Self-denial

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“If any person would come after me,” said Our Lord, “let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

Our Lord places a very big “if” at the start of this sentence: “If any person would come after me…” He places a very necessary prerequisite for following Him, which is self-denial: “let him deny himself.”

It’s not something we hear very much about in the world of comfort that we live in, where the ‘I’ tends to be very prominent.

Our Lord tells us precisely the opposite. We have to stand on the ‘I.’ We have to kill the ‘I,’ the old person that is there inside of us. Full of that self-love, egoism, selfishness, and pride, that person has to be denied and conquered.

Our Lord makes that a very big condition for following Him. We can ask Him for the grace in our prayer today that in this period of Lent, we might learn how to practice that virtue a little more.

It’s very rare to hear the words “self-mastery” or “self-control” or “self-denial.” Usually, it’s the opposite: follow your feelings. Our Lord bids us to deny our feelings and take up His Cross daily.

It’s not something that comes once in a lifetime or once a year or once a month. This virtue has to be something very frequent, very regular. A regular habit is to know how to say ‘no’ to ourselves in all sorts of ways.

The founder of Opus Dei has encouraged that we would have a list of small mortifications that we might practice each day.

He recommended getting up on time, quickly, as soon as the alarm bell rings, to jump out of bed, to offer Our Lord the first moments and seconds of the day with an act of self-denial, and to bring that spirit into everything that we do (Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, Point 206).

He recommended having a certain mortification at meals (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 733). We eat a little bit less of what we like, and a bit more of what we don’t like.

A Standard Four little girl in Primary School told me once, “Father, I hate carrots, and my Mom is always giving me carrots.”

So I had to say, “You see, that has to do with something that’s in the Gospel where Our Lord says, ‘Unless you deny yourself and take up your carrots, you cannot be my disciple.’”

Every day we have our carrots—little things that come along that we weren’t expecting, possibly that come from the hands of others. But yet all those things are divine invitations.

That one special thing that we find a bit difficult. That virtue that we find a bit more difficult to practice. That piece of work that we find a bit more tedious, that requires a bit more effort.

But the effort to practice the simple virtues of each day—order, putting things in their place, finishing things well, being on time for everything that we have to do—when we look at things in this way, we find that every ordinary day presents a myriad of opportunities to offer Our Lord the martyrdom of little things.

We’re told in The Way, “A little act, done for Love, is worth so much!” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 814).

What’s important about these little acts of self-denial is not so much how much they might hurt us or cost us, but the love with which we do it. Christianity is all about love because “God is love” (1 John 4:8,16).

When we try to follow Our Lord along the pathway to the cross, we are trying to learn how to put love into practice in all the circumstances of our day. The sanctifying value of little things is great if done for love.

There is an American educationalist, James Stenson, who says that parents have to repeat things 500 times before their children get the message. They only get them on the 501st.

Therefore, that whole business of repeating things demands a lot of effort. It can be very exasperating. There are many things in our life that maybe, we have to do 500 times before we get them right, or hear 500 times. We’re all like little children.

Or there may be 500 times that other people around us get things wrong or exasperate us in the way that they do certain things.

That’s a great field for mortification. It’s the difficult things that make us improve. We learn virtue by practicing the virtue. We learn to be patient by being patient.

The desire to practice virtue is not enough. Our Lord didn’t say, ‘As long as you have great desires to be holy, or great desires to practice virtue, then you will enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Our Lord wants actions. Deeds are love.

We know the story of when St. Josemaría was giving Communion to some Carmelite nuns. As he gave out Communion, he said to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, “I love you more than this one, and I love you more than this one.”

And deep in his soul, he heard the words of God speaking to him, saying, “Love is deeds, not sweet words” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 933; Apuntes intimos, Number 606, February 16, 1932).

He repeated those words to us so that those words could reverberate down through the centuries, down through each day of our life.

Love is deeds. We have to show our love in the concrete deeds of every day, concrete deeds of self-denial, of going against the grain.

Followers of Christ are always people who go against the grain, who conquer their likes and their dislikes, who don’t give any importance to those sentiments that may well up inside them, saying, ‘I feel like,’ ‘I don’t feel like.’

We don’t function on the basis of feelings. We function on the basis of duty, obligation.

There was a moment in a get-together in Argentina when somebody asked St. Josemaría a question. I don’t know what the question was, but the camera focuses in on his face as he answers, and he just says three words, cumple tu deber, fulfill your duty.

In many ways, the whole spirit of Opus Dei is summed up in those words. Sometimes our duties may be very invigorating and challenging and enjoyable and fulfilling and inspiring, but sometimes the ordinary duties of every day may cost us our life’s blood.

