The measure of our advancement in the spiritual life should be taken from the progress we make in the virtue of mortification; for it should be held as certain that the greater violence we shall do ourselves in mortification, the greater advance we shall make in perfection. - Saint Jerome
When Saint Francis Borgia heard it said that anyone was a Saint, he used to answer, "He is, if he is mortified." In this way he himself became so great a Saint; for he exercised himself in mortification to such a degree that only that day seemed to him truly wretched in which he had not undergone some mortification, either bodily or spiritually.
When a young monk once asked an aged Saint why, among so many who aim at perfection, so few are found perfect, he replied, "Because in order to be perfect it is necessary to die wholly to one's own inclinations, and there are few who arrive at this."
- text taken from A Year with the Saints, composed by an unknown Italian, translated by a member of the Order of Mercy; it has the Imprimatur of Archbishop Michael Augustine Corrigan, Archdiocese of New York, New York, 21 January 1891