Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. "These four motives of mortification* can be reduced to two: hatred of sin and love of God and of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Such is the spirit of holy realism, and basically of Christian optimism, which ought to inspire exterior and interior mortification . . . The true answer to practical naturalism is the love of Jesus crucified, which leads us to resemble Him and to save souls with Him by the same means He used.
Mortification or abnegation thus understood, far from destroying nature, liberates it, restores it, heals it. It opens up to us the profound meaning of the maxim: To serve God is to reign: that is, to reign over our passions, over the spirit of the world, its false principles and example, over the devil and his perversity; to reign with God by sharing increasingly in His intimate life, in virtue of this great law, namely, that if life does not descend, it ascends.
Man cannot live without love, and if he renounces every inferior love which leads to death, he opens his soul ever wider to the love of God and of souls in God. The Savior Himself declares: 'If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink . . . Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water' for the eternal good of souls."
-Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.
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* "According to St. Paul, the following reasons show the necessity of mortification or abnegation: (1) the consequences of original sin which incline us to evil; (2) the results of our personal sins; (3) the infinite loftiness of our supernatural end; (4) the necessity of imitating Jesus crucified." (Ibid)
Mortification or abnegation thus understood, far from destroying nature, liberates it, restores it, heals it. It opens up to us the profound meaning of the maxim: To serve God is to reign: that is, to reign over our passions, over the spirit of the world, its false principles and example, over the devil and his perversity; to reign with God by sharing increasingly in His intimate life, in virtue of this great law, namely, that if life does not descend, it ascends.
Man cannot live without love, and if he renounces every inferior love which leads to death, he opens his soul ever wider to the love of God and of souls in God. The Savior Himself declares: 'If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink . . . Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water' for the eternal good of souls."
-Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.
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* "According to St. Paul, the following reasons show the necessity of mortification or abnegation: (1) the consequences of original sin which incline us to evil; (2) the results of our personal sins; (3) the infinite loftiness of our supernatural end; (4) the necessity of imitating Jesus crucified." (Ibid)
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