Very, very enlightening. For those who are blessed with the ability to practice this virtue, especially during this time of Lent , it is a great source for Graces.
john
I loved the explanation..it was very illuminating .. the best part of the speech was when he said to allow Christ to live in us and by acceptance of our suffering to make up for the balance atonement for siiners.. Did i get this right??
danburke
Yes - St. Paul said it in Colossians 1:24, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church," This does not mean that Christ's sacrifice was insufficient, but it does mean that we participate in his work of suffering as part of his plan of redemption of the world.
michelewalton
Thank you so much for Fr. Barron's explanation of self mortification. I understand it more than ever, especially Fr.'s example of how people use exercise to improve themselves. Not because they hate thier body, through grueling, painful exercise, but for exactly the opposite reason. We can truly offer up to Christ, our suffering for the good of all souls!! What a beautiful, wonderfully responsible and charitable cause!!
Cathy
I am now more confused than before. If our body is the temple, and we are to take care of the temple, than how would physical mortification accomplish this? It is also stated that people who do this want to help carry some of the sin and experience some of what Christ went through. Wouldn't it be better if we worked even harder to live as Christ would want us to? To make everything we say and do a prayer in itself?
Janet
I agree with you, Cathy. I'm confused. I too immediately thought about our bodies as being temples. Working out and sweating during exercise is good for our bodies. I don't understand how self-mortification is good for our bodies. I can possibly understand that it may be good for our souls, but are we compromising our body for our soul in the practice of self-mortificationl? See, again I am confused.
danburke
Dear Cathy in Christ - Just so I don't make an assumption, how would you summarize Fr. Barron's primary argument for the value of mortification?
Cathy
From what I understand, it is primarily to allow Christ to live in you, and to have the body experience discipline, but not to be masochistic. I have just never heard of this until I saw this on the website. I have had several people, priests included, that our body is a temple. I am just a little confused, and need to do more research. To say that we should live more like Christ is what I have been told. I need to do more research to better understand. I have only been back to the church for 13 months, and have been away a lot longer than that.
