This will be a quick and dirty post, since I’m in the great state of Texas for a few days and pecking away on my phone rather than my laptop for this post.)
If we are using the saints as our guides and models for how to get to Heaven in this life, I think you’d be hard pressed to find one that didn’t believe penance and mortification of the senses was an essential part of the equation.
There’s something about people (largely women) who are attracted to “spiritual things” and treat spirituality as “their thing.” Like some people are really into professional baseball, some people are really into politics, some liturgy, some volunteering, etc. These love love retreats and talks and quiet and relish reading books about all things “spiritual.” There’s nothing wrong with this on the surface, but we can sometimes approach the spiritual life as a pet hobby sometimes, and even get satisfaction out of it to the point where we pursue it for its own sake.
My wife often rolls her eyes when she takes the kids to the local library and the librarians there get all flustered by having to check out their books or do something in the children’s section and interact with actual people. I’m sure they’d much prefer to be cataloging or stacking shelves somewhere in the quiet amidst the comforting smell of books, but the fact is their idealized version of the job doesn’t always line up with the realities of serving the actual clientele (kids included).
In the context of the Christian life, love of spiritual things can sometimes be an indication of holiness, but can also reflect a kind of immaturity and miss the trees for the forest.
There’s also the danger of “loving the wrong things.” For monastics, learning obedience (which is “better than sacrifice,” as scripture notes) can be hard, and they need to pushed out of their comfort zones from time to time. Those monastery toilets don’t scrub themselves.
I always go back to a story I heard about St Alyosius that has stayed with me over the years. When he entered the Jesuits at the age of 17, Alyosius Gonzaga was appointed a spiritual director, St. Robert Bellarmine. Level-headed and patient, Bellarmine listened to Aloysius describe his extreme schedule of individual religious practice, then ordered him to cease it. He was assigned instead to work at a local hospital tending to the sick and infirmed. Squeamish, he was repulsed by the work, and he disliked people, which is probably why he was initially inclined to his private devotions and mortifications. When the plague hit Rome in January 1591, the sick and dying were everywhere, overwhelming the hospitals, and Alyosius had to dig deep and draw on that Italian stubbornness and bulldog-like willpower to stomach the work. He died carrying for them and was canonized in 1726 AD.
What’s my point? Well, it’s two-fold.
First, we don’t attain spiritual perfection by obtaining PhDs or licentures in spirituality, but by applied application. This can mean the sometimes dirty work of serving the needs of the Church and the poor, or even denying or at least balancing good spiritual things so that we don’t neglect the household or service due to our spouses.
Secondly, it’s natural to want to “pitch tents” on the mountaintop after the Transfiguration. Like St Peter, we tell Christ, “it is good that we are here!” But what does Jesus tell Peter to do to show his love for Christ? Three times he tells him, “feed my sheep.”
We must pray, as St Pio says, “those who do not pray are lost.” But we must also do the things Christ calls us to even when we don’t necessarily want too or are repulsed by it. One mans mortification may be another man’s comfort, and vice versa. As our Lord tells St Peter, “Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”
Chesterton said, “don’t be so open minded that your brain falls out.” In the same vein I’d say don’t be so “spiritual” that you forget what it means to love God. To love God consists in one thing—to do His will. If we’re not doing that, no amount of talks or retreats or spiritual reading will amount to anything. Mortification is meant to keep us from getting too comfortable in the things we prefer. Sometimes we just need to do the work, and believe me, there’s a lot of work that needs doing.
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