Introduction to the Devout Life: Third Part--Chapter 23

Hello, Catholic Pilgrims. Thank you for joining me today as I read St. Francis' words. We've moved out of the section on friendship which was excellent and today we are reading about external mortifications.  This is a longer reading, but an important one as a lot of people are freaked out by external mortifications and in a world that preaches self-indulgence, mortifications are utterly foreign to many.  My daughter was recently in Miami for just a bit and she said to me, "Mom, I've never seen so much plastic surgery in my life. It's insane."  What's interesting is that we have, on the one hand, in our culture, an obsession with getting all kinds of plastic surgeries to stave off old age and enhance certain parts of the body and then, on the other hand, we see people over-indulge in food. I know it isn't popular to say but our country has a real problem with obesity.  External mortifications—fasting, labor, abstinence, sacrifices—are ways that we try to correct vanity and gluttony, but we must remember that the health of our soul—the internal part of us—must be full of Christ, for any mortification to be effective.  So, let's hear what St. Francis has to say by opening our books to Chapter Twenty-Three of the Third Part.