We need Mortification

Some years ago, I had an amusing albeit humiliating experience when I gave a meditation to a group I considered to be educated and familiar with religious terms. I was talking about mortification.

With due preparation and using all sorts of arguments, examples, anecdotes, etc., I tried to effect some sound and fury to stir the audience to appreciate the value of mortification.

I thought I gave a good meditation, until someone approached me and asked what 'mortification' meant. The question jolted me back to reality. Our Lord sometimes plays this kind of game on us.

Of course, Filipinos have a general idea of the spirit of sacrifice. We see this spirit lived in very dramatic ways in many places of the country, a part of our Christian culture in spite of its imperfections. But many may not be familiar with the term, 'mortification.'

Actually, they both mean the same thing. Mortification has death as its root word, and that's what is central in the concept of sacrifice. It involves a certain kind of dying, of the flesh so the spirit may live, to oneself so Christ may live in us, of the old man in ourselves so the new man emerges.

Now that we are in Lent again, it's good that we remind ourselves strongly about this very important aspect of our Christian life, a true necessity and an indispensable stimulus to our spiritual growth.

In a nutshell, we have to understand that we cannot go on with our life without developing a spirit of mortification. Failure in this area certainly leads us to the road of our own perdition. It separates us from the very lifeblood of our Christianity.

Especially now that the pace of development is fast and is producing a dizzying variety of things, unfamiliar to many of us, the objective need for mortification should be more deeply felt.

It should bother us to see that there appears an indifference to this Christian need. But this disturbance should also spur us to seek ways, practical and attuned to the mentality of today's youth especially, of how to instill this thing in the minds of all.

The spirit of mortification gives us endless and tremendous benefits. It helps us keep a spiritual and supernatural tone to our life, removing us from a purely mundane, temporal and materialistic outlook. In a way, it brings us to our senses.

It unites us more tightly with our Lord, and identifies us with him in his supreme act of love. Our true Christian identity is proven when we go all the way to identify ourselves with Christ on the Cross. A true Christian is when he loves to make sacrifices. Otherwise, he is fake-it's as simple as that.

It would not be enough to conform ourselves to Christ through the sacraments. Our incorporation into him through baptism necessarily leads us to the cross, no two ways about it. The spirit of mortification strengthens us against temptations, purifying and healing our wounded powers and faculties. It helps us to stay away from spiritual complacency and lukewarmness, intensifying our love for God and others.

It helps to conform our senses, emotions and feelings to the dynamics of our faith and charity. It's the discipline that gives them direction, and that leads us to our true joy. With it, our dreams and exuberance are properly grounded. We need it for atoning and making up for sins, ours and those of others. It also makes our conscience more delicate and sensitive, and yet also more strong and resistant to temptations and sins. It checks on our pride that works in us 24/7, and only leaves 24 hours after our death.

In short, not only should we welcome opportunities to make sacrifices and mortifications, but also we should look for them. Avoiding them, to Christian believers, is actually an anomaly.

Thus, we have to understand that in everything that we do, whether we are working, resting, having a nice, shopping, etc., an element of mortification should be included. Forgetting to mortify definitely spoils our life.

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