Divine Intimacy: Meditations on the Interior Life for Everyday of the Year

[Stone]

91. PREDICTION OF THE PASSION
[QUINQUAGESIMA WEEK]

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, give me light to understand the mystery and the value of Christian suffering.


MEDITATION

1. Lent is approaching and our thoughts turn spontaneously to the sorrows of Jesus. Today’s Gospel (Lk 18,31-43) brings us an announcement of the Passion.

The prediction is clear: “ he Son of Man...shall be delivered to the Gentiles, and shall be mocked and scourged and spit upon, and after they have scourged Him, they will put Him to death; and the third day He shall rise again. ” However, as on other occasions, the Apostles “ understood none of these things, and this word was hid from them.” They did not understand because they imagined that Jesus’ mission was like an earthly conqueror’s and that He would re-establish the kingdom of Israel. Since they dreamed only of triumphs and of occupying the first places in the kingdom, any allusion to the Passion upset and scandalized them.

To those who dream only of prosperity and earthly glory, the language of the Cross is incomprehensible. Those who have a purely material ideal of life find it very difficult to understand any spiritual significance, and especially that of suffering. St. Paul said that Christ Crucified was “unto the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness” (1 Cor 1,23). Rebuking St. Peter, who at the first mention of the Passion had exclaimed, “Lord, be it far from Thee, this shall not be unto Thee,” Jesus had said, “Go behind Me, Satan...because thou savorest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men” (Mt 16,22.23). To human wisdom, suffering is incomprehensible; it is disconcerting; it can lead one to murmur against divine Providence and even to lose all trust in God. However, according to the wisdom of God, suffering is a means of salvation and redemption. And as it was necessary “for Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory ” (cf. Lk 24,26), it is also necessary for the Christian to be refined in the crucible of sorrow in order to attain to sanctity, to eternal life.


2. It was not until after the descent of the Holy Spirit that the Apostles fully understood the meaning of the Passion; then, instead of being scandalized, they considered it the greatest honor to follow and to preach Christ Crucified.

The human eye has not sufficient light to comprehend the value of the Cross; it needs a new light, the light of the Holy Spirit. It is not by chance that in today’s Gospel, immediately after the prediction of the Passion, we find the healing of the blind man of Jericho. We are always somewhat blind when faced with the mystery of suffering; when it strikes us in what we hold most near and dear, it is easy to get lost and to grope our way like blind men through uncertainty and darkness. The Church invites us to repeat today the blind man’s prayer of faith: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

The world is often astonished at the sufferings of the good, and instead of encouraging them in their reliance on God, seeks to turn them from Him by urging them to defiance and false fear. Our passions themselves, our innate tendencies toward pleasure, often cry out to us and try, by a thousand pretexts, to prevent us from following Jesus Crucified. Let us remain steadfast in our faith, like the poor blind man. He was not disturbed by the crowd that tried to keep him from approaching Jesus, and he did not give up when the disciples remonstrated with him and wanted him to be quiet; he only shouted his prayer “even more loudly.”

Let us cry to the Lord from the bottom of our hearts: “De profundis clamo ad te, Domine; Domine audi vocem meam!” (Ps 129). Let us ask, not to be exempt from suffering, but to be enlightened as to its value. “ Lord, that I may see!” As soon as the blind man recovered his sight, he immediately followed Jesus, “ glorifying God!” The supernatural light which we seek from the Lord will give us the strength to follow Him and to carry our cross as He did.


COLLOQUY

“O Jesus Christ, Son of the eternal Father, our Lord, true King of all things! What didst Thou leave in the world for Thy descendants to inherit from Thee? What didst Thou ever have, my Lord, save trials, pains, and insults? Indeed Thou hadst only a beam of wood to rest upon while drinking the bitter draught of death. Those of us, then, my God, who desire to be Thy true children and not to renounce their inheritance, must never flee from suffering. Thy crest is five wounds!... So that too must be our device if we would inherit His kingdom! Not by ease, nor by comfort, nor by honor, nor by wealth can we gain that which He purchased for us by so much Blood. O you who come of illustrious lineage, for the love of God open your eyes. Behold those true knights of Jesus Christ, the princes of His Church, St. Peter and St. Paul: never did they travel by the road you are taking. Can you be imagining that a new road is to be built for you? Do not think that for a moment” (T.J. F, 10).

