Two Hundred and Twenty-Second Subject. Mortification of the Taste

Brother Philippe, Subjects for Particular Examen, 1870, pp. 356–358

Whose God is their belly; and whose glory is their shame; who mind earthly things.—PHIL. iii. 17.
It was by the sense of taste that sin was introduced into the world; it was for having eaten of the forbidden fruit that our first parents were condemned to sorrow, to sickness, to the miseries of life, to death. It is also through this sense that so many persons are lost, are damned. Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, says the Holy Spirit, but not so many as have perished by their own tongue.
Although a religious may not have to fear the like excesses, he should nevertheless guard himself against sensuality, in order not to fall into the' defects of which St. Bernard speaks: "There are some religious," says he, 'who seem to have better studied the counsels of Hippocrates and of Galen, than those of Jesus Christ, and this is what they prove by the knowledge which they have of the especial properties of the divers aliments which are served up to them; this, say they, is bad for the head, that for the breast, this for the stomach, that gives the colic!"
There are others who appear to be in the world only to eat; the care of their stomach absorbs all their faculties; a want of appetite afflicts them; they eat to have the strength to walk, and they walk to be able to eat! O what baseness! what degradation!
This is not the case with the true religious; regarding himself as a poor person who receives alms, he takes with gratitude what is given him; if he has to do himself some violence, to overcome some repugnance, he offers it to God, remembering that in quality of sinner he would be condemned to be nourished with fire and flames, if God had called him to Himself on such a day or at such a moment of his life! If he knows that a thing is hurtful to him, he leaves it without others perceiving it, if he can. He considers that many persons better than he are worse treated, have more to suffer than he; that the absolute Master of all things, the sovereign of the universe, our Lord Jesus Christ, and his Apostles, oftentimes wanted bread.
The mortified religious, knowing very well that the soul profits by what we retrench from the body, makes it a a duty to himself to practise at each repast some mortification; sometimes by depriving himself of that which pleases him the most; at other times by retrenching something. He makes it a rule never to eat or drink outside of the common repast, especially without permission. He never talks either of eating or of drinking; he contrives even to never think of them.
Do we so act? Are we careful to take nothing between meals? Do we receive with gratitude what the community has served up? Far from rejoicing when the food is not to our taste, have we not murmured, and have we not even communicated to others our impressions on this subject? In a word, have we followed the example of our Lord, remembering that during His life He lived on alms, was often exposed to want even necessaries, and that at His death He was given to drink gall and vinegar? Let us consider that he who is too much occupied in preserving the life of the body, exposes himself to lose that of the soul?
Are we attentive to nourish our hearts in listening to the reading, whilst we give our body the necessary nourishment? Do we meditate on what our Lord says: Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto life everlasting, which the Son of Man will give you?— ST. JOHN vi. 27.
Pause.
ACT OF CONTRITION.—O my Saviour and my God! I prostrate myself humbly at the foot of Thy cross, where Thou didst expiate by such cruel sufferings my daintiness and the petty cares which I accord to my body. I pray for Thy pardon, O good Jesus, and the grace to correct myself through Thy infinite merits and through the intercession of Mary.
I make the resolution to......