We need to re-learn the value of structured daily prayer, of setting aside one day in seven, of fasting, of almsgiving, of pilgrimage, of the global community of faith as the primary focus of personal allegiance and locus of personal identity, of the lesser outward and greater inward struggle, of the need for a comprehensive and coherent critique both of capitalism and of Marxism, of the coherence between faith and reason, and of a consequent integrated view of art and science.
The answer to the challenge of the Sunna is Sacred Tradition. The answer to the challenge of the Imamate is the Petrine Office. And the answer to the challenge of Sufism is our own tradition of mysticism and monasticism.
Liberal Catholics will be the last to see the point.
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What role does mortification play in your advocacy of spiritual revival?
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This is real sense. But will the "we" whom you address ever listen?
Why do we have to fast? It leads to low blood sugar and then terrible headaches!
ReplyDeleteI'm not a Liberal Catholic, and I don't see the point. Presumably I'll have to see it before they do.
ReplyDeleteMortification? Eurgh! You mean like Opus Dei? I've read "The Da Vinci Code", and "The Truth behind the Da Vinci Code". Dan Brown is a smart guy. I try and stay away from Catholics, and I don't want them running my country thank you very much!
ReplyDeletePS before you patronise me, I've just been awarded A* in both history and RS at GCSE, so I have some idea about this subject thanks.
Patrick, feel free. Your blog has been a bit quiet of late. Let them listen to that, for a start.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 12:51, those medically unable to fast have never been required to do so.
Aled, if only you were all that we had to deal with.
And Andrew, corporal mortification is an integral part of Catholic spirituality.
Catholics need to re-learn moderate self-denial on Fridays, on the Wednesdays in Lent, during Holy Week, on the eves of the Church’s greatest Solemnities, and before receiving Communion, as well as the considerable exigencies on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
These are of a piece with the cilice (a spiked chain worn around the upper thigh) and the discipline (a small whip used on the back), both practised by Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, and both prescribed by her for her fast-growing Missionaries of Charity.
Convents manufacturing such items still do a roaring trade, and the rise of Opus Dei is itself a sign that the decadent period of disdain for asceticism even within the Catholic Church is an aberration now mercifully coming to an end.
By the way, people who suggest that Ruth Kelly wears the cilice to work merely demonstrate their own ignorance. Both the cilice and the discipline are used by numeraries, who are celibate, live in Opus Dei centres, and give most of their salaries directly to Opus Dei.
Kelly is clearly a supernumerary, as are seventy per cent of Opus Dei members, and so presumably mortifies the flesh in ways more acceptable to clever-clever opinion, though none the worse for that.
Oh good - it's only for left footers then!
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