O my Jesus, the Cross is Your standard; I should be ashamed to ask to be delivered from it. From one evil only I ardently beg You to preserve me : from any deliberate sin, however slight. O Lord, I beg You by the merits of Your sacred Passion to keep all sin far from me. But as for other evils— bodily or spiritual sufferings, physical pain or mental anguish—I beg Your light and strength: light to understand the hidden meaning which they have in the plans of Your divine Providence, light to believe firmly that every sorrow or trial, every pain or disappointment, is planned by You for my greater good; strength not to let myself be influenced by the false maxims of the world or led astray by the vain mirage of earthly happiness, strength to accept suffering of any kind with courage and love.

92. CORPORAL MORTIFICATION

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus Crucified, grant that my love for You may make me willing to crucify my flesh with You and for You.


MEDITATION

1. As a result of original sin, man no longer has complete dominion over his senses and his flesh; therefore he is filled with evil tendencies which try to push him toward what is base. St. Paul humbly admits : “I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is to say, in my flesh, that which is good.... For the good which I will, I do not; but the evil which I will not, that I do” (Rom 7,18.19).

God certainly gives us the grace to overcome our evil tendencies; but we must also use our own efforts, which consist in voluntary mortification: “They that are Christ’s have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Gal 5,24). The purpose of corporal mortification is not to inflict pain and privation on the body for the pleasure of making it suffer, but to discipline and control all its tendencies which are contrary to the life of grace. The Apostle warns us: “If you live according to the flesh, you shall die : but if by the
Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live” (Rom 8,13). We must curb ourselves in order to avoid falls; we must prune the useless or harmful branches in order to avoid deviation; we must direct toward good the forces which, left to themselves, might lead us into sin. For these reasons mortification, although it is not an end in itself nor the principal element in the Christian life, occupies a fundamental place in it and is an absolutely indispensable means toward attaining a spiritual life. No one can escape this law without
closing off all access to eternal salvation, to sanctity. St. Paul, who had done and suffered much for Christ, did not consider himself dispensed from it, and said, “I chastise my body and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway” (1 Cor 9,27).


2. St. Teresa warns us that “if prayer is to be genuine it must be reinforced with this practice [of mortification]: for prayer and self-indulgence do not go together” (Way, 4). It would be an illusion to think that we can reach intimacy with God without the serious exercise of physical mortification. In this regard, we must take care that love of our own body and of our physical welfare does not cause us to reject all penitential practices under the pretext that they will ruin our health. In reality, there are many corporal mortifications which, without the slightest danger to our health, have the great advantage of keeping our spirit of generosity on the alert by the voluntary acceptance of a little physical suffering. If we are to be generous in this respect, we must “ rid ourselves of all inordinate love for our body” (ibid. , 10), that is, of all excessive preoccupation about our health; and we must put aside all anxiety about food, clothing, rest and comfort. “This body of ours,” says St. Teresa, “has one fault: the more you indulge it, the more things it discovers to be essential to it... and if there is any reasonable pretext for indulgence, however little necessity for it there may be, the poor soul is deceived and prevented from making progress ” (ibid., 11).

Anyone who wants to advance on the road to sanctity and union with God must be ready to sacrifice everything, even in the physical order, to the point of “giving up his skin and everything else for Christ, ” as St. John of the Cross says. He teaches, however, that in these matters we must always depend on our superiors or confessors; “corporal penance without obedience is no more than the penance of beasts” (DN I, 6,2), because it prefers a material practice to obedience “ which is penance of the reason and discretion,” and is, therefore, the sacrifice most pleasing to God.


COLLOQUY

“This servant of Thine, my God, can no longer endure such trials as come when she finds herself without Thee; for if she is to live, she desires no repose in this life, nor would she have Thee give her any. This soul would fain see itself free, to eat is a torment; to sleep brings only anguish. It finds itself in this life spending its time upon comforts, yet nothing can comfort it but Thee; it seems to be living against nature,
for it no longer desires to live to itself, but only to Thee” (T.J. Life, 16).

