*All who want to live for God need to practice mortification.*
To illustrate this concept, St. Josemaría used the story of a writer who wrote about a dream. In it, he was faced with two paths. The first path was wide and smooth, filled with comfortable inns, taverns, and beautiful distractions. Crowds of people traveled this road, indulging in ephemeral and superficial joys. However, this path ultimately led to a bottomless precipice. It is the path chosen by those who seek material pleasure, falsely boasting a happiness they do not possess, and relentlessly pursuing comfort and pleasure.
These individuals are terrified of suffering, self-denial, and sacrifice. They want nothing to do with the Cross of Christ, thinking it to be madness. But it is they who are truly insane, enslaved by envy, gluttony, and sensuality. In the end, they suffer even more, only realizing too late that they had exchanged their earthly and eternal happiness for meaningless trifles.
In this dream, another path emerges, heading in a completely different direction. This path is steep and narrow, requiring travelers to abandon horses and proceed on foot. They have to navigate through thorns, briars, rocks, and boulders. Their clothing is torn, and their flesh is even wounded. However, at the end of this arduous journey awaited a paradise garden - eternal happiness and heaven. This is the path chosen by those who humble themselves and willingly sacrifice themselves for others out of love for Jesus. It is the path of those unafraid of uphill climbs, faithfully shouldering the cross, no matter its weight, knowing that if they fell, they can rise again and continue their ascent. Christ provides strength to these travelers.
To live with Christ, we must die with him, carrying the Cross in our own bodies. By contemplating the suffering Jesus endured during his Passion and Death, we can overcome our resistance and rekindle our determination to follow the Lord closely. “I love Christ on the Cross so deeply that every crucifix serves as a loving reproach from my God, saying: I suffering, and you... a coward. I loving you, and you… forgetting me. I begging you, and you... denying me. I here, with arms wide open as an Eternal Priest, suffering all that can be suffered for love of you... and you complaining at the slightest misunderstanding, over the tiniest humiliation..."
We must practice specific corporal mortifications in a spirit of atonement and zeal to co-redeem. Let us ask ourselves now, in God's presence, whether we take advantage of the grace He sends us to practice those corporal mortifications in a cheerful, sporting spirit.
Video: