Gluttony

"THE chief sources of sin are seven:

Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy and Sloth; and they are commonly called capital sins" (Balt. Catech.). The fifth of these is Gluttony.

Gluttony is the immoderate or excessive use of food or drink; or it is immoderate pleasure in eating and drinking. It is the immoderate or excessive use of food or drink; because a moderate use of them, free from all excess, and a temperate pleasure in eating and drinking, are no sins whatever.

Now there are two kinds of Gluttony: One kind is the excessive use of food or of such drink as is not intoxicating; while the other kind, which we commonly call drunkenness, is the excessive use of intoxicating drink.

Of course, drunkenness is the worst form of gluttony. Gluttony of any kind is bad enough. For a person to be greedy at table, for example, to gorge himself with food, to keep on forcing it into himself long after he has ceased to be hungry—is certainly neither nice nor virtuous. But no other kind of gluttony is so thoroughly degrading and beastly and sinful, nor the source of so many sins, as is drunkenness. "The murder of reason, the destruction of strength, immature old age, sudden death," St. Basil calls it. "The murder of reason," because it deprives a person of the use of his reason every time that he is fully guilty of it, and also because it weakens his mind more and more as the years go on. "The destruction of strength," because alcoholic excesses, long continued, will soften the firmest muscles and shatter the strongest constitutions. "Fire trieth hard iron," says the inspired writer: "So wine drunk to excess, shall rebuke the hearts of the proud" (Ecclus., XXXI., 31); and certainly if you give drunkenness time, it will sap the strength of a giant. So also it is "immature old age," for those who make a habit of yielding to it, are old before their day. And in many cases, through the accidents which the drunkard stumbles into, or through rapid and unexpected breaking down of the heart, it is sudden and unprovided death.

Other forms of gluttony, although sinful only too often, hardly ever amount to a mortal sin; while drunkenness is not only a mortal sin in itself, but also the source of other mortal sins beyond number. People have missed Mass on Sundays over and over again through drunkenness. People, especially young people, in myriads, have wrecked their lives through it just when those lives seemed brightest and most promising. People have committed murder through drunkenness, and have been brutally cruel, and have seriously wronged others in their intense and stupid selfishness. And these are only a few of the mortal sins which drunkenness is likely to be the source of.

Generally the confirmed drunkard is a very selfish glutton. In many cases he no longer really cares either for God or for his own nearest relatives and friends, but only for himself. He is surely one of those whom the Apostle speaks of, who "serve not Christ our Lord, but their own belly" (Rom., XVI., 18). "For many walk," says the Apostle, "of whom I have told you often (and now tell you weeping), that they are enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction: whose God is their belly: and whose glory is in their shame" (Philipp., III., 18-19); a scathing, a withering denunciation of gluttony, but especially of that worst species of it, which we name drunkenness; and not my denunciation, nor any mere mortal's, but written by an inspired Apostle, and contained in the Sacred Scriptures, which are the word of God and can not err.

No wonder that the Bible admonishes us: "Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when the colour thereof shineth in the glass; it goeth in pleasantly, but in the end it will bite like a snake, and will spread abroad poison like a basilisk" (Prov., XXIII., 31-32). It is true, according to the same Holy Bible, that "wine was created from the beginning to make men joyful, and not to make them drunk" (Ecclus., XXXI., 35), and it is true that there will always be certain persons who can use it moderately and without sin. But for the millions of others who can not take wine at all without sooner or later going to excess, it is a dangerous and most treacherous enemy.

But drunkenness is not the only kind of gluttony, nor is it the kind which might be most tempting to children. A vast majority of our boys and girls, thank God, know enough about the dangers of alcohol not to meddle with it; they may not be very old yet, nor very profound or philosophical, but they have wisdom sufficient for this: not to touch fire, nor play with dynamite, nor sample poisons, nor taste intoxicating drinks.

Sometimes, though, certain children lean more or less towards that other species of gluttony, which consists in the immoderate or excessive use of food, or of drink which is not intoxicating. This form of the vice does not directly produce mortal sins, excepting once in a great while, when a person goes to some terrible excess; but it does produce many venial sins and imperfections; and when one indulges in it as a habit and without restraint, it is sure to be very weakening to the soul and very hurtful to disposition and manners. Suppose that you make it a daily practice to eat until you can not possibly eat any more; you habitually force yourself to continue eating even after you have ceased to be hungry; you seize everything within reach and swallow everything which appeals to your fancy, without any consideration for the rights and feelings of the others who are at table with you—certainly your disposition will not long be sweet and unselfish, nor your manners very lovable. Good breeding and good manners show themselves at table more quickly perhaps than anywhere else. "Be not greedy in any feasting," said an inspired writer thousands of years ago (Ecclus., XXXVII., 32), and everybody knows that our modern etiquette is full of wise rules about one's behaviour while eating and drinking.