O Lord, help me, I beg You, to free myself from the slavery of the body! Teach me to conquer its extravagant demands and to mortify its pretensions. You have given me this body of flesh, in order that I may serve You on earth. Grant that it may not become an obstacle to me and hinder the generous, total gift of my whole self to You.

How far I am, O God, from the austerities and mortifications of the saints! “Do I, perhaps, think they were made of iron? No: they were as frail as I. O Lord, help me to understand that once I begin to subdue my miserable body, it will give me much less trouble” (Way, 11). Why should I be terrified by the fear of losing my health?

Sickness and health, life and death, all are in Your hands, my God; everything depends on You. I now make a firm resolution to entrust all solicitude to You, and to keep but one occupation : to love You and serve You with all my strength. Help me, O Lord, to gain the mastery over my body and to conquer it completely, so that I may attain that magnificent liberty of spirit which allows the soul to devote itself undisturbed to the exercise of a deep interior life.

93. WITH JESUS CRUCIFIED

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, I place myself at the foot of the Cross, help me to understand how necessary it is to suffer in order to resemble You.


MEDITATION

1. For the soul who aspires to union with God, penance is not only a means of subjecting the flesh to the spirit, but also a means of being assimilated to Christ Crucified, in order to reproduce and prolong His Passion in its own body.

“Love makes equality and similitude” (J.C. AS J, 4,4): he who truly loves has a spontaneous desire to share in the sufferings of the loved one; it is the same with real lovers of the Crucified. St. Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi exclaims, “It is not fitting to be a delicate member of a Head crowned with thorns and crucified, nor the unmortified bride of a suffering Spouse.” It is an honor for a wife to be able to share in the entire life of her spouse. For a soul consecrated to God, it is an honor to be able to share, even in a small way, in the Passion of Christ; such a soul glories in it. “ But God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world ” (Gal 6,14).

Although mortification of the spirit is certainly more important than that of the body, we must not forget that, in order to save the world, Jesus was willing to embrace both in the most complete manner. His whole life was a cross and a martyrdom; it ended with the sacrifice of Calvary, where His spiritual and physical immolation reached its height. As for the mortification of the senses, “It is certain,” says St. John of the Cross, “that He died as to sense, spiritually, during His life, besides dying naturally, at His death. For...in life He had not where to lay His head, and at His death, this was even truer.... Wherefore, as it seems to me, any spirituality that would fain walk in sweetness and with ease, and flees from the imitation of Christ, is worthless ” (AS II, 7,10.8).


2. St. Teresa Margaret of the Heart of Jesus wrote: “Remember that when you entered religion, you proposed to express in yourself the life of the Crucified” (Sp). To express the life of the Crucified means to live His Passion, to associate ourselves with His sufferings, to unite ourselves to His intentions—the glory of the Father and the salvation of souls. “I...fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh, for His Body, which is the Church” (Col 1,24). This is another motive which has urged the saints to generous corporal mortification. Nothing is lacking in the Passion of Christ; He Himself said on the Cross, “all is consummated” (Jn 19,30). All was accomplished in Him, our Head, but it must now be accomplished in us, His members. Jesus wills to continue His Passion in us so that we may be associated with Him in the work of redemption; He wills to make us His collaborators in the most sublime of His works, the salvation of souls. Jesus, who could have accomplished His work alone, willed to need us in order to apply the infinite merits of His Passion to many souls.

Mortification, and even physical suffering, is therefore a requirement of a life of union with Christ; the more generous the soul is, the more it will participate intimately in the interior life and apostolic work of Jesus. We cannot be intimate with Christ if we do not suffer with Him, if we do not ascend the Cross with Him. “Let Christ Crucified be sufficient for thee, and with Him suffer and rest” (J.C. SM II, 13).

Suffering has a supernatural value only when it is borne with Christ and for Christ. It is Jesus who sanctifies suffering; apart from Him it is worth nothing and is of no use. But if it is embraced for love of Him, it becomes precious coin, capable of redeeming and sanctifying souls; it becomes a continuation of the Passion.


