Opus Dei - secret Catholic society per Matt Lauer on Today Show NBC on Nov. 4 morning

[Writer]

Just a couple parting observations as I continue to procrastinate my work on the house and my children’s book here… This corporal mortification might be a particularily bad idea for someone suffering from scrupulosity or obsessive compulsive disorder–or family members who have inclinations towards this. In light of modern science*, I think it is important that well-meaning and devout individuals understand that sometimes actions undertaken in the best of heart, could potentially unearth hidden psychological or spirtual weaknesses, which could then send the participant into internal turmoil. I would hope and pray that those within Opus Dei run thorough psychological examinations on participants, and that care is also made not to involve anyone who has dabbled in the occult, in case spiritual remnants are still present. Have a blessed Sunday!

• When taking value from psychology and sociology, however, the Christian has to use common sense. Not everything in this field is worthy of implementation or serious consideration. As a sad example of this, one need look no further than the priests who abused children who were allowed to attend counseling instead of facing the governmental authorities as they should have. Still, OCD is one of many real and concrete mental conditions which would likely not react favorably to corporal mortification.

 

[bear06]

Corporal mortification is not encouraged without spiritual direction. You’re quite correct that corporal mortification can be abused. Any form of mortification can be abused. Opus Dei believes this and it is even pointed out in the article I posted earlier. I suggest that you read it. crisismagazine.com/julaug2005/giesler.htm

Here’s some quotes since it doesn’t appear that you read it:

Of course, there were abuses in the use of corporal mortification—one thinks here of the flagellants of certain fanatical sects in 14th-century Italy and Germany, which were condemned by the Church repeatedly. But with greater judgment, the saints knew how to combine love for God and others with the most painful mortifications.

Despite the tremendous good that mortification can do for a person—within the proper limits and under the guidance of a good spiritual guide—it will always be a shock.

I really think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. I don’t think that the corporal mortifications that Opus Dei uses are what you think they are nor do I think they have the effect you think they do. I’d suggest again that you speak to an Opus Dei priest to find out that they aren’t bizarre people suffering from scupulousity. I’m sure you’d be surprised to find them quite normal, level headed, spiritual directors who are especially awesome in confession. Generally, when you find people who are holy Catholics, you’ve got to ask yourself if their rules are wrong. Like I said, they may not be for everyone but does that make them wrong?

People look at Catholics in general as crazy. Of course, for most of us, this is not true. This happens quite often just from the lack of experience and understanding regarding Catholicism. I think this is the situation you in which you find yourself with the rules of Opus Dei. It’s easy to say that you don’t like it but that doesn’t always mean the subject is wrong.

 

[Sayanz]

For your information, there is an entire article on Mortification of the Flesh in Wikipedia which discusses the History of this practice and the Modern Theology behind it, including what the Popes have said. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortification_of_the_flesh

Some quotes:

In the second millennium, Saint Francis of Assisi, who is known to have received the stigmata, painful wounds like those of Jesus Christ, is said to have asked pardon to his body, whom he called Brother ***, for the severe self-afflicted penances he has done: vigils, fasts, frequent flagellations and the use of a hairshirt.

At the latter half of the 20th century, Saint Josemaría Escrivá practiced self-flagellation and used the cilice, a modern-day version of the hairshirt. Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, a modern-day saint who received the stigmata wrote in one of his letters: “Let us now consider what we must do to ensure that the Holy Spirit may dwell in our souls. It can all be summed up in mortification of the flesh with its vices and concupiscences, and in guarding against a selfish spirit… The mortification must be constant and steady, not intermittent, and it must last for one’s whole life. Moreover, the perfect Christian must not be satisfied with a kind of mortification which merely appears to be severe. He must make sure that it hurts.” Like St. Josemaria, Padre Pio and Mother Teresa of Calcutta used the cilice and discipline regularly as means of doing penance.

From John Paul II: Faith in sharing in the suffering of Christ brings with it the interior certainty that the suffering person “completes what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions”; the certainty that in the spiritual dimension of the work of Redemption he is serving, like Christ, the salvation of his brothers and sisters.

It is suffering, more than anything else, which clears the way for the grace which transforms human souls. Suffering, more than anything else, makes present in the history of humanity the powers of the Redemption.

From John XXIII: But besides bearing in a Christian spirit the inescapable annoyances and sufferings of this life, the faithful ought also take the initiative in doing voluntary acts of penance and offering them to God… Since, therefore, Christ has suffered in the flesh," it is only fitting that we be “armed with the same intent.” It is right, too, to seek example and inspiration from the great saints of the Church. Pure as they were, they inflicted such mortifications upon themselves as to leave us almost aghast with admiration. And as we contemplate their saintly heroism, shall not we be moved by God’s grace to impose on ourselves some voluntary sufferings and deprivations, we whose consciences are perhaps weighed down by so heavy a burden of guilt?

 

[Writer]

Very interesting. Thank you for the posts. I look forward to reading these articles.

This quote from one of the pieces reminds me of a strange observation which recently ocurred to me.

In contrast to the extremes of sadism or masochism, corporal mortification is grounded in a healthy view of man and the world around him, namely, that all of us are flawed and have sinful tendencies within us. The practice itself dates back to biblical times and finds its greatest expression in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

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I said strange because part of what bothered me from the begining may have been because the underlying focus seems Protestant (in one sense) to me. This is a bit hard to explain here, but having grown-up in the Protestant denominations ranging from Baptist to Nazarene, the emphasis was always on man’s evil bent, or his “heart of darkness”. As we began to learn in RCIA about the Catholic Church, however, it became clear that there was more involved here. As we move closer to Christ, we unearth our true humanity, beings created in the image of their Creator. Now, I am probably making a mountain out of hamster burrow here, but the corporal mortification seemed to say something beyond original sin…something about us being inherently evil, which I no longer understand the same way as a Catholic. For a Cradle Catholic, the distinction may be hard to understand, and I am sorry if I am beating a dead horse here.

 

[Sayanz]

I think one of the main reasons why Christ took on suffering and used it as a means of salvation (of showing love, the thing that saves) is that suffering is closely related to sin, it is the result of sin (as death, the ultimate suffering or physical evil, is the result of sin). And sin is the only thing that prevents us from becoming Christlike and holy. It is the enemy that needs to be conquered.

Christ now used a judo-like method. He took on suffering, the very sting of evil, of aversio a Deo, to show his intense conversio ad Deum, his love for God. Thus as St. Josemaria said and many other saints, suffering is the touchstone of love; it is the measure of love.

But it is not just a measure, since it has been sanctified and divinized by God himself when he became man. He took it upon himself, and his divinity as it were flowed into it. This is not just a matter of no pain, no gain, a necessary side-effect of the quest for excellence. In the Christian sense, pain has become gain, if done out of love and done in union with Christ who united it with himself to save mankind.