Wednesday 27 January 2010

John Paul The Great, Pray For Us

Anyone who still harbours the slightest doubt need look no further than the works of corporal mortification that he is now known to have performed regularly.

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). Convents manufacturing such items still do a roaring trade, and the rise of Opus Dei is a sign that the decadent period of disdain for asceticism even within the Catholic Church is an aberration now mercifully coming to an end.

4 comments:

  1. Oh you naughty Boy! Whips & chains U la la.

    Get a grip, David! This is all about Sado-Masochism. Do the search & you will see the convents & monasteries attracted all kinds of weirdos & its only now we are beginning to see the crop.

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  2. The problem is not ascesis, but its absence.

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  3. Funny,

    There are always people getting this confused, and those pushing beyond the boundries.
    The Church teaches that fasting is to be observed on Ash Wednesday & Good Friday. On those two day two cold collations and a main meal are the maximum. Fridays may be kept as days of abstinance (no read meat) although this may be replaced by doing something extra, a meditation, saying the rosary. Before the reception of communion a fast of an hour, excluding water is to be kept. This applies to those between the ages of 16 and 60.
    There are those who may wish to do more, and in conjunction with a spiritual director or confessor they may (although one must remember such things may become reasons for pride).
    The Church has never taught that things that cause pain are spiritually helpful, and as we are aware these things can cross over into more sinful areas.
    I fear David that you are pushing boundries. Such things were never, and should never be for those who are in any sense ordinary. They are for those who have a particular and very advanced spirituality.
    Keep the rules above and perhaps give up a little more food, that afterall ius what is necessary for salvation

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  4. "Ordinary" people are supposed to have "a particular and very advanced spirituality". That should be the very definition of ordinariness. Such is one of the true roots and fruits of the Second Vatican Council.

    Mercifully, the decadent, secularising misappropriation of that Council's name is now dying out. In no small measure thanks to John Paul the Great.

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