I was there in the adoration chapel a while ago, and honestly I didn't want to go; I wanted to play World of Tanks and try out MechWarrior Online. But I had this feeling that I was being invited, probably partly because I opened The Way (a book with the words of St. Josemaria Escriva that helps us build and enrich our interior life) in the morning and flipped to the part about Mortification.
"That joke, that witty remark held on the tip of your tongue; the cheerful smile for those who annoy you; that silence when you're unjustly accused; your friendly conversation with people whom you find boring and tactless; the daily effort to overlook one irritating detail or another in the persons who live with you... this, with perseverance, is indeed solid interior mortification." - The Way, number 173
Mortification is--or at least how I understand it--is the act of trying to kill and destroy one's attachment from sin. And to be able to do so, one must sacrifice and carry the cross. To carry the cross, one must detach one's self from earthly pleasures and desires. Traversing it backwards, Mortification is the discipline of practicing one's detachment from earthly pleasures and desires, that enables us to carry the cross (because we're not holding anything anymore), that detaches us from sin.
I am absolutely not so sure if I explained that properly.
So I detached myself from my desire to play online games, and went to the Adoration Chapel.
If ever there are non-Catholics reading this, the Adoration Chapel is a chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is present and exposed, for us to adore. The Blessed Sacrament is the physical Body of Christ.
Honestly, I went in unprepared, just following that invitation. I genuflected, and knelt, not knowing what to tell the Lord. I asked for His forgiveness, and prayed for some personal intentions of mine. After that, it's just silence. Well, not that silent; I could hear the low frequency "whooom" sound the air conditioner is making, and the subtle movements of the two people at my back. I'm a guy who actually enjoys room tone; I was distracted by the silence. Then I remembered Cardinal Tagle's sermon two years ago in the Mass in honor of St. Josemaria Escriva about God's language. Not verbatim but it goes something like, "Silence is God's language". Today it made sense. I think it's not the kind of silence that means "the absence of sound", rather, the silence of the mind or the absence of mental noise. When the mind is in a state of silence, it means our mind is empty and freed from mental noise. It means there is room / space for God to enter. And so I freed myself from the crazy ideas passively running at the back of my mind, and also freed myself from... worries. I am a person filled with worries, most specially now that I just turned thirty. Sometimes I can't help it. I feel like I'm doomed and destined to fail. Worries.. heh... worry's definitely a form of noise; It distracts us from hearing God.
Today, God told me to trust Him and persevere the sufferings. I left the adoration chapel with my mind filled with God's assurance that everything's going to be fine. There is peace in obedience.
