The saints practice strong corporal mortification. St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Jean Maria Vianney, St. Rose of Lima… It’s clear that concern about leaving scars, physical beauty of any kind, was not their concern… It’s been an accepted punishment for crimes as well as penance for oneself.
St. Paul gives his example:
“I chastise my body and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps when I have preached to others I myself should be castaway” (I Cor. 9:27)
“In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, that is the Church.” (Col 1:24)
The desert monks too…
"Regarding a certain brother, I learned that, after renouncing the world, he went to live on Mount Nitria. His cell was close to that of another brother, whom he would hear weeping incessantly every day over his sins. When, after a long time, tears did not come to him, he said to his soul: “Are you not weeping, you wretch, and are you not lamenting? Believe me, if you are reluctant, I will make you weep.” He arose, took a whip that had a crop of solid gold, from which there hung a double rope, and beat himself with it so hard that he began to weep from the pain.
The brother who lived with him marvelled at what this brother was doing and besought God to reveal to him whether the latter was doing right in tormenting himself. And, in fact, one night in a dream he saw the brother wearing a crown and standing among the Martyrs; and someone was saying to him, as he was dreaming: “Behold the good struggler, who is tormenting himself for the sake of Christ, how he is crowned together with the Martyrs.”
- from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers
‘Go to the cemetary and see what you love, when you love your body.’
‘We give our youth to the devil, and the remains of our life to the Good God, who is so good that He deigns to be content with even that. . . but, happily, everyone does not do so. A great lady has been here, of one of the first families in France; she went away this morning. She is scarcely three-and-twenty, and she is rich-very rich indeed. . . She has offered herself in sacrifice to the good God for the expiation of sins, and for the conversion of sinners. She wears a girdle all armed with iron points; she mortifies herself in a thousand ways; and her parents know nothing of it. She is white as a sheet of paper. Hers is a beautiful soul, very pleasing to the good God, such as are still to be found now and then in the world, and they prevent the world from coming to an end.’
St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars
"As for the spirit of penance which animated, he never omitted to discipline himself to the blood every day, and the walls of his chamber would have borne constant witness to these macerations, if Mgr. Rossi, his successor, had not had them covered over by several coats of white-wash. It was asserted that his drawers were steeped in blood, as if they had been plunged in it. The prior of the Dominicans at Durazzano once dwelt in the bishop’s house, on account of the examinations. The very next day they terminated, he wishes to set out immediately, (although it was late in the day,) and being urged to remain, he said: “I would return were it midnight, for I have not the heart to hear the flagellations of this poor old man any longer.”
In order to obtain an increase of grace from God for himself and his flock, he used generally, on the vigils of feasts, to scourge himself with various cruel instruments, and especially with small cords armed with sharp steel stars. He also redoubled his macerations at the carnival and other profane fetes. Not satisfied with these bloody disciplines, he also mortified his flesh by horse-hair shirts studded with iron points, or by sharp little crosses with which he covered his shoulders, his arms and legs; when he sat down or got up again, his motions betrayed his sufferings. All the particulars of these instruments of penance would have been unknown, if the curiosity of some people had not revealed them to us. “I saw them all secretly,” said a canon, who had lived in filial intimacy with him, “in a strong box, of which his lordship kept the key under his bed: I could not help shuddering the first time I opened it.” How little he ate, we have seen above. There was a time when he lived on abstinence food entirely; and what was left of his food was so bad on account of the bitter herbs with which he had seasoned it, that not only the poor, but even animals, would not touch it. During the day also, he used to chew these herbs in order to mortify his palate, and he kept such a quantity of them, that one quite smelt them on entering his room.
- Life of St. Alphonsus, by Anonymous
‘Where there is no great mortification there is no great sanctity.’
St. Philip Neri
‘Let us read the lives of the saints; let us consider the penances which they performed, and blush to be so effeminate and so fearful of mortifying our flesh.’
St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
Be careful not to admit into your society those delicate and sensitive people who are afraid of the slightest pin- prick, who cry out and complain at the least pain, who know nothing of the hair-shirt, the discipline or other instruments of penance, and who mingle, with their fashionable devotions, a most refined fastidiousness and a most studied lack of mortification.
St. Louis Marie de Montfort
