This book looks at a number of key words in abnegation, but it is not exactly a word study. I'm not interested in counting up the words, or locating words, or comparing who uses which words. I am interested in how the authors use these words to make their point. I want, therefore, very much, to acquaint readers with quotations from primary texts. I do not apologize for the number of quotes because it is much better for the reader to encounter the original writers than to encounter me. My only contribution has been one of selection and organization, like the designer of a collage who glues their words to the page in order to make a picture. I find a passage to cause me to pause and reflect upon what liturgical abnegation is, and it would fulfill a hope if readers came to feel a kinship with some of the authors, and sought them out to read more for themselves.

Biblical passages about the cross have been worn so smooth by familiarity that we hardly hear the words anymore, and are scarcely startled when Paul says that he has been crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20), that he dies daily (1 Corinthians 15:31), that those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh (Galatians 5:24), that our old self was crucified with Jesus (Romans 6:6), and that we must die with Christ (Romans 6:8). The overtones of asceticism and abnegation permeate the New Testament's entire description of the Christian life, but we have become insensitive to it. These spiritual writers try to remove the callous and let the words touch us again.