10 Uses for Mortification by Adam Minihan

“Although one may not fast very much, nonetheless the Enemy has greater fear of us when he knows that we are adept at fasting.”
—St. Francis de Sales

Lent, the spiritual tithing of the year as Pope Gregory I put it, begins with Ash Wednesday. It is fitting for the first day we enter into this spiritual tithing to remember our death by having blessed ashes imposed in the form of a cross on our foreheads while the priest recites the words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” While considering how to participate in this liturgical season, the temptation of giving up the same things we do each year, such as sweets, coffee, or soda, creeps into our mind. As these things are good to offer up, perhaps if we take a look at the purpose and uses for mortification, we can become more intentional with our sacrificial offering. To assist us in this preparation, we can turn to the writings of St. Francis de Sales, Doctor of the Church. In his book, The Secret of Sanctity, written with the assistance of Father Jean Crasset, a French Jesuit theologian known for his writings on asceticism, St. Francis de Sales lays out 10 benefits and advantages of mortification that deserve serious consideration.  

10 Uses for Mortification
1. We cannot care for our spouse, children, or neighbor if our appetites dominate our will and are a liability for making rational decisions. By quieting our appetites, we are able to focus on others rather than ourselves. As St. Francis de Sales says, “These [passions] must be, I do not say altogether removed, but effectually crippled, before we can hope to make much progress.”

2. Sin blinds us. It turns our desires selfishly inward, perverting the prayer of the Our Father from “Thy will be done” to “My will be done.” Through the grace-filled purification process of mortification, our spiritual vision is heightened so that we may see all our imperfections.

3. Mortifications of all kinds help us to obtain power with God. The world was redeemed by suffering, and suffering in this life unites our will to God, allowing us to carry out His mission to make disciples of all men.

4. Mortification intensifies our love. Voluntarily denying ourselves produces an atmosphere for charity to grow and thrive. “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Jn. 15:13).

5. We are not made for this world. Mortification reminds us that the reward we should be striving for is not in this world but in the next. “Nothing is in itself so unworldly as mortification, because it is the killing of everything that the world most prizes and cherishes.”

6. Francis de Sales tells us “perhaps the chiefest danger in the whole spiritual life” is leaving the first stage of purification (often called the via purgativa) too soon. When rightly ordered and done out of reverence for God, mortification is a virtue. And because it is a virtue, it must be developed out of habit. In the early stages of the spiritual life, many try to take on too many ascetic practices at once and lose their motivation, causing them to quit the practice altogether. This is a mistake and should be avoided.

7. There is a strong connection between mortification and prayer. All day long we distract ourselves from our duties in life with our mobile devices, social media, and email. Is it really a surprise that we find ourselves distracted in prayer? “How many complaints are we daily hearing of the difficulties of mental prayer! If we do not mortify ourselves, why complain?”

8. We must not get complacent in the spiritual life. Mortification continues to build and strengthen our sanctity by developing habits of a holy life. This relates to what was stated above about not trying to get out of the via purgativa too quickly.

9. Without disciplined exterior mortification, it is foolish to think we will ever achieve the higher grace of interior mortification. “It is the greatest of delusions to suppose that we can mortify judgment and will, if we do not mortify our body also.”

10. The last use of mortification St. Francis de Sales mentions is to develop the virtue of discretion. As St. Francis de Sales beautifully states, “The truly mortified man will as little think of not listening to discretion as he would think of listening to cowardice.”
When motivation lags and our will seems depleted, it is good to remember the purpose of our mortification and to recall our desire for God alone. With the aid of St. Francis de Sales, let us use this time the Church has given us, in Her wisdom, to strengthen our desire to conform ourselves closer to Christ through prayer and mortification — for there can be no true or enduring love without it.