If getting a vasectomy is self mutilation, what is self flagellation?

[hedgehog]

[Matilda]

1. Auto-eroticism?

Strange isn't it - it's considered holy if practised by a pope (yes, I've seen the articles about JPII), but if
you or I were to start doing this, we'd be advised to see a psychiatrist.

[rug]

2. Depends on what you're flagellating.

[hedgehog]

3. My take is this: would you allow person A to beat person B?

Then why approve of person A beating himself?

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. Aerobics?

[hedgehog]

5. More of a sense of humor than John Paul II had!

:rofl:

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. In the context, it was inappropriate. I expect J-P had a great sense of humour, but,

alas, the sense of humour you develop in your youth is not easily curbed. But when I wrote it, I was just thinking of the thread header.

[hedgehog]

7. I don't know. I can't believe that anyone with a good sense of humor would feel

it appropriate to whip himself.

[Joe Chi Minh]

8. Not something that readily commends itself to me, but there are more things in heaven and earth, it

would seem.... and I'd be surprised if he were not a better man than you or I.

That's not to say that even the most outstanding people don't have particular limitations imposed on them by their upbringing and circumstances, but I don't thing it wise to discount as misguided pentitential practices that have been resorted to down the centuries by people of outstanding holiness - as well as 'nutters'.

[hedgehog]

9. I think it's a holdover from Roman culture rather than Christianity.

As such, while it is understandable, I question its value.


For comparison: many female saints were noted for starving themselves and living only on the Eucharist and water. I tend to think that they were actually anorexic, and interpreted their anorexia in light of their culture. (Today we interpret anorexia as a mean of becoming properly thin.) Anorexics claim to be in control of their eating when in fact they are totally out of control; something in their brain prevents them from eating. So, I think of Catherine of Siena as a holy woman who also happened to suffer from anorexia rahter than as a holy woman because she suffered from anorexia.

As a side comment, Catherine of Siena was a nun who left the convent to work with people in the outside world and who hectored the Pope to reform the Church.

[Matilda]

10. However good a person may be, and however well-intentioned,

self-abuse is never healthy, physically or psychologically. There is
generally a negative attitude towards one's body involved, and even
a holy person shouldn't be ashamed of their body.

And when did Jesus tell his followers to beat themselves in His name?
It proves nothing except that they need to talk to a psychiatrist.

[Joe Chi Minh]

12. When he told them that when the bridegroom had left them, then they would fast.

The wisdom of the Church, for all the folly and malice of its false brethren down the centuries, has filled me with ever-increasing awe.

Incidentally, the Church doesn't encourage fasting, still less flagellation, for all that the Holy Spirit sometimes encourages individuals to do so, at least the former; probably, the latter, in the likes of John Paul II.

[Matilda]

13. I did specify beating, as in whipping.

That's not in the gospels.

Fasting is healthy, provided it's not undertaken for more than a couple of days without medical supervision, and
as long as plenty of fluids are taken. It can rid the body of toxins.

Prolonged fasting is something else again - the body's systems beging to shut down, and people begin to hallucinate.
I'm just a teensy bit sceptical about saints who fasted for long periods and then began to have visions. It's
really no surprise.

[Joe Chi Minh]

14. No. If you doubt the reality of the supernatural on this earth, and mysticism is simply

one manifestation of it, I don't know what to say to you. Just that I'm puzzled you're a Catholic, indeed any kind of Christian, I suppose. It's not a moral judgement, but one based on your words.

As for prolonged fasting causing the body to shut down and give rise to hallucinations, I'd favour Christ's take on it. He gave no indication as to a particular dosage propitious to maintaining their health.

You begin your last sentence with the word, 'And', suggesting that you were alluding to fasting as well under the term, 'self-abuse', possibly, asceticism, generally. The plain fact of the matter is, as I was going to tell hedgehog, not just holy resignation in the face of one's own suffering, but self-denial generally, is a key element of the Christian faith. There are plenty of siren voices in our secular societies telling us we need to spoil ourselves. I don't go out of my way to deny myself, but I have immense respect for the wisdom of the canonised saints who did.

[Matilda]

17. I don't doubt the presence of the supernatural for a moment.

We do, however, have to be very careful to distinguish between what is genuinely supernatural and what is the result
of delusion.

Many people believe that God speaks to them and through them in different ways; some are genuine and some are
deluded. It may be very difficult for others to distinguish what is real and what is not, and it may be even more
difficult for the person concerned.

Self-denial is not a bad thing; deliberate deprivation of what is necessary to maintain physical and mental health
over a long period of time is sheer stupidity. The saints and mystics of old didn't know the harm they could do
to themselves and acted from the purest of motives, but today we should know better.

