J1ST 035: Gluttony

Hey there, friends.

Today, we are tackling the Vice that I have been dreading since the beginning of this series: Gluttony.

For some reason, the idea that food can lead to sin is just a little bit hard for me. It is hard for me to understand and hard for me to look straight in the face.

I LOVE FOOD, and, like many of you I would guess, I have lots of food issues, coming from a variety of different sources. I have a huge sweet tooth that is a constant struggle for me. 

I have been pregnant or nursing or both for most of the last 8 years. And that has created all sorts of weird eating habits, most of them bad and addicting.

And finally, I have been “chunky” my whole life. My family was always very kind, and I had a couple of sisters that were also chunky. So I don’t really have a complex about this, but it’s still left me with a few issues.

But, none of these issues are really the topic of today’s episode on Gluttony.

Instead, the fact that we all obsess about our food issues is more on point.

Fulton Sheen, who once again provides all of the wisdom for this episode in his incredible book, Victory Over Vice, makes the startling statement that once people forget about their souls, they begin to obsess about their bodies.

Maybe that means overeating. Maybe that means just plain obsessing over what they are eating. Once we forget our souls we also start to DIET and not FAST.

Dieting is done for the body, while fasting is done for the spirit.

Ugh, that’s hard to hear.

All of the lessons on Gluttony come from Christ’s words on the cross, “I thirst.” Fulton Sheen agrees with Mother Teresa in that Christ is thirsting for our love.

He encourages us to mortify our body through fasting so that we might feel how our soul longs for Christ–how we indeed also thirst for Him. 

Mortification will also give us the ability to control the urges of our body, and no longer be mastered by the flesh.

The topic of food and gluttony is such a big, touchy one, and I’d love to hear you chime in on all of this once you listen to the podcast. Do you agree? Do you have anything to add?

Up next week is the topic of Sloth. Another topic is hard (and so important) for us Americans to hear. I’ll see you then!

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Your sister in Christ,