But yet it’s in those things that we have to try and excel, fulfilling our duty but knowing that behind all these things, Our Lord is there asking us for a little more.

St. Josemaría liked to shout: siempre más, always more. We can always give more, we can always do more, we can always be more generous.

In these days of Lent, we hear a lot about fasting and abstinence, but often it’s the interior things that we have to fast and abstain from a little more—from anger, from discouragement, from complaining, exteriorly or interiorly, of judgments, of resentments, of bitterness, of grudges.

He told us in The Way that sometimes the greatest mortification is a smile (cf. J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 149), to know how to smile when it’s difficult to smile, to be cheerful.

I read a phrase yesterday in a book, a famous saying from somewhere that says, “A kind word warms many winters” (cf. Japanese proverb).

Sometimes the acts of self-denial involve going out of ourselves to lift up the lives of others, to make their lives happier.

None of us have a vocation in life to make the life of other people difficult; quite the opposite. We have a calling from God to make the life of other people around us happier, more cheerful, more peaceful. And we do that with the little things of every day.

In any family, it’s the same. We solve all our own problems by thinking about the others.

We find ourselves getting a little bit too serious sometimes, or concerned. That can be a good thing to remind ourselves, ‘I’m thinking too much about myself. I have to forget about myself, to focus on others. That’s where my joy comes.’

All the time when we hear or see St. Paul speaking about the cross, it’s love for Christ that underlies his spreading of the Christian message: all the things that he had to put up with, contradictions, persecution, all the things he had inflicted on other people.

And this way of living—it’s a great way to live. It fills other people’s lives, the lives of people around us, with optimism, with encouragement. We give off “the fragrance of Christ” (ibid., The Forge, Point 92).

Because we have forgotten about ourselves, we know how to be a little bit more generous. And if at times it seems difficult to summon up the energy or the courage to be able to practice that act of self-denial that we might find a bit challenging—maybe, it demands more generosity from us, or courage, or perseverance, or fortitude—the words of St. Paul can be comforting: “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13).

If there seems to be some area of comfort or compensation that we find difficult to conquer, that elusive goal, then the grace of God will help us to conquer in that area.

Lent is a time of great spiritual bonanza, a time of grace for us to grow, to improve, to become more Christ-like.

Often the supernatural fruitfulness of our apostolate and effectiveness is tied up in those little acts of self-denial, of showing Our Lord through our deeds that we want this soul to go forward, we want this soul to improve, or we want this person we’re speaking to to understand on a deep level the things we’re communicating to them.

And with our vocation, lying smack in the middle of the world, in the ordinary duties of every day, that’s where Our Lord wants us to live out this life of self-denial: in our work, when we’re tired, when we’re stressed, when we feel like everything is going wrong or that we’re getting nowhere, or things we’re studying are not going into our mind, we can’t get the ideas from the paper into our head—we persevere in those hours of work, hours of study, and begin again, keep looking for the solution to make our periods of study or work more effective.

How can I concentrate a bit more? How can I work with greater intensity? Or to get this job that I have to do get done in the shortest possible time?

St. Josemaría liked to say that work well done is work that’s done in the shortest possible time (cf. J. Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 55).

He invites us to work quickly, with intensity, to study until our brains are out on the floor. This a very graphic phrase that I heard one time.

We try to do everything with intensity, get it done quickly so that we can do more things, so that we’re more effective. We get better at our work with time.

Very often the habit of doing intense work quickly, well done, attention to detail—we get much better at our work, we become more professional, we become experts, we go on to learn new things.

Or all the little areas of managing a home provide a myriad of opportunities to get this thing done on time, to straighten this little picture in the corridor, to put the utensils that we use for work away with care and order when we’re finished using them, or to clean them properly, to stack things well if we’re washing or drying or putting things into a washing machine.

Or in the street, when we’re walking around the place, we’re living our presence of God, giving way to people, letting them go first or through a door or holding a door for somebody, making their life a little easier with a bit of courtesy or politeness, or with our smile, or with our kindness.

The field of small mortifications is a huge area and people will notice, and they’ll say, “Here is a person who tries to live the life of Jesus Christ.”

We’re told in The Way of the Cross, “At times the Cross appears without our looking for it” (J. Escrivá, The Way of the Cross, Fifth Station).

Changes of plans, things that go wrong, we drop or break something, or our plans change, we were going to go somewhere for an excursion or something and now, it’s raining or it’s not a suitable day or something else has happened. The Cross is very good at appearing when we’re not looking for it.

Murphy’s Law: whatever can go wrong will go wrong. We’re not put off by those things. We’re ready, we’re flexible, we know how to hop on the other foot, to play the game as it comes, not to drop the ball, to laugh at situations, to laugh at life, to be on top of life.

