Fasting and mortification: connections? Relationship between?

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Annie

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It has been recommended that I praction different small mortifications each day, but I also read that fasting is a very important addition if you are praying for the conversion of a loved one, or something like that.

Is fasting a kind of mortification, or the other way around? Are they kind of equal spiritually? Will a mortification contribute as well as fasting would?

I’m just trying to get a good idea about this as I plan for Advent and consider the number of people in my life who are not practicing Catholics.
 
Fasting would be considered a form of mortification.

Small mortification can be many…

Sleeping on the floor or without a pillow.
Taking a cold shower (I personally find lukewarm showers to be much worse than cold).
Abstaining from desert or other culinary amenities, such as cream and sugar in coffee/tea or not eating meat at a certain meal.
Doing something nice for someone you don’t like.
Not saying anything in response to a snide remark or personal attack.
Waking up an extra half hour to use the time for prayer.
Doing chores you’d rather not do.

The saints exhibit heroic mortification in that they had advanced beyond a normal interior life; in some cases they over exerted themselves at the expense of their health. If we but look at our daily lives we will find many opportunities for simple acts of mortification.
 
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Oh, I hate the cold shower one. To me, that is definitely a sign of supernatural virtue! In fact, I have decided this winter to try to not always keep myself as warm as I want to be so I’ll develop a little tolerance to the cold, so you can see I have a long way to go before cold showers. Just the thought makes me shiver (no eek face! what is CAF coming to?!?!)

I have a lot of chances for mortification, absolutely. But these are like planned mortification, like not eating sweets one day, and doing something physically uncomfortable the next. My advisor thinks it is good to mix things up and not get stuck in a rut, or maybe just that I could easily get stuck in a rut? 😉 I’m getting lots of practice in not saying anything…

hmmm, I just realized that not saying anything seems to take more energy than saying something, ironic!
 
We should vary our means of mortification, but not for the sake of novelty. Perhaps assign one day a week for a certain act, and then in 3 months change them all around. The upheaval of the schedule alone will be mortification!
 
Yes, that’s the sort of thing he recommended, not an endless switching, but some varoiety and occasional evaluation, since some things which start as mortifications end up as no big deal, so you lose the spiritual benefit.

Thanks so much, you seem to know a lot about this!
 
Not as much as your spiritual director, I assure you!

I think its better to start with smaller mortifications because they tend to reveal the nature of deeper sins, especially habitual ones. To aim high with sacrifice is to tempt ourselves into spiritual pride.
 
Thank you for this reminder not to aim too high :o sometimes in my ezeal I forget I am just a little soul!
 
It depends what you goal is. There are many books on fasting. And mortifying.
The atomic power of fasting is one such.

When I was in a christian college . we fasted food 3 days at a time. A couple times a month.

There are spiritual results that occur.
 
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