I am going to buy some sort of celice this Lent, as well as a scourge. Possibly a chain around my waist...

Members who have used some of the more severe methods of mortification, which have you used and what are your thoughts on various methods?

I am going to buy some sort of celice this Lent, as well as a scourge. Possibly a chain around my waist...

Members who have used some of the more severe methods of mortification, which have you used and what are your thoughts on various methods?

Don't do any extraordinary severe penances like that unless you do it under the guidance of a wise and holy spiritual director.

There are lots of ordinary voluntary penances you can do without getting into severe methods. There even are many involuntary penances like suffering things well that are inflicted on you. Those are the things ordinary Catholics do.

Sometimes the desire and doing of severe penance is a trap of the devil. Sometimes it causes pride.

Are you extraordinary and advanced in the spiritual life?

If so I highly doubt you would be asking these questions here.

"Let us now consider what we must do to ensure that the Holy Spirit may dwell in our souls. It can all be summed up in mortification of the flesh with its vices and concupiscences, and in guarding against a selfish spirit... The mortification must be constant and steady, not intermittent, and it must last for one's whole life. Moreover, the perfect Christian must not be satisfied with a kind of mortification which merely appears to be severe. He must make sure that it hurts."

-Padre Pio

Can you elaborate on hours of prayer a day being imprudent or harmful? One should pray as much as possible if it is done for the right reasons.

Sure every act can be a prayer and a sacrifice, but I was implying that I'm able to spend a few hours a day praying vocally. I'm not a kid or new to prayer.

I never said that everyone should pray vocally as much as I do. However, the reality of it is that most people do not spend more than 5 or 10 minutes praying because they are terrified of silence and reflection, and have to live vicariously through sinful technology.

The best mortification I find is that of being persecuted by others on account of Christian qualities in your character. Everywhere I go I am insulted in one way or another for the faith, and it, like Padre Pio says it should do, "hurts".

However, not willing to change my religion for that of hopeless paganism, and persevering in what I have begun since my conversion, I endure daily. Not a single day passes without me being ridiculed for my belief. Not one single day. Just 5 mins ago I got it through a phone call. This is the fruit of the intercession of the saints like one St James the Apostle who called us to practice wisdom in meekness. If the world tramples on us, that is a grace, because just men are tried in the furnace of humiliation.

Other than this I envy the OP who wishes to do penance. Once I am finished my training I think to obtain a quiet home in which to pray and suffer all day, and to cut off the world. I have no desire at all to work 9-5 or to have this "duty of state" that others speak of. I know that when I go before my judge that he will esteem my 9-5 job as worthless, but he will place merit on the things I have done in the hope of pardon.

I cannot at this stage have a conversation about mortification, but I can about suffering, but it will not be long before I undertake what you undertake now as penance. God chooses His victims because He finds them acceptable. Remember soulguard in your prayers I implore thee.

I strongly encourage you not to undertake mortification like this unless it was specifically given to you as penance during Confession, or you are under the guidance of a sound spiritual director.

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but it may be something you need to hear.

I am going to talk to a Priest. Perhaps the word "severe" was a bad choice.

Scourging a few times a day while I recite the confiteor, act of contrition and prayer for daily neglects. That means about a minute a day.

A celice around the leg, or on a necklace, or on the arm isn't exactly sado-masochistic or prideful.

These things to me are no more severe than doing my hours of prayer daily on my knees.

The reason I ask here is because, well, where does one seek out folks who take these sorts of mortification seriously? It's conversation more than inquiring about the basics.

 I don't want basics or warnings.

hours of daily prayer on your knees? Are you a religious? Third order?