I’m scrupulous so I tend to become distraught when I read about things like Hell or Deadly Sins.
One particular issue I have had confusion over is the issue of gluttony. I can’t tell when I am committing the sin or not. I have particular questions on the five aspects of gluttony:
- Eating before the time of meal in order to satisfy the palate
- Seeking delicacies and better quality of food to gratify the “vile sense of taste.”
- Seeking after sauces and seasonings for the enjoyment of the palate
- Exceeding the necessary amount of food
- Taking food with too much eagerness, even when eating the proper amount, and even if the food is not luxurious
- I can see how this is a sin and I don’t seem to have too much trouble with it
- I’m not sure how to react to this. While I don’t eat many delicacies, what’s the deal with better quality food? What is meant by this? What’s up with luxurious food items? What constitutes “luxurious”?
- This one is a big source of confusion for me. I like food to be seasoned to taste, so would this be sinful for me to do? What is meant by this?
- Makes sense.
- What constitutes “too much eagerness”? I don’t know what it constitutes, but I try to eat slowly when I eat.
Pax Tecum.
I can only say what I say next with a good dash of salt behind it. This isn’t my area of expertise.
Fundamentally gluttony appears to be an interior matter, a matter of obsessive passion with something regards to food and the sensual pleasure thereof received.
That means that in fact, the exterior matter, eating a great deal of food can sometimes be OK. I.E. eating a ton of food because you know you’ll be starving later on, and so forth. It is even possible that if you eat a ton of food simply because you are distracted, and not because you care about it that this is not gluttony. This would especially be in regards to food you disliked and simply overate by accident.
So it’s the passion that’s the matter, and the obsession and too great attachment and focus upon it. So a person who goes for the delicacies is someone obsessed with finding rare foods and who takes great sensual pleasure in them. I think we can imagine this person – Someone like Nero, fat, effeminate, sitting at his table, eating peacock tongues or whatnot. Or a fussy old aunt who everything has to be ‘just right’ for, and has her ‘favorite dish’ done a ‘particular way’.
The seasonings matter would be ditto, really overdoing it with these. I hadn’t head that one before as you put it, where did you get it from, what is the context?
5, would be anticipating it too much, in other words, drooling about it, and dwelling on it long beforehand or afterwards with too much desire.
I think luxuriating in the food is taking excessive sensual delight in it. Spending a lot of time on it, focusing solely on it.
The Catholic Enyclopedia says, gluttony can happen in these ways: “too soon, too expensively, too much, too eagerly, too daintily”
Eating is basically and normally a good, so gluttony is less serious a sin than say, lust.
But it is so widespread and huge a problem, even though venial so often, it by its widespread and ease of committing is deadly serious. So many people are slaves to their bellies and can’t do without too much and their favorite kinds of food.
If you want to overcome it, generally, eat things you don’t like to eat much. And when you do give yourself a treat, don’t luxuriate over it, just take it in stride and enjoy it with moderation.
The mind doesn’t register you are full until a couple of minutes after you actually are, so the saints recommend stopping eating before you are full – when you know you aren’t satiated. Very difficult, no? Best to make small portions and not have a big plate because of the temptation to do this, if you like the food.
Food can be good for the soul, but too often it becomes bad for it as people who are unhappy try to fill the void with it. It will never fill that void and distracts from the proper way to fill it, which is through the exact opposite way to it.
The above is a baseline of sorts for aiming to being without sin in regards to it. If you’re going for sainthood, truly loving God and mortifying oneself, i.e. beyond the minimum, you want least sensual pleasure possible normally and more suffering.
For that you definitely have to start eating what you do NOT like to eat.
‘I shall speak first about control of the stomach, the opposite to gluttony, and about how to fast and what and how much to eat. I shall say nothing on my own account, but only what I have received from the Holy Fathers. They have not given us only a single rule for fasting or a single standard and measure for eating, because not everyone has the same strength; age, illness or delicacy of body create differences. But they have given us all a single goal: to avoid over-eating and the filling of our bellies. . . A clear rule for self-control handed down by the Fathers is this: stop eating while still hungry and do not continue until you are satisfied.’
St. John Cassian
‘Just as the intellect of a hungry man imagines bread and that of a thirsty man water, so the intellect of a glutton imagines a profusion of foods, that of a sensualist the forms of women, that of a vain man worldly honor, that of an avaricious man financial gain, that of a rancorous man revenge on whoever has offended him, that of an envious man how to harm the object of his envy, and so on with all the other passions. For an intellect agitated by passions is beset by impassioned conceptual images whether the body is awake or asleep. . . When the desiring aspect of the soul is frequently excited, it implants in the soul a habit of self-indulgence which is difficult to break. When the soul’s incensive power is constantly stimulated, it becomes in the end cowardly and unmanly. The first of these failings is cured by long exercise in fasting, vigils and prayer; the second by kindness, compassion, love and mercy.’
St. Maximos the Confessor
Where did you find these aspects from? Does Catholic teaching explicitly forbid this behavior?