COLLOQUY

“O much desired Passion! Who desires you, loves you and is glorified in you? O eternal Truth, You tell me that Your Passion is neither desired nor loved by anyone who loves himself, but only by one who has stripped himself of self and clothed himself with You, O Crucified Christ ; by means of Your light he sees in the Cross the greatness of Your charity. O gentle, quiet Passion, which in the calmness of peace allows the soul to traverse the waves of the angry sea! O delectable, sweet Passion! O wealth of the soul, true joy, our glory and our beatitude; the soul which is glorified in you acquires your fruit. O Word, the soul which takes
shelter in Your Passion is dead to sensuality and tastes the sweetness of Your charity.

“O my God, my Love, permit me one question: When the world was languishing in sickness, You sent Your only Son to be its physician...and now what means will You use to revive again this world which lies once more in death? I see that You give the name of Christ to Your servants and that by means of them You want to take away death and give back life to the world. And in what way? They must walk bravely in the footprints of the Word and work for Your honor and the salvation of souls with love and burning desire; to this end they should bear patiently all pains, anxieties, reproaches, and disgrace. O wonderful Restorer, give us many ‘ Christs ° who will spend their lives in vigils, tears, and prayers for the salvation of the world” (St. Catherine of Siena).

O Lord, You know the profound desire of my heart: to assimilate and unite myself to You in order to live Your life alone. If sublime states of prayer and flights of the spirit are not for me, the Cross is my share. You offer it to me, and I embrace it with all my heart. I know that what is easily within my reach, what I encounter every day, what is most suitable and proportioned to my misery, is suffering, for no human life is without sorrow. Lord, grant that in every suffering, physical as well as moral, I may recognize and embrace Your Cross, so that I may be intimately associated with Your Passion, for the salvation of souls. Now that You are glorified at the right hand of the Father, You can no longer suffer. Deign, then, to suffer in me and to use my poor humanity to continue Your work of redemption.

94. ASH WEDNESDAY

PRESENCE OF GOD - I place myself in Your presence, O Lord; illumine with Your light the eternal truths, and awaken in my soul a sincere desire for conversion.


MEDITATION

1. “Dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return” (Gn 3,19). These words, spoken for the first time by God to Adam after he had committed sin, are repeated today by the Church to every Christian, in order to remind him of two fundamental truths—his nothingness and the reality of death.

Dust, the ashes which the priest puts on our foreheads today, has no substance; the lightest breath will disperse it. It is a good representation of man’s nothingness: “O Lord, my substance is as nothing before Thee ” (Ps 38,6), exclaims the Psalmist. Our pride, our arrogance, needs to grasp this truth, to realize that everything in us is nothing. Drawn from nothing by the creative power of God, by His infinite love which willed to communicate His being and His life to us, we cannot—because of sin—be reunited with Him for eternity without passing through the dark reality of death. The consequence and punishment of sin, death is, in itself, bitter and painful; but Jesus, who wanted to be like to us in all things, in submitting to death has given all Christians the strength to accept it out of love. Nevertheless, death exists, and we should reflect on it, not in order to distress ourselves, but to arouse ourselves to do good. “In all thy works, remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin (Sir 7,40). The thought of death places before our eyes the vanity of earthly things, the brevity of life— “All things are passing; God alone remains ”—and therefore it urges us to detach ourselves from everything, to scorn every earthly satisfaction, and to seek God alone. The thought of death makes us understand that “ all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone” (Imit. I, 1,4).

“Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die...then there will be many things about which you care nothing” (T.J. M, 68), that is, you will give up everything that has no eternal value. Only love and fidelity to God are of value for eternity. “In the evening of life, you will be judged on love” (J.C. SM J, 57).


2. Today’s liturgy is an invitation to penance. During the imposition of the ashes we chant: “Let us change our garments, and cover ourselves with sackcloth and ashes; let us fast and weep before the Lord.” It is an invitation to the corporal penance which is especially prescribed for this season; but it is immediately followed by the invitation to be converted: “Let us atone for the sins we have committed.” The end of physical mortification is spiritual penance, humility, recognition of our faults, compunction of heart, and the reform of our lives.

