St. Michael's Lent 2026 - Reading #10 - Asceticism
Reading
What did Christians actually lose when Rome was stripped? Nothing that made them who they were — if they held goods as stewards.
"They, then, who lost their worldly all in the sack of Rome, if they owned their possessions as they had been taught by the apostle, who himself was poor without, but rich within,--that is to say, if they used the world as not using it,--could say in the words of Job, heavily tried, but not overcome: 'Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so has it come to pass: blessed be the name of the Lord.' Like a good servant, Job counted the will of his Lord his great possession, by obedience to which his soul was enriched; nor did it grieve him to lose, while yet living, those goods which he must shortly leave at his death."
The feebler grip discovers itself by the pain of loss.
Augustine diagnoses: "But as to those feebler spirits who, though they cannot be said to prefer earthly possessions to Christ, do yet cleave to them with a somewhat immoderate attachment, they have discovered by the pain of losing these things how much they were sinning in loving them. For their grief is of their own making; in the words of the apostle quoted above, 'they have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.' For it was well that they who had so long despised these verbal admonitions should receive the teaching of experience."
Loosen the grip before the fire tests it.
Reflection
Grief at loss is human; but the grief that shatters a man reveals where he had stored his treasure. The apostle's image is physical: they "pierced themselves through with many sorrows." The wound was self-inflicted, driven in years earlier, each time the grip tightened on goods held as if they made a man who he was.
Here is the training this week asks of you: loosen the grip before the fire tests it. That is what asceticism is for a family man — not despising the house, the income, the comforts you provide, but practicing their surrender in small voluntary doses: the fast kept, the purchase declined, the generosity that actually costs.
When loss comes uninvited, it should find a man already schooled. The man who has rehearsed letting go cannot be broken by subtraction. Teach your children the drill by letting them watch you run it.