Scourging Oneself?

[CrossofChrist]

Hello everyone,

What is the Church’s teaching on inflicting bodily harm upon oneself as a form of penance, bodily discipline, or unification with the sufferings of Christ?

What is your opinion of it?

I was thinking earlier, and it seems as though many of the reasons people fast are the same reasons people have scourged themselves.

Scourging? Using one of these?

bible-history.com/past/images/flagrum.gif

Here’s a story about Filipinos scourging and “crucifying” themselves.

The response from the hierarchy?

Archbishop Jose Palma of Cebu: Let us concentrate more on the prayers.

Bishop Joel Baylon of Legazpi: (There are) other forms of sacrifice and suffering that would lead to real conversion…sometimes the kind of sacrifice that we impose on ourselves is not what the Lord wants us to do.

 

[Edward_H]

Of course the topic of this thread isn’t about ordinary mortification’s that Christians offer up, but the extreme, “Scourging Oneself.”

So the question is, how many here do it ?

Jim

I provided the larger context and missing rational for mortifications in general because the thread had gone on for 5 or 6 pages with little discernible progress.

Jesus gave us in very stark terms, for effect, the basis for severe mortification…to avoid sin. Cutting off limbs or poking out eyes. Few take Jesus literally…but taking His point figuratively puts what seem like severe mortifications in a more reasonable context.

Most of us don’t have to resort to the use of the discipline. Many priests and religious or others who live a celibate life do need extra help.

I don’t live celibacy, but to remain chaste I do resort to various means of mortification under the direction of my spiritual director. These means involve cold showers, very difficult physical exercise routines (which I learned in the Marines…even though I am long out of the Marines), periods of intense work, walking at times with a pebble in my shoe, sleeping on the floor, sleeping without pillow, or without any covering…and other hidden offerings…perhaps handling a hotter than expected coffee cup with a spirit of mortification and quiet, non panicked temperance…getting it to the table, while talking to Our Lord.

As I said earlier we should squeeze all the value out of these quiet passive mortifications before asking our director for any more help.

 

[Deus_tecum]

I just want to add something from my interest in the origin and roots of various words. “Corporal mortification” comes primarily from two word roots, “corpus” and “morti”. Corpus means "body, and morti means “death”. I can see how with the ego being intertwined with the body that in a primitive way, a belief could develop that hurting the body could kill the ego, the self that is to die if we are to be fully alive in Christ. I do not agree with this belief for myself, but if anyone does I shall not be a stumbling block to you. Just be certain it bears good fruit. It seems a clearer way to mortify the ego is to put others first through forgiveness, charity, and love.

 

[Bookcat]

I return to this good article: forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11711349&postcount=19

 

[Bookcat]

I return to this rather good article: forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11711349&postcount=19

Such is not about “extreme” things that ought not be done by anyone (like having oneself nailed to a cross) but ordinary and the at times the less usual bodily mortification (the discipline, hair shirt…).

Most Christians are to engage in ordinary usual forms of mortification - such as fasting, giving up meat, maybe a cold shower (burrrr -I prefer warm), little forms of self -denial, heck even a smile when one does not feel like it…etc (indeed some of the other forms can tempt to pride --another reason for a good director etc as the spiritual writers say)

The ordinary fasting on Ash Weds and Good Friday…is something I find a “rather good bodily mortification” every Lent for me.

And let us all remember:

While it is certainly true that:

Catechism:

2015 The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails the ascesis and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes…

It is also true that:

1430 Jesus’ call to conversion and penance, like that of the prophets before him, does not aim first at outward works, “sackcloth and ashes,” fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of the heart, interior conversion. Without this, such penances remain sterile and false; however, interior conversion urges expression in visible signs, gestures and works of penance.

scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c2a4.htm#1430

 

[ringil]

So the question is, how many here do it ?

Jim

A pertinent question.

I did it as a teenager without talking to any priest as I did not know it was wrong.

I believe now that I shouldn’t have been doing this and it was tied to my struggles with mental illness. I did self harm at times as well and I am sure the two were linked or virtually the same.

But just to be clear- I am now 38, doing pretty well mentally and have been for many years. Adolescence can be very trying.

 

[LilyPearls]

Of course the topic of this thread isn’t about ordinary mortification’s that Christians offer up, but the extreme, “Scourging Oneself.”

So the question is, how many here do it ?

Jim

I occasionaly go to Mass at a discalced carmelite monastery where the discipline is still used. There are 17ish nuns there (including a postulant and a young lady who is only temporarily professed, so I suppose those two are technically not nuns yet). As for what mortifications and penances I myself practice… that’s between me, God and my spiritual director.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

I occasionaly go to Mass at a discalced carmelite monastery where the discipline is still used. There are 17ish nuns there (including a postulant and a young lady who is only temporarily professed, so I suppose those two are technically not nuns yet). As for what mortifications and penances I myself practice… that’s between me, God and my spiritual director.

Again, not talking about doing general penances which Christians are called to do, but scourging oneself.

I don’t know of any Discalced Carmelites who scourge themselves, nor any who’d approve of it being a form of mortification.

St Theresa herself opposed it, as was discussed with OCD Friars who were the spiritual directors of my OCDS group.

