Jesus of Nazareth was no masochist. He did not seek out his suffering. It came to him--as it comes to people of conscience everywhere--and he accepted it as his Father's will. He asked that the cup of suffering pass him by. And the gospels tell us that he liked his food and wine. It was one of things that his ascetic cousin John found a little fishy at first.



A life thoroughly lived brings quite enough suffering. Parents, for example, say no to themselves in scores of ways through all their years of family life. Anyone who requires a celicia in order to say no to himself must lead a wonderfully privileged life. Forgive me, but these ostentatious mortifications --not to mention the revelation of them--seem to me to be both self-indulgent and sanctimonious.

Moreover, these are pains over which the self-abuser has complete control. He wills his own pain in order to experience himself as holy. There is a good measure of self-regard in such mortification.



In life, pain comes when it chooses and stays for as long as it likes. There is no theatre in it, none of the satisfactions of zealotry. Sorrow is a far greater sanctifier than a celicia.



Maureen Mullarkey, from her beautifully crafted and expressed comment in response to Mark Sullivan's post at Ad Orientem on the active mortification of the flesh practiced by some members of Opus Dei. The practices have the sanction of the group's founder Blessed Josemaría Escrivá, who writes at one point in The Way: Blessed be pain. Loved be pain. Sanctified be pain. . . Glorified be pain!



The canonization of Blessed Josemaría Escrivá will be celebrated on Sunday.