We are getting close to the end of our examination of the seven deadly sins, but first we must take a look at gluttony: never being satisfied (or complete)
Scripture for meditation: Romans 13: 11-12, 14
Besides, you know the time has come: you must wake up now: our salvation is even nearer than it was when we were converted. The night is almost over, it will be daylight soon...Let your armor be the Lord Jesus Christ; forget about satisfying your bodies with all their cravings.
Christ tells us: Luke 16:19-26
"There was a rich man who used to dress in purple and fine linen and feast magnificently every day. And at his gate there lay a poor man called Lazarus covered with sores, who longed to fill himself with the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. Dogs even came and licked his sores. Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In his torment in Hades he looked up and saw Abraham a long way off with Lazarus in his bosom. So he cried out, "Father Abraham, pity me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in these flames.' 'My son,' Abraham replied, 'remember that during your life good things came your way, just as bad things came the way of Lazarus. Now he is being comforted here while you are in agony.'"
St. Thomas More instructs us, in The Last Four Things:
Now we need to consider how this part of our medicine, that is, the remembrance of death, can be applied to the treatment and cure of gluttony....Since it is a fact that this old scourge of gluttony... joined with pride... was the vice and sin by which our first parents, in eating the forbidden fruit, fell from the felicity of paradise and from their immortality into death and into the misery of this wretched world, we well ought to hate and abhor it even if no further harm came of it every day...To the soul, no one doubts how deadly it is. For since the body is always rebelling against the spirit, what can be more venomous and fatal to the soul than potbelllied gluttony, which so pampers the body that the soul can have no rule of it...And yet gluttony is not as pernicious and poisonous to the soul for the harm it itself does, as it is for the harm and destruction done by the other vices that commonly come with it. For no one doubts that sloth and lust are true daughters of gluttony. It must, then, be a deadly enemy to the soul, since it brings forth two such daughters, either of which can kill the soul eternally.
Prayer: Calm and Divine
Abide in me: o'ershadow by Thy love,
each half-formed purpose and dark thought of sin;
Quench, ere it rise, each selfish, low desire,
And keep my soul as Thine, calm and divine.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Book of Uncommon Prayer
My thoughts: I can only tell you that reading St. Thomas More's full description of the sin of gluttony will make you never, ever over-eat again. I have tried to condense it here, but he makes it perfectly clear that this is a deadly sin, obviously to the body, but even more so to the soul. If we cannot tame our desires, we cannot even notice the Lazarus at our door. If we choose to forget that death awaits us all, and is closer every day, then earthly pleasures will cost us heavenly delight. We should learn to fast, mortify our senses, and free ourselves from anything which causes us to "overdo" it. What are we trying to fill, if not the soul's longing for God? If we meet our daily needs, and no more, we will have plenty to share with others. Then we, too, can be comforted at the bosom of Abraham. The alternative is too hot for my taste.
Your prayer: Harriet Beech Stowe asks God to keep her soul calm and divine. Let us ask God for the gift of temperence, to moderately approach the things of this earth, and to hunger only for Him.
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