When we consider the wounds opened by the cruel scourging in the sacred body of our dear Saviour, they seem to us like so many sadly eloquent mouths which say to us: "Mortify your senses."When we consider the wounds opened by the cruel scourging in the sacred body of our dear Saviour, they seem to us like so many sadly eloquent mouths which say to us: "Mortify your senses."
Literally, "mortify" means to cause anything to die; and why should I cause my senses to die? Are they not the servants of the soul and the necessary instruments of the immaterial life? Open to the world outside of me, they receive the images which the activity of my mind unconsciously transforms, and by the aid of which it reaches ideas and even eternal principles. The sublime harmony of God's works penetrates through the senses even to the inner sanctuary of the soul, where the divine perfections are freely displayed, causing themselves to be known, admired, loved, adored, and blessed. When any of the senses is wanting to me my soul is, in a certain degree, mutilated; in this case there is always some work of God that I either know not at all or know imperfectly, some operation of the intellectual and moral life which I can perform only by halves.
Hence I ask again, Why mortify my senses, why cause them to die?
In real truth, we would owe them deep respect and honorable treatment if they were always faithful servants: but sin has perverted them. "Death, has entered by my windows," says the prophet Jeremias; and these windows are my senses.
The seductive images which awaken dangerous appetites in my flesh, the false brilliancy of objects which excite covetous desires, the endearing words which soothe my heart and steal away its affections, the impassioned discourses which violently excite and then deprave me, the perfumes which inebriate me and the gross delights in which I forget myself - all these enter by the senses. The servants of the soul are become the instruments of sin. How many faults, O God! are committed by the senses. Thou hast good reason to pronounce severe judgments upon them! "If thy right eye scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it away; if thy right hand is dangerous to thy soul, cut it off and cast it from thee." And Saint Paul, in his epistle to the Colossians, tells us "to mortify our members." And in his epistle to the Romans (chapter 8) he says: "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."
My God, I wish to live; and, in order to live, I wish to mortify my senses. I do not wish to destroy them absolutely, for they may be of service to my soul and instruments of my perfection; but to cause the death of everything in them that revolts against the spirit: rash impetuosity, restless investigations, evil delights, culpable complaisances - all this is what I wish.
To this effect I have need of constant watchfulness and unrelenting purpose. Whatever else may happen, I desire to save my soul from corruption.
Therefore I will say to my eyes: You shall not see; to my ears: You shall not hear; to the sense of smell: You shall not breathe; to my mouth: You shall not taste; to my hands and to all the members of my body: You shall touch neither images, nor forms, nor reports, nor discourses, nor perfumes, nor dishes, nor any other exterior thing which you desire earnestly to the detriment of my soul. Touch not its life; I forbid you to bring death in upon me.
But if my senses will not obey this command, whether through surprise, negligence, or malice, I will most severely chastise their disobedience. After the example of the saints I will arm myself with an avenging discipline; I will beat down my flesh; I will make this untamed rebel tremble with fear under the blows of my scourging; I will teach it to submit. Every fault shall receive a punishment proportioned to its gravity, and then I will cry out with the Psalmist: "Thy rod and Thy staff, O Lord! have been my comforters." (Psalm 22)
- text taken from Fruits of the Rosary, by Father Jacques-Marie Louis Monsabre, O.P.