But someone might ask: "How is gluttony weakening to the soul?" Well, in this way. Everything is weakening to the soul which is weakening to the will, because the will is the soul. We might say that both mind and will are only other names for soul; the soul thinking and reasoning is the mind, the soul choosing is the will; and here on this earth, at table as well as everywhere else, the soul is nearly always choosing; good and evil, right and wrong, are ever before it, and almost continually it has to make its choice between them. Now if a person is a glutton, if a person is constantly thinking of himself and satisfying himself in the matter of food, choosing just what he likes, whether it is good for him or not; trying between meals for example to make a whole dinner on candy just because the taste of it pleases him; habitually eating and drinking more than his natural, God-given hunger and thirst tell him to eat and drink, and exercising no control over himself in this regard, but always yielding to himself—surely he will all the time be weakening his will. You can't strengthen your will to choose right without exercising it daily, and thus giving it the habit of choosing right, any more than you can strengthen your muscles without giving them regular exercise. Just as the professional baseball player practices every forenoon the beautiful game which he must play in earnest in the afternoon, or just as any athlete exercises his muscles to give them strength and skill for the contest, so we must exercise our will-power, in regard to food as well as in other ways, in order to strengthen our will and keep it ever ready for the battle against Satan. The will that is feeble in the matter of food and drink, is likely to be feeble in other matters also. And the soul which has very often yielded to venial sins of gluttony, may readily yield to sins of other kinds as well.

And this is one of the wise reasons why the Church commands her members to fast and abstain at certain times—not only because fasting and other mortifications are fitting penances or punishments for our past offences; not only because the more of punishment for our sins we willingly suffer on earth, the less we shall have to endure in Purgatory; but also because to fast at stated times, and thus control and master ourselves in regard to food, has a very strong tendency to make firm the will and to give the soul greater power over the body and over the temptations of this life.

Hence the saints frequently fasted. They believed in first conquering the enemy within themselves, and afterwards conquering the foe without. "It's stupid to wage war on enemies in the field," St. Gregory wrote, "without first subduing the enemy within your walls." And even as fasting, while tending to subdue one's vicious self-will, exercises and strengthens the soul, so the opposite of fasting, which is overindulgence or gluttony, is certain to weaken the soul.

Physicians will tell us that gluttony is bad for the body, too, and that moderate eating and drinking help wonderfully towards securing good health. We are told that very many more people die from eating too much than from eating too little. "By over-eating many have perished," says Holy Writ, "but he that is temperate, shall prolong life" (Ecclus., XXXVII., 34). I need not remind you that there is temperance in food as well as temperance is drink. Temperance simply means moderation. The temperate man is a moderate man; and, in the words of Ecclesiasticus, "sound and wholesome sleep with a moderate man; he shall sleep till morning, and his soul shall be delighted with him" (Ecclus., XXXI., 24). By avoiding overindulgence, then we shall be helping ourselves towards sound and regular sleep, and towards the good health of body, for which sound sleep is so necessary, as well as towards health of soul.

I know that we are required to "take more care of our soul than of our body." Nevertheless we must pay some attention to the body; and in fact it is a duty for us not only to care for our bodies, but to have respect for them in every way. "Know you not," said the Apostle, "that your bodies are the members of Christ?" (I. Cor., VI., 15). In all the material universe, made up as it is of animal and plant and mineral, there is nothing so sacred as the human body.

Therefore let us treat it with due honour and care, governing it for its own good, bringing it under subjection until it is a well-trained servant of the soul, checking its excesses and controlling its appetites. And in our conduct regarding food and drink let us try to imitate those early Christians, of whose moderation even at their banquets and great feasts Tertullian gives us this beautiful picture: "They eat as much as hungry people desire. They drink as much as moderate people find useful. They don't sit down without fore-tasting a prayer to God. They do not fill themselves too full to adore God in the night. They talk to one another at the table not forgetting that God hears their conversation. They end the meal with prayer."

So in our Christian homes may there ever be Christian moderation and temperance; happy faces around the table, loving hearts; innocent and cheerful conversation; healthy appetites and hearty eating, but never greediness and gluttony; and always, from everyone, the sign of the holy cross, with a short whispered or spoken prayer of blessing at the beginning of the meal, and of thanksgiving at the end of it.

"If you will tread the rough and narrow way to Christ, govern your appetite by temperance," said St. John Climacus. Indeed, it was Christ who warned us: "Take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness" (Luke, XXI., 34). "For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink," wrote St. Paul, "but justice and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom., XIV., 17). "Therefore whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God" (I. Cor., X., 31).