“Every one that strives for the mastery abstains from all things." 1 Cor 9:25.
It seems, brethren, that these words which I have chosen for my text have a very special significance for us to-day. My words go out to you and to all the children of Holy Church as we are about to enter on the great season of abstinence - of abstinence from certain kinds and quantities of food - the abstinence of Lent. I have no fear, then, that my words may fall short; for my text points to an abstinence which belongs to no section of Christians, but to all who strive for the Christian's incorruptible crown: for
'everyone' - St. Paul makes no exception – “that strives for the mastery, abstains;" and mark, not from certain drinks, or certain food, but
“from all things" - that is, from all that can interfere with his success in the struggle. Let us, then, today consider this matter of abstinence in its widest signification, as a matter touching all Christians, and preached by the Apostle to all.
We are met at the outset by those who ask: Why should there be any abstinence at all from innocent things? Surely it is enough to abstain from what is bad: for instance, from excess in drinking, or, for the matter of that, from excess in eating. But is there not a happy medium-the safe road of moderation? Let us be moderate, by all means; but why ask us to abstain? Abstinence is not moderation; total abstinence from intoxicants is an extreme course, not a moderate one; and so is total abstinence from flesh meat. It is an extreme measure to stop all meat on Friday, or on certain days in Lent, or on every day in Lent, as was the case before a dispensation was given for certain days. Does not all this-so say the apostles of moderation-run counter to the common sense of mankind, which ever points to the wisdom of a middle course?
Our answer, brethren, is contained in the words of my text. We are" striving for the mastery" in a struggle-a struggle with a powerful enemy, where success will win for us an everlasting crown, and where defeat means everlasting perdition. In such a struggle, who would advise moderation?
The joys of heaven, the pains of hell, are not
moderate. No, nor should our striving to gain the one and avoid the other be moderate either. That is why Jesus has said: "The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent (not the moderate) bear it away." The foes with whom we strive, and who would, if they could, violently tear from us that crown and that Kingdom, are not given to moderation. They may preach it to us, but they do not practice it. We must meet violence by violence; and since we have to fight, we must choose those weapons which are strong enough to stand and to prevail against our assailants.
Now, our body is one of our chief foes. It is the body that damns most of the souls that are damned. The body has its allies in the World and the Devil, but it is itself the great power we have to fight. You know how often St. Paul tells us of this miserable fact, that we bear with us a body of death-a body that is in lifelong struggle with the soul, striving for the mastery, striving to make the soul fall, and then to keep it down. "I see a law in my members fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin that is in my members. Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death'?., And again :-"The Wisdom of the flesh is Death; but the Wisdom of the Spirit is life and peace. If you live according to the flesh, you shall die. But if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live."
There is the struggle we have each of us in hand-it is a matter of life and death, of eternal life or eternal death. Who then, believing this, will counsel any but the most vigorous striving, the most far-seeing tactics, the utmost courage and self sacrificing devotion to the cause? What less, in such strife, would gain the mastery?
One great means of reducing an enemy in war is cutting off his supplies. You may have heard of great and perilous efforts made to prevent provision trains from reaching the hostile lines. Some of the most famous battles in history have been fought between those who attacked and those who defended the wagons that bore food to the hungry soldiers. You have heard of cities reduced to surrender by blockade alone-the food supply running short. Well, in the great fight between the Flesh and the Spirit the same tactics are pursued. The body would strive to cut off supplies, to starve the soul into a surrender. And so the body cuts short the prayers that bring grace to the soul. The body will cry for its extra sleep in the morning; and then will be urgent in its haste to work, or to exercise, or to food; and so morning prayers and the graces they bring are cut off. Evening comes, and the body cries for sleep. Prayers at night are too long: the Rosary is made only a succession of broken sleeps, and finally is omitted altogether. Night prayers are thus reduced to a mere form; the poor soul will soon be starved out at this rate: the body is succeeding well in cutting off the supplies. And above all, Mass and the Sacraments are the objects of attack. The day is too nice to go to confession, or it is too wet, too hot, or too cold. The morning's fast is too much; so Holy Communion is put off. And so on. You know these tactics of the Flesh and these promptings of the Devil only too well. It is all to cut off the supplies of grace to the soul, and thus to force it to surrender. Force the Wisdom of the flesh is Death." The body is striving to make the soul a total abstainer from prayer and all that can bring grace and strength; striving to conquer for Hell by means of this fatal spiritual abstinence.
But, dear brethren, let me use a homely phrase, and say that two can play at that game. If the body tries with such fatal success to cut off supplies from the soul, why should not the soul cut off supplies from the body? If the body would enforce abstinence, and even total abstinence, from spiritual food, why should not the soul enforce a like abstinence from corporal food? What is fair to the one combatant is fair to the other; and what is so powerful in behalf of the Flesh will surely be as powerful in behalf of the Spirit. That such is the case is sufficiently proved by St. Paul's words: "If by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the Flesh, you shall live." And such is the teaching of the soul's great ally in this struggle-the Church of God. For as the Flesh is helped by the Devil and the World, so is the Spirit by the Angels and Saints, and by Holy Church. The Church has therefore fixed certain times for warring against the Flesh by the arms of abstinence. There are seasons when there is, so to speak, a grand attack made upon the supplies of the enemy; when all Catholics join publicly in compelling their bodies to abstain from the food at other times permitted to them, and when what was before left to each individual is enforced under the penalty of grievous sin. Such a time is the time of Lent, on which we are about to enter: a time when the Flesh is harassed by the Spirit, when the body is punished and weakened and brought into subjection by the soul: a time when each faithful Catholic can say, with the Apostle, "I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection."
