Dear Omar:

Mary Ann Collins is not "just" a former Catholic nun. It is possible for someone to leave the Religious Life legitimately and remain a good and devout Catholic. Miss Collins, on the other hand, left the Religious life and became an anti-Catholic bigot preaching doctrines of demons.

She is actively trying to destroy the Church and to prevent the Holy Spirit from leading people into the Catholic Church. This is evil at it's highest.

This wacko seems to think that she can proclaim that doctors of the Church, such as Catherine of Sienna, and other saints, were deluded because of their methods of mortification.

What Miss Collins is actually attacking is the Passion of Christ, whether she knows it or not, and the theology of suffering and redemption, and the virtue of mortification in union with the Passion of Christ.

Yes, these saints did extreme mortifications to subdue their fleshy desires and passions, to rid themselves of temptations and sinful habits, to strive with the aid of the mortifcation, "to subdue, so far as is possible in this life, that "rebellion" of the flesh against the spirit which is the internal incentive to sin." They did these things to attain a greater intimacy with the Passion of our Lord. We might note that these saints did these things and remained not only loyal and obedience servants of the Church and did great things for God and for their fellow brethren, but were declared saints, and in some cases doctors. Miss Collins way seems to have lead her into anti-Catholicism. I wonder who is coming from God and who isn't? :)

We are ALL called to mortification. We are not, however, all called to these severe physical mortifications and should NEVER attempt them without the guidance of a Spiritual Director.

Physical mortifications, however, are necessary to grow in the Christ-Life. We practice mortifications when we perform penance for sin or for curing bad habits, when we practice fasting and abstinence, and when we deprive ourselve voluntarily of perfectly good things as a religious exercise offered to God out of love.

All of these saints who practiced the severe mortifications ALSO taught and practiced the more important interior mortifications or pride and inordinate self-love.

We need to die to self if we are to live with God in eternity.

To read more about it, check the 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia article, Mortification.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary