bear about in our body the mortification of Jesus ', says the Apostle, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies.[1] This mortification of Jesus, which the Christian must bear about in him, is, in its broadest sense, the part that he must take in the sufferings of his Divine Master, by bearing in union with Him the trials he may have to encounter in this life, or the suffering which he voluntarily inflicts upon himself. The first and best mortification is that which is attached to our daily duties, the pains we have to take, the effort we must make to acquit ourselves properly of the duties of our state, and to bear the contradictions of each day. When St. John Berchmans said that his chief mortification was the common life, he said nothing else than this, because for him the common life embraced all the duties of his state.
Moreover, he who sanctifies the duties and sufferings of each day, and who thus practises fundamental mortification, will soon advance, and impose voluntary privations and sufferings upon himself in order to escape the pains of the other life.
The slightest mortifications, the most trifling sacrifice, especially when done through obedience, are of great value in the sight of God.
Blessed Emily, a Dominican, and Prioress of the Monastery of St. Mary at Vercelli, inspired her Religious with a spirit of perfect obedience in view of Purgatory. One of the points of the Rule prohibited the Religious to drink between meals without express permission of the Superior. Now, the latter, knowing, as we have seen, the value of the sacrifice of a glass of water in the eyes of God, was generally accustomed to refuse this permission, that she might afford her sisters an opportunity to practise an easy mortification, but she sweetened her refusal by telling them to offer their thirst to Jesus, tormented by a cruel thirst upon the cross. She then advised them to suffer this slight privation with a
- ↑ 2 Cor. iv. 10.