Self-denial makes us conquerors. We live on top of every situation, because we’re not giving in to our own despondency, or discouragement, or despair, or anger, or all kinds of other things.

St. Josemaría says, “It is Christ who is seeking us out. And if by chance, before this unexpected Cross, which, perhaps, is therefore more difficult to understand…” (ibid.).

Sometimes the things that God throws at us are difficult to understand. Maybe we fail an exam, or we can’t go forward in our studies, or we’re asked to go here or go there. Our life plan seems to take a left turn. The unexpected crosses.

Life is full of those things, and at every stage of our life. And the biggest thing may be that it’s difficult to understand: how can God have permitted this thing?

We don’t know, we don’t understand the plans of God, but we do know that He’s a heavenly Father who loves us very much, who’s looking after us in all situations, and who can bring good out of all situations.

Omnia in bonum (Rom. 8:28). Not just that some things turn out for the good, but all things turn out for the good. All those little things of every day are opportunities for us to live a great peace in the presence of God.

Pray for the Holy Father, pray for the Church, pray for our apostolate. It leads us to pray in all sorts of moments.

“…if it is therefore more difficult to understand, if your heart were to show repugnance, don’t give it consolations” (ibid.). Often the body, the old person, is all the time looking for compensations and consolations: ‘I’ll rest my weary soul at this moment. I’ll sit down and take it easy.’

But our spirit of hard work reserves those moments for certain periods of the day. Maybe this isn’t the moment to take it easy or to sit down, take a breather, or something of that nature. Maybe God wants me to finish this job now.

There are moments in the day that are moments for rest, and night is a time for rest. But we try not to give our body the rest that it seeks; otherwise we wouldn’t do anything. St. Josemaría in The Way says, “…give the body a little less than it deserves” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 196).

It’s a good rule of life. A little less food, a little less drink, a little less sleep, a little less comfort. “Give the body a little less than it deserves.” And we may find that our body clamors for all sorts of compensations and consolations.

One little mortification can be to delay those things: the glass of water, the sweet, or the little compensation, the sitting down.

Often St. Josemaría hadn’t slept well or didn’t sleep at all, and as he set out to do a morning’s work, he would conquer himself by saying, “I’ll take a rest in the afternoon,” and keep going.

But then when the afternoon came, he would say, “I’ll rest later, I’ll rest tonight” and he would keep going. In the evening, he would say, “Josemaría, you’ve conquered yourself again.”

You’ve beaten your body. You’ve overcome it. You haven’t given in to those compensations. And sometimes those temptations to give in can be very great.

“And, filled with a noble compassion, when it asks for them, say to it slowly, as one speaking in confidence: ‘Heart: heart on the Cross! Heart on the Cross!’” (J. Escrivá, The Way of the Cross, Fifth Station).

If our heart is full of love for Christ, full of love for souls, we’ll go forward to embrace those divine calls to a deeper self-renunciation.

We’ll be happy that God has given us this opportunity to offer you this thing, to show you how much I really want this apostolic goal.

In The Way of the Cross, St. Josemaría says, “Love sacrifice; it is a fountain of interior life. Love the Cross, which is an altar of sacrifice. Love pain, until you drink, as Christ did, the very dregs of the chalice” (J. Escrivá, The Way of the Cross, Twelfth Station).

Powerful words. There may be moments in our life when Our Lord invites us to endure pain. We might have a headache, we might have pain in our side, or some joint might be giving us a little bit of trouble. These are all opportunities to offer Him things.

“Fountain of the interior life.” I offer this for this soul and for that soul. And I know this pain will pass, but I offer it to you.

There may be many interior pains. Pains in our heart. Pains in our pride. Something somebody said, something somebody did, a look that somebody gave us. Could be all sorts of little things that hurt us, and possibly hurt us in an exaggerated way. Maybe the person didn’t mean that, or we were reading all sorts of things into it. Whatever it is, we offer it to Our Lord.

Or if there’s some greater pain or something that’s worrying us a little more, we can bring it to the tabernacle and say, ‘I leave this thing before you here. This is my Lent. I offer this thing to you. Take it from me. Help me put an end to it. The thoughts going round and round in my mind are this thing that has upset me.’

“We must bring into our life,” St. Josemaría says, “to make them our own, the life and death of Christ. We must die through mortification and penance, so that Christ may live in us through Love” (J. Escrivá, The Way of the Cross, Fourteenth Station).

Mortis facere, to make death to our body, or to that whole self that is in us, is not just the goal. The goal is “so that Christ may live in us through love” so that love may come to take over our lives and be reflected in everything we do and say.

“And then follow in the footsteps of Christ, with a zeal to co-redeem all mankind” (ibid.).

