Ascetical theology

A Christian's duty is to strive to become like unto Christ, who is "the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), but this endeavour is based on the supernatural order and, therefore, cannot be accomplished without Divine grace.

He also points to Christ, the ideal of Christian perfection, who was less austere in fasting than John the Baptist, and to the founders of religious orders, who prescribed fewer ascetic exercises for their communities than they themselves practised (cf.

Considering the actual condition of human nature, they declare these necessary for the removal of obstacles and for the liberation of man's moral forces, thus claiming for asceticism a positive character.

For the same reason, the Church alone can give us the guarantee that the ideal of the Christian life will always remain pure and unadulterated, and will not be identified with one particular state or with a subordinate virtue (cf.

An unprejudiced examination proves that the ideal of Catholic life has been preserved in all its purity through the centuries and that the Church has never failed to correct the false touches with which individuals might have sought to disfigure its unstained beauty.

Finally, not satisfied with indicating the general means to be used for waging a victorious combat, ascetics offers particular remedies for special temptations (cf.

The general examination recalls all the faults of one day; the particular, on the contrary, focusses on one single defect and marks its frequency, or on one virtue to augment the number of its acts.

Ascetics encourages visits to the Blessed Sacrament (visitatio sanctissimi), a practice meant especially to nourish and strengthen the divine virtues of faith, hope and charity.

On the other hand, the observation that some saints are more to be admired than imitated must not lead into the mistake of letting one's works be weighted with the ballast of human comfort and ease, at last looking with suspicion on every heroic act, as though it were something that transcended one's own energy and could not be reconciled with the present circumstances.

However, the term "mortification" must not be taken to mean the stunting of the "strong, full, healthy" (Schell) life; what it aims at is that the sensual passions do not gain the upper hand over the will.

But while the masters of asceticism recognize the necessity of mortification and self-denial, far from deeming it "criminal to assume voluntary sufferings" (Seeberg), they are just as far from advocating the so-called "non-sensual" tendency which, looking upon the body and its life as a necessary evil, proposes to avert its noxious effects by wilful weakening or even mutilation (cf.

Scholastic philosophy enumerates as passions: love, hatred, desire, horror, joy, sadness, hope, despair, boldness, fear, anger.

The Apostolic Fathers called the love of God and man the sun of Christian life which, animating all virtues with its vital rays, inspires contempt of the world, beneficence, immaculate purity and self-sacrifice.

Following probably the "Didache", the "Epistle of Barnabas", written at the end of the 2nd century, represents the Christian life under the figure of the two ways, that of light and that of darkness.

Two Epistles, purporting to come from the pen of St. Clement, but probably written in the 3rd century, exalt the life of virginity, if grounded on the love of God and accompanied by the corresponding works, as heavenly, divine and angelic.

Like Clement of Alexandria, he lays down precepts for the regulation of the necessities of life as food and dress, and for the implanting of God's love in man's heart, which would sanctify all things ("Apologia", "De præcepto et dispensatione").

St. Thomas explains in the ascetic work "De perfectione vitæ spiritualis" the essence of Christian perfection so lucidly that his line of argumentation may even in our days serve as a model.

From the pen of David of Augsburg, a contemporary of these great masters, is an ascetic instruction for novices in his book entitled "De exterioris et interioris hominis compositione".

Though the book betrays that the author was well versed not only in Scholastic philosophy and theology, but also in the secrets of the mystical life, yet this fact never obtrudes itself on the reader, nor does it obscure the meaning of the contents.

A number of quotations from the great doctors Augustine, Bernard, Bonaventure and Thomas, from Aristotle, Ovid and Seneca do not mar the impression that the whole work is the spontaneous outburst of an intensely glowing soul.

It has often been said that the teachings of the "Imitation" are "unworldly" and show little appreciation for science, but one must take into consideration the peculiar circumstances of the time: Scholasticism had entered on a period of decline and had lost itself in intricate subtleties; mysticism had gone astray; all classes had been more or less infected with the spirit of licentiousness; conditions like these are the key to interpret phrases such as the following: "I would rather feel compunction than know how to define it" (Opto magis sentire compunctionem quam scire ejus definitionem) or "This is the highest wisdom: through contempt of the world to strive for the kingdom of heaven" (Ista est summa sapientia: per contemptum mundi tendere ad regna coelestia).

This fact is undoubtedly due to the well-founded conviction of the saint that even in extraordinary states the ordinary means must not be set aside altogether, so that illusions may be guarded against (cf.

In his "Exercitia spiritualia" St. Ignatius of Loyola has left to posterity a grand literary monument of the science of the soul, but also a method unparalleled in its practical efficacy of strengthening the willpower.

It is true, there are many rules and regulations, the sequence is most logical, the arrangement of the meditations follows the laws of psychology; yet these exercises do no violence to the free will, but are meant to strengthen the faculties of the soul.

They do not, as has often been asserted, make the exercitant a powerless instrument in the hands of the confessor, nor are they a mystic flight to heaven, accomplished by means of a compulsion which intends a rapid advance in perfection by a mechanical process (Zöckler, "Die Tugendlehre des Christentums", Gütersloh, 1904, p. 335).

Their marked intellectualism, so frequently objected to, in no way constitutes a hindrance to mysticism (Meschler, "Jesuitenaszese u. deutsche Mystik" in "Stimmen aus Maria-Laach", 1912).

On the contrary, they make man's moral will truly free by removing the hindrances, while, by cleansing the heart and by accustoming the mind to meditative prayer, they are an excellent preparation for the mystical life.

St. Alphonsus Liguori (d. 1787), rightly called the "Apostolic Man", published a large number of ascetic works, full of heavenly unction and tender-hearted piety.

Sacramento", perhaps the most widely read of all his ascetical works: "La vera sposa di Gesù Cristo" (1760), a sure guide to perfection for countless souls.

An exhaustive list of Catholic ascetical writers is given in Migne[5] Non-Catholic authors: Otto Zöckler, "Die Tugendlehre des Christentums, geschichtlich dargestellt" (Gütersloh, 1904).