Welcome to the 33-day preparation for total consecration to Jesus through Mary, right here on the Catholic Sprouts podcast.

Before we begin, let's pray.

In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, amen.

Mary, Mother of Jesus, be a mother to us now, and bring us to your son.

Amen.

Welcome back to day 10 of this 33-day preparation for consecration to Jesus through Mary here on the Catholic Express podcast. In this first section, we are investigating the sin

that keep us attached to this world and unable to give ourselves totally to Jesus.

Yesterday, we talked about the sin of gluttony, or the immodest love of food and drink that keep us from seeing and responding to the needs of our neighbors and responding

to God. Today, through the example of our blessed mother, we will see a virtue that helps us

detach ourselves from this sin and from the world, and that virtue is mortification. Now I know that that's sort of a scary name for a virtue,

mortification. Perhaps a better way to refer to it is self-denial. Both of these, however,

don't sound like very much fun. They don't sound very fun.

And oftentimes they're hard.

They're things that we associate with lent.

Self-denial can include fasting, saying no to certain foods, perhaps that we like too much,

going hungry, giving up big meals, all these things.

That doesn't sound like very much fun, does it?

And it can be hard.

But what we are after with mortification or self-denial is so much better than a feast. It's so much better than always having a full

stomach. What we are after is freedom. Freedom. Now think about it this way. If you live a life

where you're constantly only eating the things that you enjoy,

you're never eating things that you don't like, you're always filling your stomach at that first

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