The first time I whipped myself it seemed bizarre. But over the months doing so became routine, a ritual performed three times a week by all the novice candidates for admission to the religious order we had chosen.
Before going to bed, we would assemble in our dormitory, take off our shirts and, when the bell rang, beat ourselves with a small whip for a minute or two. No one drew blood but it did hurt as it was supposed to. It was our way of disciplining the body so that it would become more obedient to the soul.
Looking back on this practice from the vantage point of many years, I still feel amazement about its easy acceptance. Everyone did it, no one questioned its value, some zealots presumably looked forward to the nights when this flagellation was scheduled
On the two other days of the week, we wore small chains around the upper part of one leg for three hours in the early morning until after breakfast. The flage and the chain, as they were familiarly called, were the most bodily forms of the asceticism that was standard in the life of novices.
These practices, however, were only two among many intended to purify the soul. We also learned to acknowledge our faults while kneeling before our brothers assembled for dinner. Occasionally, our fellow novices would gather under the novice master’s guidance to take turns pointing out our faults.
If all of this now sounds cultish, extreme, and even inhuman, it must be understood as part of a long monastic tradition. This way of life was seen a way of approaching perfection, an asceticism that had been hallowed by centuries of holy people both in the Christian tradition and in others as well.
And this asceticism, or spiritual discipline, aimed at the growth of love both of God and of neighbor. At its best, this kind of rigorous putting down of self was adopted, not for its own sake, but rather to make us better human beings. If the body was to be beaten down, it was for the soul to rise.
In time I came to reject this approach to the spiritual life. To its credit, so did the religious order to which I belonged. Starting in the 1960s, most people came to see that the concepts of being human that lay underneath this kind of asceticism were deeply flawed. We discovered that soul and body were not stand- alone parts of ourselves but rather one being, an enfleshed spirit or spirited flesh.
However, despite this rejection of the old asceticism, discipline in my view remains an integral part of any true spirituality. To me this holds true in the face of what one scholar calls “a widely held cultural bias against, even contempt for, the ascetic.” Consumerist American culture, in particular, exalts self-indulgence and the gratification of the senses.
Still, anyone wishing to grow in spiritual life must resist this bias and contempt. Inevitably, there are times when we must go against ourselves if we are serious about spirit. To her credit Elizabeth Lesser, in her focal book “The New American Spirituality,” has a great deal to say about self-discipline, despite the word’s absence from the index. Often in its pages she criticizes supposed spiritual leaders who offer the easy way without requiring any managing of the self.
Lesser writes: “Inviting spirituality into your life is like packing for a long journey.” When you pick and choose the things to put in your suitcase, you discover that you must discipline yourself and not take too much. And yet you have to choose the right objects; otherwise you arrive at your destination and find that you are bereft.
The best spiritual discipline, I believe, is the patient, courageous, and gracious acceptance of the suffering built into our lives, afflictions that we can do nothing about. This kind of asceticism is best seen perhaps in those older people whose lives are marked by serious loss – of people dear to them, of abilities that came easily to them when younger, of important roles in the world of work. Accepting difficult changes like these requires qualities of soul that put us to the ultimate test.
Richard Griffin