Hardcore Penances And The Saints

[laetitia crucis]

[quote name='Rising_Suns' date='26 January 2010 - 09:55 PM' timestamp='1264557325' post='2045361']
Dear Laetitia Crucis,
Thank you for posting this article. How beautiful indeed.
[/quote]

You're quite welcome, my friend.

A little after I read that article I heard about on ABC World News. I was surprised they even mentioned it, but here's hoping it will spark a seed of interest into the True Church.

[Luigi]

I just read an AOL news story that says Pope John Paul II practiced mortification of the flesh by:
Sleeping on the floor;
Foregoing food;
Self flagellation with a belt.
This news summarizes a book on John Paul's life by the postulator of his cause for sainthood. The book will bbe published soon, in Italian, with no plans to translate it (I'm sure that will change).

[laetitia crucis]

It's nice to see this is getting so much coverage on the news. I'm really surprised about it... hopefully people won't sensationalize it though.

[Saint Therese]

I can't understand why this is so shocking. To me, such penance isn't really extrordinary . To me extra ordinary penance would be something like what St. Teresa described.. going to the refectory on one's knees wearing a saddle on her back.

[laetitia crucis]

[quote name='Saint Therese' date='27 January 2010 - 01:25 PM' timestamp='1264613119' post='2045867']
I can't understand why this is so shocking. To me, such penance isn't really extrordinary . To me extra ordinary penance would be something like what St. Teresa described.. going to the refectory on one's knees wearing a saddle on her back.
[/quote]

I guess it seems shocking because in the "Protestant world" (in my past experience) one never really hears about penances or mortification. I mean, before I became Catholic and began reading various Lives of the Saints, I'd never heard about this or even knew what it was or that the practice of regular penances and temporal mortifications existed in our times.

Growing up Protestant was pretty much the view of warm-and-fuzzy-best-friend Jesus. There was no suffering, just happy feelings of "being saved". To think that one would take on penances for oneself was just... well... strange, weird, and just... almost wrong even. I always wondered why Catholics "gave stuff up" during "Lent" (which I had no idea what that even meant... I just saw it on the calendar from the bank.)

To be honest, I think if I were still a Protestant and I had heard that this old Pope regularly beat himself with a belt... I'd be shocked and horrified. I'd think "Well then... if he's the leader of the Catholic Church, wow... they must ALL be crazy to do that! That's just UNNATURAL!"

Anyhoo -- blessed be God for that Catholic Church! Blessed be God for the grace to be Catholic!

[Saint Therese]

Hmm, yes. Also I can't think of anything that goes more against the modern "culture" than self denial and mortification. I've read so often that we must be "empty" in order for Jesus to fill us with Himself. It seems to me that mortification is a necessary part of being "emptied"...