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"Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things" Phil. 3:19.
For the past twenty years or so one ever-present subject in the media today is problem of
obesity. In this country alone a $40 billion industry sells a variety of products and drugs that give a variety of promises that, in the end, have done little, if anything, to decrease this country's every growing waistline and health.
The high cost of gluttony is a major problem today. Many medical illnesses and diseases are the result of poor eating habits and nutrition. Ten years ago an estimated cost of $117 billion in health care was paid out as a result of obesity-related illnesses. Not only is overeating a problem today but also its opposite - the undernourished bulimic and anorexic.
Gluttony comes from a Latin word gluttire, meaning to gulp down or swallow, and it refers to excessive indulgence in food or drink.
The desire for food and drink is not only natural and good but is necessary for us to respond to if we are to continue to live in a healthy and reasonable manner. It becomes sinful when we go too far by consuming excessive amounts of food or the opposite by denying what is reasonable and not eating properly or enough so that our bodies are deprived of nutrition so it may function in a way that only lends to fulfilling well our responsibilities to body, mind and soul.
Our Christian lives is one of feasting and fasting. Our human nature because it is weak and wounded by original sin and our personal sin, needs to be fortified in order to gain victory over the influences of the flesh, the devil and the world around us. Abstinence and self-denial are virtues we are all called to acquire and perfect.
When one uses food or drink that gravely injures one's health or impairs one's mental abilities is guilty of the sin of gluttony; to eat and drink for the mere pleasure is gluttony. We do not live to eat but eat to live. Gluttony for most of us is a venial sin in so far as it is an undue indulgence in a thing which really is neither good or bad
We are all called to the cross of a sharing lifestyle inspired by the life and example of Christ and the saints. Exercising temperance is a daily practice in the virtue of charity because our love puts God first. St. Augustine gives us some good advice when it comes to a secondary motivation, apart from love of God, to practice reasonable abstinence and that is to remember the poor and unfortunate. St. Augustine connects self-denial to the law of charity wherein we can see the poor as Jesus Himself:
"Above all remember the poor, so that what you withhold from yourselves by living more sparingly, you may deposit in the treasury of Heaven. Let the hunger of Christ receive what the fasting Christian receives less of. Let the self-denial of one who undertakes it willingly become the support of the one who has nothing. Let the voluntary want of the person who has plenty become the needed plenty of the person in want."
Beyond what is necessary and reasonable for the sustenance of ourselves and our families, why not strive to give a little more to the poor or better yet why not donate some of one's time to prayer and good works.
As I mentioned in the beginning of my sermon the opposite extreme of overeating is not eating enough or self-denial to an extreme. St. Thomas Aquinas calls this insensibility.
God has placed pleasures in the operations that are necessary for each of our lives. To make use of pleasure is certainly not sinful provided they are used according to reason.
He says: "... if anyone were to reject pleasure to the extent of omitting things that are necessary for nature's preservation, he would sin, as acting counter to the order of nature. And this pertains to the vice of insensibility." St. Thomas commends the necessity sometimes to abstain from pleasure, such as athletes or soldiers who deny something for a greater good but when we see reasonable pleasures as something that is bad in itself or beyond our control than we can commit serious sin.
For those individuals who have learned, sometimes through necessity, to deprive oneself of food or drink can become inordinately attached to such a routine or behaviour so that eventually they begin to lack a healthy balance in their lives and so these people become preoccupied with an obsessive fear of food and of gaining weight and so are unable to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
People who are attached to such unfortunate behavior believe this will help them to be in control of something or their sense of responsibility extends to everything and everyone. In comparison to a time in their lives when they were not the one who made the decisions so now they will control the situation and be the person who will finally be in control and no one else.
The common connection with all vices is a distorted sense of self; if I look a certain way people will love me more and maybe even God. We cannot help but be influenced by the culture we live in since it surrounds us and can swallow us up if we are not vigilant. The culture we live in has so much to say about appearance which is a telling commentary about the state of many people's souls since if they are preoccupied with external appearances than how are they interiorly and spiritually? "...because you are like to whited sepulchers, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones, and of all filthiness" Mt. 23:27.
Unfortunately it is a deception because the prevalence of these illnesses in a culture that has lost all operative understanding of the role of virtue in the formation of the human person. If our culture could instruct regarding food and drink, what it promotes in the dangers of smoking, we could be hopeful for the temporal as well as the spiritual well being of all our fellow citizens.
Such is not the case but our Catholic families, churches, schools could certainly teach temperance and self-denial. God can bring good out of bad and that is our hope that if we strive to detach ourselves from our intemperance, attachments to bad habits and personal sin we know that God will bring good from it: first for our own sanctification and than the good of our neighbour whether they be our family, friends or a stranger whom we meet.
God never permits anything to occur in the past that is not a part of His loving plan for us in the future. When we cooperate with His grace and we strive to overcome our intemperance, we than further free ourselves from those obstacles to charity and love.