In this mystery the ignominy and suffering of Jesus reached His sacred Head.In this mystery the ignominy and suffering of Jesus reached His sacred Head.
Injured, spit upon, buffeted, crowned with thorns, He invites us to extend our mortification to the very head and throne of our nature - that is to say, the incorruptible spirit in which original grace had planted so many perfections, and into which original sin brought so many disorders.
How, then, am I to mortify my spirit? Certainly I cannot kill an immortal substance - that is impossible; I must not cause the death of its noble and pure aspirations towards the supreme good - this would be criminal; but I must put down every movement that is contrary to these aspirations.
There are two human creatures in us, says Saint Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:47, etc.: "The first man is of the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly. Such as is the earthly, such also are the earthly; and such as is the heavenly, such also are they that are heavenly. Therefore, as we have borne the image of the earthly, let us also bear the image of the heavenly." That is to say, let the image of the heavenly man in us efface the image of the earthly man. This cannot be entirely completed until the glorious day of the resurrection. But, in waiting for that blessed day, we should endeavor to make the heavenly creature live in us, and condemn to death the creature of earth.
We strike this latter creature in its more material or more gross part when we mortify the senses; we reach it in its more subtle part when we mortify the spirit. Without this mortification of spirit the most severe and even bloody austerities are merely useless demonstrations, and even dangerous, inasmuch as they sometimes fill us with a false security. Military men tell us that it is not enough to secure the outposts of a fortification, but it is also necessary to restrain the rash ardor of the defenders within the walls and prevent their disastrous sallies, by means of which the enemy might get in.
Therefore let us keep the spirit in due bounds by mortification. Let the word be:
Death to those wandering thoughts and fickle desires which divide and scatter the powers of the soul and prevent us from being duly recollected before God.
Death to this mad eagerness with which we pursue the honor, glory, esteem, and consideration of men, as if these frivolous rewards could sufficiently compensate our talents, virtues, or merits,
Death to that anxiety which forces us to manifest ourselves to the world, to be or to appear something on the theatre of a day on which the interests and passions of the world are never at rest.
Death to that ill-directed thirst after knowledge which makes us forget the safe boundary line at which faith says to reason: "Halt! Beyond this line man should bring nothing but timid respect and silent admiration."
Death to those independent ideas which tend to withdraw our will from the just direction of the most venerable and best-founded authorities.
Death to those desires of domination which cause our imperious, exacting, and capricious will to weigh grievously upon our inferiors and even upon our equals.
Death to that overshadowing self-love which takes offence at everything; to that susceptibility ever in a flutter and ever unable and unwilling to bear the least contradiction.
Death to those petty jealousies, antipathies, and rancors which disturb peace and charity.
Death to those too ardent and tender affections which fill the heart with a created object before which the soul loses itself instead of being raised to God.
Death to all affections which absorb our attention and monopolize our hearts, as if there was nothing better for our love.
Death even to the sensible sweets and joys of devotion, in which the soul rests as if it were the terminus of its journey, whereas it should remember that all perfect souls have to pass through the desert before they arrive at the land of promise.
Courage! Courage! Let us force into our souls the thorns of spiritual mortification. With the aid of Jesus and Mary let us put to death the earthly man within us, in order that the celestial man may live in recollection, simplicity, submission, humility, benevolence, devotion, holy love, and pious abandonment. Let the word be: For God, through God, in God.
- text taken from Fruits of the Rosary, by Father Jacques-Marie Louis Monsabre, O.P.