seek nothing but our own self-satisfaction, making pleasure to go before duty, enjoyment before conscience. Is this reasonable ? Without mortification we cannot bear anything from others, and we like others to bear everything from us; they must endure our defects, though we will not bear theirs; they must yield to our will without our ever yielding to theirs; they must allow themselves to be ridiculed, reproved, treated by us with haughtiness, and they must be forbidden to do anything of the same kind in regard to us. Is this reasonable? Finally, every time that we sin, it is because we refuse to mortify ourselves, because we will not deprive ourselves of anything or that we are determined to enjoy something. Now all sin is a fault against reason, because reason tells us to obey God, who commands nothing but what is just and equitable. 3d. Without mortification there is no happiness: no happiness in the service of God, who withdraws His graces and consolations in the same proportion as we seek enjoyment from creatures and not from Him, or refuse what He demands; no happiness with our neighbor, because we repel him by our want of inclination to render any service which may inconvenience us, by the self-love which seeks what is pleasant without any fear of inconveniencing1 others, by a temper full of susceptibilities and pretensions, by a liberty of language which cannot restrain a wounding or unkind speech; lastly, no happiness in regard to ourselves: 1st, because each time that we satisfy the caprices of our own will we feel the pain of remorse which tells us that we have done wrong; 2d, because whoever has any attachments is angry if attempts are made to deprive him of what he loves, is afflicted if he is obliged to deprive himself of them, and thus he is rendered essentially unhappy.
The Practice of Mortification.
The practice of this virtue ought to be continuous, regulated by wisdom, accompanied by love and joy. 1st. Continuous; because like him who, sailing on an impetuous river, is carried away by the current if he ceases for one single moment to row against it, so the man will inevitably be dragged into the commission of sin who does not energetically combat the evil tendency which leads him to it: for our vitiated nature is continually soliciting us to evil, caring little if we are lost provided that it be satisfied. It is a slave always ready to revolt, which can do nothing but what is evil. All in this sinful nature is dangerous: our eyes, our tongue, our taste, the sense of touch spread over the whole body. Now so many enemies plotting together would in fallibly be our ruin if we were to cease for one single day to mortify them. 2d. The practice of mortification ought to be regulated by wisdom; it would be indiscreet zeal to carry to excess mortification which would ruin our health. Health is a gift God has confided to us; we have no right to destroy it. Let us grant what is necessary to the body, but let us have courage to refuse it what is nothing but pleasure and enjoyment. 3d. Lastly, mortification ought to be accompanied by love and joy; God accepts no sacrifices but such as love offers to Him joyfully (II. Cor. ix. 7), and even man would not bend himself to mortification if love did not render it delicious to him. Love, says the Imitation, renders all that is heavy light, and all that is bittersweet (II. Imit. v. 3). The soul which loves knows that sufferings are the best proof of love; and as it has an immense desire to prove to its God that it loves Him, it has also an immense desire to suffer. It knows that sufferings are the food of love, the surest means to make progress, because the heart attaches itself all the more to God in proportion as it is detached from itself and from creatures; and as it has an immense desire to love Him always more and more, so it has always an immense desire to suffer more and more. Hence the cry of St. Teresa, Either suffer or die ! Hence in souls which really love God the holy desires which lead them to wards mortification. Let us examine our conscience; what are our dispositions in regard to a subject so important with respect to salvation ?
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.
Comments