This is the predominant thought of the day. We read in the Epistle (Jl 2,12-19), “Thus saith the Lord: be converted to Me with all your heart, in fasting and in weeping and in mourning. And rend your hearts, and not your garments.” Compunction and conversion of heart hold the first place, because the corporal penance that does not proceed from a contrite heart has no value. On the other hand, corporal penance prepares the soul for conversion, insofar as it is the means of reaching it. We read in the Preface, “O God, by fasting You repress sin, elevate the soul, and give it strength and recompense.” One who wishes to reach the goal, which is the renewing of the spirit, must embrace willingly the means which leads to it, namely, corporal penance. At the same time, he must remember that compunction of heart gives value to corporal penance, which in its turn engenders and gives expression to compunction of heart. These two elements are never separated.

The Gospel (Mt 6,16-21) says further that all penance must be accomplished sincerely and joyfully, without vain ostentation, “ When you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad. For they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast.” Vanity and pride make even the most austere penitential practices useless and sometimes even sinful; they destroy their substance and value, and reduce them to mere externals, empty of all content. Hence when you mortify your body, take care to mortify your self-love still more.


COLLOQUY

“O Jesus, how long is man’s life, although we say that it is short! It is short, O my God, since by it we are to gain a life without end; but it seems very long to the soul who aspires to be with You quickly.... O my soul, you will enter into rest when you are absorbed into the sovereign Good, when you know what He knows, love what He loves, and enjoy what He enjoys. Then your will will no longer be inconstant nor subject to change...and you will forever enjoy Him and His love. Blessed are they whose names are written in the Book of Life! If yours is there, why are you sad, O my soul, and why are you troubled? Trust in God, to whom I shall still confess my sins and whose mercies I shall proclaim. I shall compose a canticle of praise for Him and shall not cease to send up my sighs toward my Savior and my God. A day will come, perhaps, when my glory will praise Him, and my conscience will not feel the bitterness of compunction, in the place where tears and fears have ceased forever.... O Lord, I would rather live and die in hope, and in the effort to gain eternal life, than to possess all creatures and their perishable goods. Do not abandon me, O Lord! I hope in You, and my hope will not be confounded. Give me the grace to serve You always and dispose of me as You wish” (T.J. Exc, 15 — 17).

If the remembrance of my infidelities torments me, I shall remember, O Lord, that “ as soon as we are sorry for having offended You, You forget all our sins and malice. O truly infinite goodness! What more could one desire? Who would not blush with shame to ask so much of You? But now is the favorable time to profit from it, my merciful Savior, by accepting what You offer. You desire our friendship. Who can refuse to give it to You, who did not refuse to shed all Your Blood for us by sacrificing Your life? What You ask is nothing! It will be to our supreme advantage to grant it to You” (ibid., 14).

95. DEATH

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Lord, You have created me for Yourself; grant that I may live and die for love of You.


MEDITATION

1. Today, the Thursday following Ash Wednesday, we find in the liturgy another reference to death. “Take order with thy house, for thou shalt die” (Is 38,1-6). The Church wishes us to become familiar with this thought, “less being suddenly surprised by the day of death, we should seek time for penance and not find it” (RM). In the Gospel Jesus spoke of death as coming like a thief in the night, when we least expect it; but for the watchful Christian who lives according to the words, “Be you then also ready” (Lk 12,40), death will not be a surprise, because it will always find him “ with his loins girt and lamp burning,  like those faithful servants who were waiting for their master, “that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open to him immediately ” (ibid. 12,35.36). At that moment there will be no complaint, no fear or anxiety, because one who has always lived in expectation of the coming of the Lord will not be afraid to open the door to Him at His arrival. He will go to meet Him with great joy, give Him a loving welcome, and with all the ardor of his soul pronounce his last “Ecce venio,” behold, I come (Ps 39,8).

Although death is the last, it is not the only coming of the Lord in the life of a Christian; it is preceded by many other comings whose special purpose is to prepare us for this last. Death will then be for us in the fullest sense a coming of grace. From the moment of our Baptism until the end of our life, we experience a continual succession of comings or visits from our Lord; each Sacrament we receive, each inspiration, each increase of grace is a divine visit to the soul, by means of which God always possesses it more and more, dwelling in it more fully and intimately. One who has never hesitated to open his heart to all these visits from our Lord, who has always welcomed them faithfully and lovingly, who has followed all the impulses of grace with docility, has nothing to fear from this last coming. Then the words of Jesus will sound sweetly in his ears: “Well done, good and faithful servant. ..enter thou into the joy of thy Lord” (Mt 25,21).