And as there are special times when all the soldiers of the Church, unless released by dispensation, are bound to this warfare of Abstinence, so there are special bodies of her great army bound at all times to carryon these tactics. As in the armies of nations there are certain regiments trained in the use of certain arms, and provided with these arms principally-some with cannon, some with rifles, some with swords or lances, and some with mattocks and axes for clearing a path for the rest, so in God's army the Church has assigned to certain orders certain arms: to one the arm of extraordinary prayer, to others extraordinary fasting and abstinence, to others extraordinary works of mercy, and so on. Mark, the rest of men are not thereby freed from the duty of
ordinary prayer and penance and charity; but to those chosen bodies the practice of these virtues is assigned in a special and extraordinary way. Thus, we know, there are religious orders given entirely to contemplation within their strict enclosures; and there are other orders whose members are total abstainers from flesh meat, who rise in the mid-hours of night to watch and pray and carry on the warfare while others rest. Thus we have in the Church that abstinence from all things of which St. Paul speaks: that general attack, in one way or another, upon the supplies of this body of death against which we are obliged to wage unceasing war, striving for the mastery.
But besides this public warfare-this abstinence of certain stated times, and of certain organized bodies within the Church-there is the private and particular warfare which each soul must wage against his own body. That struggle for the mastery is of all seasons, and of all sorts and conditions. For the very life of man is, as Job declares, a warfare; and what is life but the union of body and soul, the grappling together of the Flesh and the Spirit in a long, unceasing struggle?
Brethren, have you ever really understood this? Have you ever truly taken in the meaning of St. Paul's words when, inspired by the Holy Ghost, he told you that the body and soul of man are deadly enemies to each other; that the Flesh lusts against the Spirit; and that, unless this body of flesh be chastised and kept under, it will murder the soul and drag it down to hell? Very different is the doctrine of the world. There, the body is everything: the body is fed and pampered, its every sense supplied with luxury; delicacies are spread for it to taste, sweet sounds for it to hear, fragrant perfumes are sprinkled over it, fair sights displayed before it; it is clad in the softest raiment, and sumptuously housed; all pain is kept as far as may be from it, and the thought of its death is hidden away. And why is this?
Because the world treats this body of death as though it were a friend and not an enemy. The world denies the fact of the great death-struggle between the body and the soul, and treats the words of St. Paul as though they were a worn-out superstition. But let us not make so fearful a mistake. Let us lay to heart the truth which we learned in our catechisms: that we are very much inclined to evil, that if we give up the struggle against this strong inclination all is over with us. The enemy never gives up. From childhood to old age the body of death is striving for the mastery, now in one way, now in another; now by lust, now by anger or hate; now by sloth, now by covetousness-always striving. With such a foe can there be ever truce? No, never, till the grip of the combatants shall relax in death. The Christian soul must struggle on, chastising, cutting off the supplies by abstinence, in the morning of life, and in the evening; for a victory might be snatched even in the shadows of the last hour. Ah, no wonder that he who realized this never-ceasing strife-no wonder that, while others clung to life, St. Paul should cry out,” Who will deliver me from the body of this death?" No wonder he should long for the time to come when the soul at last should shake itself free from the body-no wonder he should" desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ."
Look at Jesus. See how He treated His body. In Him there was indeed no struggle. His holy body and soul were both of God. Nor could there be between them any struggle, for in neither of them could there be any sin. And yet, that He might be with us, our stay and comfort in our weary struggle, He chastised His innocent body: He gave His back to the scourge, and His head to the thorns, His face to the spittle, and His hands and feet to nails. Let us, when our struggle seems too hard, and when our spirit seems to waver, let us look at Him, and we shall be strong. It was for us, to encourage each soul to strive for the mastery, which He suffered these things; and it will give our poor penance and abstinence a wondrous power if only we unite them to those sufferings of Jesus on the Cross. Let us all, then, resolve to carryon the struggle manfully.
Let us enter on the abstinence of Lent, understanding what that abstinence means, why it has been ordered us, and what it may do for us. And even when Lent is over, we must remember that the struggle between the body and the soul will not have ceased, nor therefore the necessity that everyone that strives for the mastery should still abstain from all things.
Dear friends, you may be heroes in the struggle. You are chosen ones of God. You have the blessing of the Church upon your abstinence. Do not waver. If you feel tempted, look up to your standard; look at the Cross. Hear your Master, in His dying accents, bidding you to be true.
"I thirst!" He cries;
"I am an abstainer in death!" And if there are any here who, moved by that cry from the Cross, wish to imitate Jesus in His thirst, wish to bring comfort to His breaking Heart, to win a victory over their bodies of death, let them this very day join this band of Abstinence, and range themselves under .the standard of Jesus thirsting on the Cross. Do you who have already joined renew your pledge at the feet of Jesus crucified, and do so as often as you look at the Crucifix there before you, or pass by that standing before this church. If you do that, there is little fear that, with His cry,
"I thirst!" in your ears, you will ever break your pledge or desert His side.
Dear friends, do not let the length of this life struggle dishearten you. As surely as Lent passes into Easter, so surely will the strife between the Flesh and the Spirit, between your body and your soul, and all the penance, and abstinence, and weariness of that strife, end in death. If you shall have so striven, so abstained, as to have gained the mastery, your end will be peace and rest. The conquered body shall be laid into its grave, for it is a body of death. But in its ashes shall remain a seed that is not of death; and the day shall come when, in reward for its abstinence and chastisement, suffered in the days of its struggle here, "this corruptible shall put on incorruption; and this mortal shall put on immortality," and in your flesh you shall see God.
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Adapted from...Sermons 1877-1887
by Fr Arthur Ryan (© 1890)
President of St. Patrick's College
Thurles, IrelandSt. Patrick's College, in 1992,
ceased to be a Seminary.
