E
esieffe
Guest
Some Saints did engage in mortification. Spikes and things. I asked my spiritual director about it once and he said stick with the conventional methods today [fasting, meatless days, etc.] or find a different spiritual director. I figured I have enough aches and pains, and that for a guy like me, not eating one day or half a day was tougher than wearing a spiked leg wrap.Well, the Church has a history of mutilation for the Glory of God. The castrati were made euchucs for hundreds of years - men kept boys for the sake of their voices. It is said that Origen castrated himself.
And if you read the lives of the Saints, you’ll see how so many (mostly women) mutilated and starved themselves in their attempts of holiness.
I like Carolyn Walker Bynum, the medieval historian, and her book, Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion.
But truly, the medieval Church was filled with saints who not only mutilated the body, but did all sorts of horrendous things to curb the flesh. And all was done to be closer to Jesus. The Church loved it.