Jim

 

[LilyPearls]

Again, not talking about doing general penances which Christians are called to do, but scourging oneself.

I don’t know of any Discalced Carmelites who scourge themselves, nor any who’d approve of it being a form of mortification.

St Theresa herself opposed it, as was discussed with OCD Friars who were the spiritual directors of my OCDS group.

Jim

Sorry my mistake. I don’t know of anyone who beats himself to a bloody pulp in an attempt to mortify himself. I have however seen a Catholic store that sells hairshirts, cilices and normal disciplines… But also sells disciplines made of metal and some with a sort of metal hook or something on it. So, sadly, there is apparently a market for the unnecessarily brutal kind of whip.

 

[Bookcat]

I return to this rather good article: forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11711349&postcount=19

Such is not about “extreme” things that ought not be done by anyone (like having oneself nailed to a cross) but ordinary and the at times the less usual bodily mortification (the discipline, hair shirt…).

Most Christians are to engage in ordinary usual forms of mortification - such as fasting, giving up meat, maybe a cold shower (burrrr -I prefer warm), little forms of self -denial, heck even a smile when one does not feel like it…etc (indeed some of the other forms can tempt to pride --another reason for a good director etc as the spiritual writers say)

The ordinary fasting on Ash Weds and Good Friday…is something I find a “rather good bodily mortification” every Lent for me.

And let us all remember:

While it is certainly true that:

Catechism:

2015 The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails the ascesis and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes…

It is also true that:

1430 Jesus’ call to conversion and penance, like that of the prophets before him, does not aim first at outward works, “sackcloth and ashes,” fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of the heart, interior conversion. Without this, such penances remain sterile and false; however, interior conversion urges expression in visible signs, gestures and works of penance.

scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c2a4.htm#1430

 

[Bookcat]

I return to this rather good article: forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11711349&postcount=19

Such is not about “extreme” things that ought not be done by anyone (like having oneself nailed to a cross) but ordinary and the at times the less usual bodily mortification (the discipline, hair shirt…).

Most Christians are to engage in ordinary usual forms of mortification - such as fasting, giving up meat, maybe a cold shower (burrrr -I prefer warm), little forms of self -denial, heck even a smile when one does not feel like it…etc (indeed some of the other forms can tempt to pride --another reason for a good director etc as the spiritual writers say)

The ordinary fasting on Ash Weds and Good Friday…is something I find a “rather good bodily mortification” every Lent for me.

And let us all remember:

While it is certainly true that:

Catechism:

2015 The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails the ascesis and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes…

It is also true that:

1430 Jesus’ call to conversion and penance, like that of the prophets before him, does not aim first at outward works, “sackcloth and ashes,” fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of the heart, interior conversion. Without this, such penances remain sterile and false; however, interior conversion urges expression in visible signs, gestures and works of penance.

scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c2a4.htm#1430

Add this: opusdei.us/art.php?p=16367

 

[Bookcat]

I return to this rather good article: forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11711349&postcount=19

Such is not about “extreme” things that ought not be done by anyone (like having oneself nailed to a cross) but ordinary and the at times the less usual bodily mortification (the discipline, hair shirt…).

Most Christians are to engage in ordinary usual forms of mortification - such as fasting, giving up meat, maybe a cold shower (burrrr -I prefer warm), little forms of self -denial, heck even a smile when one does not feel like it…etc (indeed some of the other forms can tempt to pride --another reason for a good director etc as the spiritual writers say)

The ordinary fasting on Ash Weds and Good Friday…is something I find a “rather good bodily mortification” every Lent for me.

And let us all remember:

While it is certainly true that:

Catechism:

2015 The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails the ascesis and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes…

It is also true that:

1430 Jesus’ call to conversion and penance, like that of the prophets before him, does not aim first at outward works, “sackcloth and ashes,” fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of the heart, interior conversion. Without this, such penances remain sterile and false; however, interior conversion urges expression in visible signs, gestures and works of penance.

scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c2a4.htm#1430

Add this: opusdei.us/art.php?p=16367

Not only Bl. Pope John Paul II as noted above.

But the Servant of God – Pope Paul VI used the discipline.

and a few excerpts from another article:

St. Louis IX King and layman used the discipline.

St. Thomas More a layperson “used a discipline of knotted cords, something not known for his family for many years.”

“Saint Teresa of Avila, Foundress of the Discalced Carmelite nuns wrote as part of her constitutions, that on certain days of the week her nuns would apply the disciplines to themselves. But she was used to being much harder on herself then on her nuns, and at one point of her spiritual formation gave herself much greater mortifications.”

“Centuries later, another great Carmelite Saint, Saint Therese (Theresa) of Liseiux, used the same means of mortification in her convent…”

~ Fr. Giesler - The Catholic Social Science Review 2005.

St. Thomas More also wore a* hairshirt* (he likely learned this from the Carthusians -who still yes still make use of instruments of penance such as the hairshirt)

I note this again not to “encourage” Christians to make use of these forms of mortification and penance -see the first part above in this post – but rather simply not note that such is a valid form of mortification and penance (though certainly more on the rare side…).