Sorry, you will never convince me that God wants me to prove my devotion by beating myself with a belt, chains,
or anything else. And I hate to burst your bubble, but it is a fact that some people are sexually stimulated by
physical pain, and their mortification may be a sign of psychological disturbance. That doesn't mean they're
deliberately stimulating themselves, but the capacity for self-delusion shouldn't be underestimated, whether in a
pope or the lowliest lay person.

[Angry Dragon]

19. I believe the native Americans

practiced prolonged fasting when they went on their vision quests

[Joe Chi Minh]

11. Many people question the interpretations of things that are not measurable

in laboratories. For a while, poltergeists were believed to be strange manifestations of the disturbed psyches mainly of adolescents; adduced even in hagiographies. I think it's generally a sign of the secularisation of our Western society.

It srikes me that secularists however markedly tend to end up with more bizarre and fanciful postulations than folklore or religion. Popular belief in ghosts, for example, the existence of whom is unambiguously attested in the Gospels, on the other hand, while anecdotally-based (or via personal experience), tends to be universally held and time-hallowed. As Chavez pointed out, it was white-skinned people (the super-rational, scientific hot-shots) who have brought our world to this present pretty, economic pass. Our eyes are bigger than our bellies, because our brains are bigger than our hearts - the seat of wisdom.

[Joe Chi Minh]

15. hedgehog. Think about it. Can you imagine any woman less likely to suffer

from anorexia than St Catherine of Siena? Really...!

It is primarily a psycho-spiritual disorder of young people, and seems to be associated with self-pity, self-absorption and other such expressions of teenage angst. If you'd mentioned any other female saint, I'd have thought it incomprehensible, but out of all of them, you chose St Catherine of Siena!

[hedgehog]

16. I think that anorexia is a very old disease, but that the

interpretation of it varies with culture. I think the notion that it is a disease of young teenage girls mired in self absorption is rapidly being discarded. Ten years ago families were blamed when their daughters developed anorexia; now it is recognized as a genetic disease.

As for Catherine, look at some of these details:

"From her earliest childhood Catherine began to see visions and to practice extreme austerities.
....
Though always suffering terrible physical pain, living for long intervals on practically no food save the Blessed Sacrament
....
Her strength was rapidly being consumed; she besought her Divine Bridegroom to let her bear the punishment for all the sins of the world, and to receive the sacrifice of her body for the unity and renovation of the Church; at last it seemed to her that the Bark of Peter was laid upon her shoulders, and that it was crushing her to death with its weight. After a prolonged and mysterious agony of three months, endured by her with supreme exultation and delight, from Sexagesima Sunday until the Sunday before the Ascension, she died."

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03447a.htm

St Catherine died of a stroke in Rome, the spring of 1380, at the age of thirty-three.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Siena

Compare that to what happened to Karen Carpenter!

The article in the Catholic Encyclopedia also mentions a three month episode that could have been brought on by starvation. The descriptions of her physical condition and the fact that she died so young of a stroke remind me of the way so many women struggle today. Now, I am not going to argue that her visions were hallucinations brought on by starvation. I have no way of knowing. Even if they were hallucinations, why did she see and hear what she did? I can see a woman of her era afflicted with anorexia interpreting it as a call to join her suffering with Christ. Where young woman explain their disease today as an attempt to be thin enough, Catherine experienced hers as a call to holiness. The important thing is she answered the call.

It doesn't mean that her writings are invalid. We all take what we are handed and make what we will of it. Hildegarde Von Bingen wrote of her visions of Hell, but some suggest today what she was seeing was migraine aura. IMO, it doesn't matter what inspired her writings, what matters is what she wrote. Again, I have to believe that Joan of Arc had some form of schizophrenia. Since she believed the voices were giving her instructions from God, and since she tried her best to follow those instructions, I still respect and honor her.

[Matilda]

18. Many would agree that she suffered from schizophrenia, and other diseases have also been cited.

What is most interesting about her is that generally, schizophrenics are also paranoid, and their voices will
encourage them to hurt other people before they themselves are hurt. That is why they're considered a danger
to themselves and others if they're not on medication.

Yet Joan's voices were giving her information that was valid militarily, and so what she was telling the
Dauphin was right for the country and the French people, even though it didn't turn out well for her in the end.
They were nothing like the usual paranoid fantasies that most schizophrenics experience, and she possessed an
uncanny knowledge of military tactics that she couldn't possibly have acquired on her parents' little farm.

She also had a strong sense of self, which is something schizophrenics generally lack, and she was always clear
and lucid in her speech, even under interrogation. She knew who she was and where she was going and what she had
to do, not for moments at a time, but for years on end.

I think Joan was the real thing.