RENUNCIATION (ASCETICISM). — Ascetic detachment from earthly goods and joys insofar as they impede or slow union with God.
In evangelical doctrine, self-denial (v.) is a fundamental requirement (Mt. 16:24): renunciation, as a preliminary requirement, is its indispensable preparation; whoever hesitates before the renunciations demanded by Grace will not succeed in following Christ along the path of self-denial (Lc. 14:33; 9:57-62). Indeed, self-denial, “rejection” (ἀπόργησις), directed against the very person of the ascetic, that is, against his own will and desire for natural satisfaction—an entirely interior and spiritual exercise—practically presupposes the corresponding renunciation of the means of satisfying oneself, the “abdication” (ἀποταγή) of goods and pleasures in whatever way perceptible to the senses.
A distinction is made between actual or effective renunciation and habitual or affective renunciation. Actual renunciation includes moral separation, or dispossession (Act. 4:37), and physical separation (ἄρσαις): the latter is active when it depends on a free determination, and passive when it proceeds from the providential order (Mt. 4:20; 19:27; Hebr. 10:32-34). Habitual renunciation consists in a permanent readiness to carry out every actual renunciation demanded by Christ (s. Ignatius, Es. spir., nn. 149-55).
The first degree of renunciation, necessary for salvation, is the readiness to sacrifice everything rather than commit a mortal sin. The second degree, proper to fervent souls sincerely desirous of perfection, places a person unreservedly at Christ’s disposal in order to fulfill every one of his desires. The third and supreme degree goes forth joyfully and with spiritual ardor to meet the most burdensome renunciations: s. Ignatius attributes these degrees to humility, on account of the will to diminish and subordinate oneself that inspires them (Es. spir., nn. 164-67).
Renunciation, the exercise of evangelical “hatred” (Lc. 14:26), does not imply contempt for the intrinsic value of created goods, indifference (v.) of the will toward them in comparison with the will of God, loved “above all things,” and mortification of the passions: one cannot be ready to abandon what one continues decisively to desire and will. The prototype of evangelical renunciation may be discerned in Abraham’s obedience as Isaac (v.), the son of the Promise (Gen. 22:1-19).