Perfect Sacrifice: A Life of Universal Mortification
The life of perfect and continuous sacrifice in a person consists in the most perfect, constant and universal practice of mortification of all evil passions. (OOCC, II, p. 7)
For St. Vincent Pallotti, it is the intention of a person when performing an action that gives that action its moral nature of being good or evil. Hence, passions of a person are not necessarily evil, but it is he who makes them good or evil depending on the manner in which he copes with them. Passions are spontaneous inner reactions in a person when he is faced with a concrete situation. A person with right attitude and with a sense of discipline can use them as powerful forces for accomplishing good in his life. A person can stop his passions from bringing about evil in his life by the practice of counter virtues. Self-centeredness is what makes one’s passions produce evil in his life. Hence, St. Vincent admonished his followers to root out self-centeredness from their lives by the practice of self-abnegation and love of humiliation and subjection. The practice of these virtues would help a person to check his excessive love of self, which in turn would free one’s passions from leaning towards evil. Thus, for Vincent Pallotti, living a life of perfect sacrifice like that of Christ requires a perfect, constant and universal mortification of oneself, thereby curbing the passions from tending towards what is evil.
Are the motivations that guide my life genuine and good? Am I in touch with my passions? Do I allow them to produce evil in my life? Do I have an excessive love of myself? Do I counter my self-centeredness by the practice of contrary virtues? Am I ready for a life of universal mortification?
Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires, and the greed that is idolatry. (Col. 3: 5)