The word ‘asceticism’ conjures ugly images of skinny hermits, starving monks, bald nuns and dirty saints. Asceticism is none of the just mentioned. It is an activity of the soul and, therefore, invisible to the senses. It is an invisible spiritual activity of the soul. Only the ascetic and God can know anything about its on goings.
Most, if not all, seminarians were baptized, most come from Catholic families and some had studied in prestigious Catholic schools. Why would the Holy Father as Cardinal spoke about a crisis of Faith in the Church?
It is like this. Most Catholics were baptized as babies. With baptism they received sanctifying grace that made them children of God. And Catholic education is supposed to help them maintain and develop into maturity that state of grace. That is the life of Faith, Hope and Charity that merits for us eternal life.
The reason for baptism is to give the baby (still without actual sin) who naturally knows and loves God the grace necessary to maintain and rise up to a supernatural knowledge and love of God. The sacrament with its sacramental grace helps the child to grow into the maturity of Faith, Hope and Charity. With the baby in this innocent state and filled with the grace of baptism, we have a creature that is geared for great holiness.
But sadly, almost immediately after baptism, the baby learns evil, commits sin and losses his sanctifying grace. Unless he recovers he is in danger of going to hell.
Imagine this child struggling to recover the grace and innocence or in short ‘trying to be a child again’ or trying to be born again. Imagine his goal of reaching Faith and becoming a child of God again ….and the thousand other hurdles blocking his road to faith. How can you expect him to pass through that narrow road that is like going through the eye of a needle that leads to salvation?
The seminarian has to remove those obstacles and hurdles. Everybody has to do this. These obstacles are vices that prevent us from obtaining Faith, Hope and Charity. These are removed by means of asceticism or acts of repentance. Asceticism are acts by which we receive the moral virtues that will facilitate the reception of the theological virtue of Faith, the beginning of the contemplative life.
Essentially, asceticism is what Christ did while He was subject to Joseph and Mary. He did that to instruct us. His being subject were physical acts mainly consisting in acts of physical obedience. While contemplation is when Christ was spiritually subject to His Father in heaven, the message He gave us when He was lost in the temple at 12. The former subjection is called Asceticism. The latter subjection is called Faith or contemplation. When we first enter a monastery or religious house it is to live a life of physical obedience or an ascetic life.
Obedience is both physical and spiritual. The physical aspect is asceticism. The spiritual aspect makes up the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity….or contemplation.
As Pope Benedict exhorts priest to be contemplatives he is in fact telling them to finish their life of repentance before doing anything else. Pope Benedict is well acquainted with repentance because of his exposure to the Benedictines in Bavaria. The Benedictine monastic spirituality is a life of repentance like all religious life. It is a life of asceticism where obedience to the superiors is similar to the life of Christ when He was obedient to Joseph and Mary. These way of life is a preparation for the life of Faith. People enter monasteries and convents to repent and then enter the Church through the door of Faith. And this is commonly referred to as the ascetic life which is necessary for the forgiveness of sins. It is sometimes referred to as the virtue of penance (different from the Sacrament of Penance) and is a preparation to receive the virtue of Faith (Hope and Charity).
A very common defect is to jump into Charity without passing through Faith; or jumping into Faith without passing the ascetic life or repentance. Note how common this mistake is in most lectures, retreats, spiritual talks and writings causing much frustration when a soul finds out he cannot reach Charity because he neglected the life of repentance, Faith and Hope.