2. St. John of the Cross, in speaking of those who have reached the state of transforming union by love, declares that their death is caused more by the impetus of divine love than by natural causes. “ Although they seem to die from an illness or because of old age, their spirits are wrested away by nothing less than some loving impulse and encounter, far loftier and of greater power and strength than any in the past, for it has succeeded in breaking the web and bearing away the precious jewel of the soul” (ZF 1,30). This is indeed “ dying of love,” a precious, blessed death, the true nuptial meeting of the soul with God which brings it immediately into the Beatific Vision. It is the way holy souls die, those souls who are prevented from seeing God face to face only because they are still imprisoned in their body.

Closely related to this death of love which is so glorious and blessed, there is another, accessible to all who sincerely love God and His holy will. As the essence of sanctity consists in always doing the will of God lovingly, even when it imposes great sacrifices and painful renouncements, so too, the essence of a holy death consists in submitting oneself lovingly to this supreme sacrifice, accepting it willingly as the last expression of God’s will. The deeper and more wholehearted the loving resignation with which we accept death, the more truly can it be called a death of love, precisely because it is embraced out of love for God.

God is the absolute master of our life; as we should live for love of Him, striving to conform in everything to His holy will, so that it becomes in everything and for everything the supreme norm of all our actions, so should we know how to die for love of Him, and accept death from His hand at the hour and under the circumstances ordained by Him. “For whether we live, we live unto the Lord,” said St. Paul; “or whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Therefore, whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom 14,8). Whether we are in life or in death, we are the Lord’s, and because we are His, we should have no desire but to live and die according to His holy will. If during our life we try to carry out God’s will with the greatest love, we can surely hope that God will give us the final grace to accept death with great love also.


COLLOQUY


“O Jesus, agonizing on the Cross, be my model at the hour of death. Although You are the Creator and Restorer of life, You willed to undergo death and accepted it willingly in order to expiate my sins. Death had no claim on You; You are the fountain of life and immortality, in whom and by whom all creatures have life; yet You willed to subject Yourself to death in order to resemble me and to sanctify my death.

“O death, who will henceforth fear you, since the Author of life bears you in His bosom, and without doubt, everything in Him is life-giving. I embrace you, I clasp you in my divine Savior’s heart; there, like a chick under the wing of the mother hen, I shall peacefully await your coming, secure in the knowledge that my most merciful Jesus will sweeten your bitterness and defend me against your rigors.

“O Jesus, from this moment I wish to employ all my powers in accepting all the circumstances and pains of my
death; from this moment I desire to accept death in the place, hour, and manner in which it may please You to send it. I know very well that I must suffer and be ground by the teeth of tribulations, sorrows, privations, desolations, and sufferings in order to become bread worthy to serve at Your celestial banquet, O Christ, on the day of the general resurrection. I well know that if the grain of wheat does not fall into the ground and die, it brings forth no fruit; therefore, with all my heart, I accept the annihilation of death in order
to become a new man, no longer mortal and corruptible, but immortal and glorious” (St. Francis de Sales).

96. THE PROOF OF LOVE

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus Crucified, make me understand that the Cross is the greatest proof of love.


MEDITATION

1. After the Incarnation, the Cross of Jesus is the greatest proof of His love for man. Similarly, mortification, which is suffering eagerly accepted for the love of God, is one of the greatest proofs of love that we can give Him. It means freely giving up a satisfaction or a pleasure in order to impose on ourselves, for love of God, something which is contrary to our own natural inclinations; we thus prove that we prefer to satisfy God rather than ourselves. Every act of voluntary mortification, whether physical or moral, says to God, “ Lord, I love You more than myself!” And since a soul in love has an ardent desire to give proof of its love, it is very vigilant not to miss a single opportunity for renunciation.