If we find that our small mortifications have got a little bit out of harmony or something, now is the time to sharpen them up a little bit, to talk about it in our spiritual direction. What are the concrete things I’m trying to work on to mortify myself a little bit?

“We must give our life for others. That is the only way to live the life of Jesus Christ and to become one and the same thing with him” (ibid.).

Morning, noon, and night, thinking about others, praying about the others. We become the happiest people in the world. That’s the way we live the life of Christ.

We’ve heard the term, living unity of life. Unity of life is the harmonious combination of all the aspects of our life into one single thing: professional, family, social, spiritual. We blend all these things into a unity. Demands more piety.

But ultimately that’s mortification. Living our spirit at this moment, living our vocation. What does my Christian vocation demand of me in this particular hour, in this particular moment? What should I be doing? What does God want of me? And then I try and live that.

Making our norms compatible with our busy professional day. Planning our apostolic activities well and being very focused there, and conquering all the other things that might be clamoring to achieve center stage.

And then Our Lord will grow in us, and us in Him, in age and wisdom and grace before God and men.

That spirit of self-denial helps us to achieve that union between the ascetical and the apostolic parts of our life. We learn how to use our time well. Great gift. Time is a great gift of God.

We may find when we look at the outside world, the world we live in, that an awful lot of people can waste an awful lot of time.

We’re taught how to use our time: a time for our sport, or relaxation, a time to study, a time to grow in other areas, a time to get that little job done that has been evading us. We have a to-do list. We write things down. Otherwise, we may forget them. It helps us to use our time well.

In other little temptations that may come—little dialogues with temptations and purity—we learn how to say no to the devil so that our hearts can be fully in the things of God. Guarding our sight sometimes. Guarding our imagination. Guarding our hearts, our feelings.

When it comes to the virtue of sincerity and spiritual direction, making that act of self-denial whereby we talk about the things that we find a bit more difficult to talk about, that might be shameful or embarrassing. But you get those things out.

Every week it can be a very good habit to have of saying something in the chat that’s a little more difficult, as in when someday something big comes along, the channels are open.

That habit of small mortification is a great thing. We’re in training. We keep ourselves in good shape.

The battle of charity can provide a whole panorama of possibilities for small mortification. To be patient. It’s a virtue that helps us to accept, for love of God, generously and peacefully, everything that’s displeasing to our nature.

There might be many, many things that we come across on a daily basis that may be displeasing to our nature. We don’t particularly like it. They may not be bad, but they may not be to our liking.

There might be a natural temptation to be a bit sad or depressed or lose our cool. We experience disagreeable things.

But the virtue of patience helps us to smile, to keep our peace, to let things pass, and to stand on our own self-love in this particular moment. It’s part of the virtue of fortitude, whereby we face dangers, we put up with difficult things.

For that spirit of small mortification, we need a lot of that virtue of fortitude, so that all the temptations to deviate from the right road are things we can resist.

As we go through our day, there may be all sorts of obstacles or attractive temptations that the devil places in our way.

But we know, ‘I have to finish this thing first. I have to be more focused on this particular thing. I can’t allow myself to dilly-dally at this particular time. It’s not the right moment. I’ve got to fulfill my duty, not to give in to my whims and caprices.’

If we don’t follow that advice of Our Lord, if we don’t take up our cross daily and follow Him in all the little things, then the opposite is that we live a life of whim and caprice.

We’re at the mercy of our own feelings, of every little cowbell that comes along, that attracts us in some way. We get totally distracted from the important thing.

Lord, help me to master all those tendencies that may be there. A lovely word: “self-mastery, self-control.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church talks about the ascetical struggle. All down through Church history, that word has been very clear in the vocabulary of the saints.

The struggle against the self, the struggle. There’s a phrase in the Old Testament that says, “The life of man on earth is a struggle” (Job 7:1).

The struggle to conquer himself, self-renunciation, and humility. If we don’t live that spirit of mortification, then we remain outside of God. We don’t fulfill that fundamental condition: “If you would be a follower of mine, you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.”

We find Our Lady experiencing all sorts of moments where she also had to mortify herself.

They found Our Lord in the temple: “‘Why have you done this to us? Three long days searching for you. Did you not know that your father and I have been looking for you?’ And they heard the reply, ‘Did you not know I must be about my father’s business?’ They did not understand the things that were spoken to them” (cf. Luke 2:48-50).

Christ demanded a lot from Our Lady and St. Joseph. They did not understand. But He let them chew on it and learn to understand.

Mary, may you help us also along the pathway of our divine vocation to learn how to understand like you did, to pass through those periods that God permitted in your life when you did not understand so that we may see behind this the divine calls that Our Lord is making to us every day.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

EW