First, we must keep in mind the so-called passive mortifications: offering with love that which comes to us unexpectedly or that is beyond our control (heat, cold, pain, being patient when a wait goes on longer than expected, a brusque response that disconcerts us...).
Along with passive mortifications, there are those that tend to facilitate coexistence (making an effort to be punctual, listening with genuine interest, speaking up when an awkward silence looms, being affable and always overcoming moods, gently adhering to the usual rules of courtesy: saying thank you, apologizing when we may have inadvertently upset someone...) and work (intensity, order, completing the task perfectly, helping and making it easier for others...).
Mortification of the intellect (avoiding critical attitudes that lack charity, mortification of curiosity, not judging hastily) and of the will (fighting diligently against disordered self-love, avoiding conversations that focus on ourselves, on what we have done, on our affairs, on what interests us personally...). Active mortification of the senses (of sight, of taste, living soberly and offering a small sacrifice that is difficult for us at meals...). Mortification of the sensitivity, of the tendency to "have a good time" as the first goal in life... Interior mortification (useless thoughts that delay the path of holiness..., especially when these thoughts arise in prayer, at Holy Mass, at work).
Let us examine in the presence of God whether we can truly say with joy that we lead a mortified life. If we master our bodies every day, if we have offered to the Lord, with a redemptive zeal, the pain and adversity that, in some way, are always present on every journey. If we are truly determined to lose our lives—step by step, little by little—for the love of Christ and the Gospel.
Our mortification and penance in the midst of the world has a series of qualities. First, it must be joyful. “Sometimes,” commented that sick man, consumed with zeal for souls, “the body protests a little, it complains. But I also try to transform ‘those complaints’ into smiles, because they are very effective.”16 Many smiles and kind gestures must be born—if we are mortified—in the midst of pain and illness.
Continue, may it facilitate the presence of God wherever we find ourselves, help us carry out more intense and complete work, and lead us to maintain kinder social relationships, where the apostolic spirit is always present. Discreet, kind, full of naturalness, which is evident by its effects on ordinary life, with simplicity, rather than by manifestations that are unusual in an ordinary believer.
Finally, mortification must be humble and full of love, because we are moved by the contemplation of Christ on the Cross, to whom we desire to unite ourselves with our whole being; we desire nothing that does not lead us to Him.
In mortification, as on Calvary, we encounter Mary: let us place the concrete intentions of this time of prayer in her hands, let us ask her to teach us to understand in all its depth the need for a mortified life.
HCD