It was in this sense that St. Teresa Margaret of the Heart of Jesus resolved “not to let a single occasion for suffering escape, as far as she was able—and always in silence between God and herself.” In fact, she made every effort “to find at each moment some occasion for suffering or bodily pain, so as never to satisfy the slightest appetite or desire, and she sought ways to make even what was necessary, painful, and wearying to her body” (Sp). Her ardent love for God found an outlet in this generous, untiring exercise of mortification.

Using a different expression, St. Thérése of the Child Jesus called this practice “scattering flowers,” that is, profiting by every least opportunity to suffer in order to give God a proof of her love. Knowing that the value of mortification depends upon the generosity of the dispositions with which it is done, the Saint said, “I shall always sing, even should my flowers be gathered from the midst of thorns” (St, 13).


2. The value of voluntary mortification consists much more in the good will with which it is practiced than in the intensity of the suffering which is imposed, although the latter may contribute to it in the sense that a more painful mortification requires more good will.

The amount of suffering must be wisely proportioned, and limited to the physical strength of each one; but what must never be limited is the love, the spirit of generosity with which we perform each act of sacrifice. From this point of view, a slight mortification done with all the love of which a soul is capable has greater value than a painful penance performed in a material way, with no interior spirit. Hence before performing an act of mortification, especially when it concerns certain customary practices such as those which are used
in Religious Institutes, it is necessary to arouse our good will and our sincere desire to suffer willingly for the love of God. This will prevent a mere mechanical performance of the act that has little or no value.

Loving contemplation of the Crucified was the soul of all the austerities of St. Teresa Margaret. “This humiliated, suffering God, of whom she was constantly thinking, was the One who gave her the interior strength to overcome every difficulty, however arduous, and to take on spontaneously so many labors and works of charity and mortification ; it was He who gave her an insatiable desire for suffering” (T.M. Sp).

Contemplating Jesus Crucified, the soul feels that, even if it is mortifying itself much for love of Him, its sacrifices and renunciations amount to very little, and instead of conceiving sentiments of vain complacency for the mortifications already practiced, it feels the need of humbling itself and of always doing more. “Have great love for suffering,” says St. John of the Cross, “and consider it very little to attain the favor of the Spouse, who hesitated not to die for thee” (SM II, 15).


COLLOQUY

“O my Beloved, how shall I show my love, since love proves itself by deeds? I have no other means of proving my love than to strew flowers, and these flowers will be each word and look, each little daily sacrifice. I wish to make profit out of the smallest actions and to do them all for Love. For Love’s sake I wish to suffer and to rejoice : so shall I strew my flowers. Not one that I see but, singing all the while, I will scatter its petals before You. Should my roses be gathered from amid thorns, I will sing notwithstanding; and the longer and sharper the thorns, the sweeter will grow my song’" (T.C.J. St, 13).

O Lord, dispose of me according to Your will, for I am ae ‘with everything if only I am following You on the road to Calvary. The more thorns there are on this road and the heavier the Cross is, the more consoled shall I be, for I desire to love You with an effective love, with a patient love, with a love which is dead to self and entirely surrendered to You. O Lord, You on the Cross for me and T on the Cross for You! Oh! if I could but once understand how sweet and precious it is to suffer: to suffer in silence for You, O Jesus! O dear suffering! O good Jesus!” (T.M. Sp). Yes, suffering is dear to me because it permits me to give God proofs of my love; because in the darkness of faith, in which I must live here below, it gives me the assurance of loving not only in words, but with a strong, effective love. O Jesus, now I understand why St. Teresa of Avila asked for only one thing: “to die or to suffer,” professing to have no other reason for living except to suffer for love of You (Life, 40).

O Lord, may I too have such strong, true, and ardent love! Grant it to me, You who can give me all things, and who can, in one instant, transform this dry, cold heart into a furnace of charity.

97. THE SPIRIT OF MORTIFICATION

PRESENCE OF GOD - I come back to Your feet, O Crucified Jesus, desirous of understanding more thoroughly the spirit of mortification.


MEDITATION

1. The spirit of mortification has more than a purely physical aspect of mortification; it also includes renunciation of the ego, the will, and the understanding. Just as in our body and in our senses we have unruly tendencies toward the enjoyment of material things, so also in our ego there are inordinate tendencies toward self-assertion. Love of self and complacency in our own excellence are often so great that, even unconsciously, we tend to make “ self” the center of the universe.

