Our culture abounds in messages to us that happiness consists in gratifying every desire, in the possession of wealth, and in achieving power and fame. One value that is rarely mentioned is that of asceticism or self-denial or mortification, in short, self-discipline. There is one area of life in which self-discipline is praised and that is the pursuit of bodily health and beauty. What is ridiculed in monks and nuns as masochistic is praised if the same type of fasting and self-denial is employed in the quest of health or beauty.

Since we now live in a totally secular and materialistic society the above is not surprising. What characterizes such a culture is obsession with the here and now and no concern about what happens to the human person after death. For the materialist the only reality is the here and now. He does not really believe in the existence of an immortal soul so he is not particularly concerned about the after life. This is a very superficial view of human existence, since all cultures in the past have had a religious dimension to them. Modern atheism is something new in the history of the human race.

One consequence of the secularistic mentality is what I would call a modern form of Pelagianism. Briefly, that means that man is viewed as essentially good; there is no such thing as Original Sin (since, in their view, man evolved from the apes and so was not created by a transcendent God); to achieve perfection man does not need the grace of God; the obvious evil that men do is the result of the bad influence of parents or the society in which they live. The usual proposed solution to the human problem is some kind of socialistic state which will force everyone to act in ways determined by the state to be good for the common welfare.

This is far, far from the Christian view of man. According to this view, which is clear in the Bible, in the tradition and in the teaching of the Catholic Church, life on this earth right now is a warfare. Human life is a constant battle between the man regenerated by Baptism and the natural or carnal man, sometimes called “the Old Adam.” So the three concupiscences (flesh, eyes, pride) drag man down to temporal pleasures, even to the contempt of God and his law; the regenerated man, with the infused virtues of faith, hope and charity and divine grace, strives to be obedient to God’s law and hopes to attain the Kingdom which is to come after this life. There is a constant struggle in man between these two tendencies.

Over the centuries serious Christians have developed a whole science of striving for perfection. It is called asceticism, which involves spiritual exercises in the pursuit of Christian perfection. Some of these exercises are prayer, meditation, fasting, self-denial, and mortification. The net result of these practices is to change one’s primary focus from the earthly, the temporal, and fix it on the heavenly, the eternal.

True Christians follow Christ — they imitate him. He said clearly, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24). In order to do that one must renounce oneself and one’s selfish desires. The author of the Imitation of Christ sums it up well, “Christ’s whole life was a cross and a martyrdom” (II, ch. 7).

The supreme commandment is love of God and love of neighbor. So the whole of Christian perfection is found in love and sacrifice, because there can be no true love without sacrifice. The practice of such sacrifice in one’s daily life is what is meant by asceticism. Our culture is opposed to this and there are strong voices inside the Catholic Church which are opposed to this because they are deeply influenced by the secular culture. But our Catholic faith tells us that no one can be saved unless he or she practices at least a moderate amount of self-denial. Self-indulgence is the road to perdition while self-denial is the road to happiness in this life and eternal happiness in the next life. 

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