intention. It is perhaps superfluous to remark that such acts of self-abnegation as are involved in the strict performance of duties are far and away more meritorious than optional penances selected by our own free will. A kindly visit to a garrulous old parishioner who is bed-ridden is probably worth more in the sight of Heaven than is a fast or an abstinence that is not obligatory; and the inconvenience attached to the preparation and delivery of a Lenten instruction may easily be a more efficacious penitential work than wearing a hair shirt for a day or taking the discipline, instead of a bath, at night.

As for such priests as are members of religious orders or congregations, the faithful observance of the various points of their Rule with its multiplied and minute prescriptions, gives ample opportunity for well-nigh continuous mortification. The self-denial practiced in habitually and punctiliously obeying such prescriptions, in unfailing attendance at the different exercises, in the observance of silence where and when it is ordered, as in contributing one's share to the conversation during the time of recreation in common-this is evidently worth more from the penitential viewpoint than self-chosen exercises of piety or selfwilled chastisement of the flesh. The whole round of duties in the religious life entails a multiplicity of trials, little and great, which furnish excellent material for the practice of effective mortification. Fidelity in accomplishing them, and superadded purity of intention in their performance, constitute no insignificant portion of one's spiritual progress.

A second class of mortifications which priests in particular may congruously practice are those incidental to providential events and occurrences, "acts of God," as they used to be called in commercial contracts. Extremes of heat and cold, accidents of various kinds, serious illnesses or annoying indispositions, misfortunes overtaking relatives or friends, contrarieties of manifold species disturbing the serenity of our daily routine or delaying the progress of a cherished project— all such trials are raw material which we may use to our spiritual benefit or our spiritual detriment. By accepting them as coming from the hand of God, receiving them with perfect resignation, if not with positive gladness, we evince the true spirit of mortification that is meritorious unto eternal life; by bitterly repining at their occurrence, lamenting the hardness of our lot, or protesting against the injustice of "fate," we manifest a spirit that is to be expected in a lover of the world rather than a servant of the sanctuary. As for the value of such trials as the foregoing, when properly accepted, St. Francis of Sales tells us: "The mortifications which come to us from God, or from men by His permission, are always worth more than those which are the children of our own will; for it must be considered a general rule that the less our taste and choice intervene in our actions, the more they will have of goodness, solidity, devotion, the pleasure of God, and our own profit."

Not that St. Francis or any other master of the spiritual life deprecates the practice of entirely

voluntary mortifications. On the contrary, they all recognize the legitimate rôle played by such penitential practices in the building up of the interior life, in one's progress towards perfection. While they animadvert occasionally on the artifices of the Evil One, who finds his profit in the extravagances of this or that penitent given over to immoderate indulgence in exterior mortifications, they fail not to teach that it is the Spirit of God who most frequently suggests these corporal penances. Viewed in the light of practical reason, there is nothing at all unnatural or bizarre in a Christian's desire to perform such penances. Given one's genuine sorrow for sin committed, the impulse to give external expression to that sorrow in acts that entail suffering or sacrifice is quite as natural as is the impulse to express our love for a friend by proffering him gifts or other outward manifestations of affection. Interior sorrow for sin is of course the essential point, but it may be questioned whether any sorrow really deserving of the name is ever fully satisfied with such reparation of God's offended majesty as is solely comprised in the performance of the "penance" imposed by one's confessor. Generous souls are assuredly not content therewith; they feel irresistibly impelled to supererogatory works of expiation.

In determining the specific nature of such works, due attention must as a matter of course be paid to one's veritable spiritual needs, the condition of one's health, and other such like prudential considerations. A wise word on the subject

is this from Rodriguez: "The principal thing to which we have to turn our attention, that we may mortify it, and eradicate it from our hearts, is the predominant passion; that is, the affection, inclination, vice, or bad habit which reigns most in us, which makes us its captive, which brings us into greatest danger, and most frequently causes us to fall into grave transgressions. When the king is taken, the battle is won. And until we do this, we shall make no great advance in perfection." An evident corollary of the principle thus laid down is that, if our predominant passion partakes more of the flesh than the spirit, as it not infrequently does, then the flesh should be made to suffer. Mortifying our will and judgment is always good and sometimes essential; but where the body has sinned the body should be punished.

The punishment while real must be judicious. It is quite safe to say that any form of exterior mortification that endangers the health of a parish priest is to be avoided. His office as pastor of souls calls for the performance of a variety of duties the efficient accomplishment of which calls in turn for a state of health as approximately perfect as he is capable of attaining. This consideration need not, however, discourage the pastor who craves the satisfaction of chastising his body. Even a limited knowledge of the lives of the saints is sufficient to convince one that, while a few of them went to extremes of austerity and practically ruined their health—a course of action which they themselves later on condemned-the overwhelming majority of those canonized servants of God

practiced exterior mortifications that were hygienic not less than penitential. The truth is that Catholic asceticism, or the effort to attain true perfection, very commonly produces results striven for by asceticism in the etymological sense of the word, "the discipline undergone by athletes while training." Mortification of the senses, a constituent part of the system, tends most frequently to improve rather than imperil the health.

In the matter of fasting and abstinence, for instance, there is little if any doubt that the physical well-being of the average priest in this country would be promoted by his obeying the general law of the Church on that point, refusing to avail himself of the dispensations granted. Medical practitioners and medical journals of the highest prestige affirm that, as a rule, Americans eat too much of all kinds of food, and particularly too much meat. The most authoritative medical periodical published in English says of the Lenten fast: "The Lenten season gives the creature of more or less selfish or bad habits an excellent opportunity of relinquishing those habits for, at any rate, a certain period; and he may, and probably will, receive a salutary and moral lesson which may induce him to lead a better and physiologically happier life. He may be poisoning himself, for example, by overindulgence in tobacco, alcohol, or even food; and he may find that as a result of his determination to give up these excesses for a season, his mental and bodily activities are improved, his health is altogether better, and so he is constrained to go on with the 'godly,