The spirit of mortification is really complete when, above all, we seek to mortify self-love in all its many manifestations. The Pharisee who fasted on the appointed days, but whose heart was so puffed up with pride that his payer amounted to nothing more than praise of himself and scorn of his neighbor, did not have the spirit of mortification and hence was not justified before God. There is little value in imposing corporal mortifications on ourselves if we then refuse to yield our opinion in order to accommodate ourselves to others, if we cannot be reconciled with our enemies, or bear an injury and a cutting word with calmness, or hold back a sharp answer.

“Why,” asks St. Teresa of Jesus, “do we shrink from interior mortification [of our ego, our will, and judgment] since this is the means by which every other kind of mortification may become much more meritorious and perfect, and may be practiced with greater tranquility and ease?” (Way, 12). As long as mortification does not strike at our pride, it remains at the halfway mark and never reaches its goal.


2. The true spirit of mortification embraces, in the first place, all the occasions for physical or moral suffering permitted by divine Providence. The sufferings attendant on illness or fatigue; the efforts required by the performance of our duties or by a life of intense labor; the privations imposed by the state of poverty—all are excellent physical penances. If we sincerely desire to be guided by divine Providence in everything, we will not try to avoid them, or even to lighten them, but will accept wholeheartedly whatever God offers us. It would be absurd to refuse a single one of those providential opportunities for suffering and to look for voluntary mortifications of our own choice. Likewise, it would be foolish for those in religious life to omit the least exercise imposed by the Rule in order to do a penance of their own choosing.

It is exactly the same in the moral order. Do we not sometimes try to avoid a person whom we do not like, but with whom the Lord has brought us into contact? Do we look for every means of avoiding a humiliation or an act of obedience which is painful to nature? If we do, we are running away from the best opportunities for sacrificing ourselves and for mortifying our self-love; even if we substitute other mortifications, they will not be as effective as those which God Himself has prepared for us. In the mortifications offered to us by divine Providence, there is nothing of our own will or liking; they strike us just where we need it most, and where, by voluntary mortification, we could never reach.

In order to arrive at sanctity, a certain specified amount of voluntary penance is not required of all; this varies according to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the advice of superiors, and each one’s physical strength. All, however, must have that truly deep spirit of mortification which can embrace with generosity every opportunity for renunciation prepared or permitted by God.


COLLOQUY


O Lord, You who have sought for adorers in spirit and in truth, preserve me, I beg You, from the pharisaic spirit against which You fought while on earth, and which is so opposed to You, who are infinite Truth and Simplicity. Grant that while mortifying my body, I may mortify my pride even more, or better, mortify it Yourself.

You who know the secret places in my heart, the most deeply hidden instincts of my self-love, prepare for me the most effective medicine for purifying, healing, and transforming me. You alone know where this most harmful microbe nests; You alone can destroy it. But how often, alas, in the varying circumstances of my life, I have not recognized Your hand, Your work; and I have tried in so many ways to escape the physical and moral sufferings, the mortifications, humiliations, and difficulties which You Yourself had prepared for me.

How blind I am, O Lord, and how poorly do I recognize Your ways, which are so different and remote from my limited human views. Give me, O God, that supernatural sight which can judge events in Your light, and which can penetrate the true meaning of the sufferings which You place in my path. Intensify this light in proportion to the obstacles You prepare for me to strike my “ego,” my pride, my opinions, my rights, because it is then above all that I am terribly blind, and groping in the dark, I reject the medicine You offer. I may lack, O Lord, the means of carrying out the purification of my ego, so foolish and so proud. But nothing is lacking to You, You who are the All, and whose infinite mercy utterly surpasses my misery. I confess, O Lord, that I have often strayed like a lamb which, leaving its shepherd, has taken a wrong path. But I desire to return once more, and I come back with complete confidence because I know that You never tire of waiting and of pardoning. Here I am, Lord; I place myself in Your hands. Mortify me, purify me as You wish, for whenever You afflict, it is to heal, and wherever You mortify, life increases.