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Dear Assumption Catholic Schools,

I write today in the midst of the Easter Triduum and pray you may be able to spend time contemplating all that the Gift of God’s Son means to you.

Today Good Friday Jesus dies on the cross only to rise again in 3 days and thus conquer death for us forever..

This week our strength building on the virtue of
FORTITUDE is MORTIFICATION.
Mortification, based on Faith, is the strength to
deny oneself through penance and austerity to
strengthen the will in the practice of virtue and
grow in the likeness of Christ.
The mortification is never an end in itself, but a
means by which we become better followers of
Christ.

“O Jesus, my one and only hope! Thou dost love
me. Thou hast power to do all things: make me a
saint. If I am weak, do Thou give me strength; if I am
sick, in consequence of the sins I have committed, do
Thou apply to my soul one drop of Thy blood, and heal
me. Give me the love of Thee, and final perseverance,
making me die in Thy grace. Give me paradise;
through Thy merits do I ask it of Thee, and hope to
obtain it. I love Thee, O my most lovely God, with all
my soul; and I hope to love Thee always. Oh, help a
miserable sinner, who is wishing to love Thee.”
– St. Alphonsus Liguori

Jesus spoke about mortification as an absolute
necessity for growth into Christian maturity. Here are
some of the better-known passages:
“If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him
renounce himself and take up his cross every day and
follow me” (Luke 9:23).
“In all truth I tell you, unless a wheat grain falls into
the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain; but
if it dies it yields a rich harvest” (John 12:24).
“Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but
anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the
sake of the gospel, will save it” (Mark 8:35).

The root word for “mortification” comes from the
Latin, mors and mortis, and it translates as
“death.”
In the spiritual life, therefore, mortification refers
to voluntary actions by which we gradually “put to
death” all of our vices, sinful habits, and the selfcentered
tendencies that lurk beneath them.
Spiritual writers use terms like abnegation,
sacrifice, self-sacrifice, and self-denial to refer to
the same thing.

Challenges for the week

Choose one way to practice mortification out of love
for Jesus.
Here are some options:
• Get up when alarm goes off
• Make a small sacrifice at meals.
• When you feel tempted to say something nasty
or negative – zip it!
• Exercise.
• If you are tempted to look or stare inappropriately, don’t.

MATTHEW 6: 16-21
And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the
hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to
show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they
have received their reward.
But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash
your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by
others but by your Father who is in secret; and your
Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and rust consume and where thieves
break in and steal; but store up for yourselves
treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust
consumes and where thieves do not break in and
steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will
be also.

“Model yourselves on those who excel the most in
mortification.”
– St. Vincent de Paul

“Your mortification should be your diligence in
oing your duties and in putting up with the annoyances of others.”

– St. John Bosco

The opposing VICE EXCESSIVENESS

THE WEAKNESS OF REFUSING TO CONTROL OR DENY YOURSELF.

EXAMPLE OF EXCESSIVENESS
French fries and ketchup.
Putting ketchup on your french fries is completely fine. Many people like doing this.
A person who likes ketchup on their fries but wants to offer up a sacrifice for their Mom who is sick and practice the strength of mortification might choose not to put ketchup on one day, praying for a special intention.
Excessiveness is pouring the whole bottle or just too much ketchup on your fries.

CLOSING PRAYER
“I come to thee, oh mother of God, I supplicate thee to obtain for me the pardon of my sins, and that I may be purified from all the errors of my life.
I pray thee to grant me thy grace, that I may unite myself with affection to thy Son and to thee; to thy Son as to my God, to thee as to the mother of my God.”

May God bless each of us and bring us more fully into His Love.  The Love that we were born for.

In Christ’s Peace

Daniel MInter

President

Assumption Catholic Schools