The Second Sunday of Easter

Reading I — Acts 5:12-16
Responsorial Psalm — Ps 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24
Reading II — Rev 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19
Gospel — Jn 20:19-31

In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti.  Amen.

As you know, I promised to deliver a series of sermons on the capital sins and have done so, except for the one which I will talk about today and thus bring to an end what I began on the First Sunday of Lent.  In today’s Collect we hear: Grant, we beseech Thee, O almighty God that we, who have completed the observance of the paschal festival, may keep it, by Thy bounty, in our life and behavior.  Today I would like to speak to you about GLUTTONY.

Gluttony is an inordinate love of the pleasures of the table.  The disorder of gluttony resides in eating for its own sake, in other words not for the sake of maintaining the health of the body.  Its disorder also resides in eating to excess: where we are eating for maintaining our health, but excessively (by going beyond what we need even to the point of harming our health and disregarding the rules of sobriety).

There are four different ways being gluttonous.  By eating when there is no need — for example, eating between meals and for no other reason than that of indulging our greed.  This doesn’t mean that every eating between meals is a sin — but purely pleasure snacking or nervous snacking is a form of gluttony — it’s a venial sin.

The second way of being gluttonous is by seeking delicacies and daintily prepared meals in order to please our palate all the more…excessive attention to how our food is prepared is a sin of gluttony.

The third way is by going beyond either appetite or need and gorging oneself with food or drink even to the point of endangering one’s health.

The fourth way — that by eating with such eagerness that we imitate animals when we are eating.  We sometimes see this and call it bad manners.

The malice of gluttony arises from the fact that it makes the soul a slave of the body.  It brutalizes man and weakens him.  It paves the way for Lust.  Lust and gluttony go hand in hand for they are both an excessive appeasing of our appetite for pleasure.

Gluttony is a mortal sin when it has a serious effect.  For example, if it should incapacitate us for our duties of state in life.  If you were to become so fat, for example that you were unable to function properly.  Or if you were to abuse alcohol to the extent that you could no longer function properly.  Another example of when gluttony is a mortal sin is when it injures our health: If you have heart disease or diabetes and you have a special diet, yet you don’t follow that diet and your health worsens because of it — this is a mortal sin of gluttony.

Gluttony is also a mortal sin when its a cause of useless expenditures which endangers the interest of the home.  In this case, the abuse of alcohol is the primary offender.  If you drink and you cannot hold down a job; or if because of your drinking your family suffers hardships (financial, etc.)

Another way in which gluttony can be a mortal sin is when it is the cause of other grievous faults: lack of chastity — sins of detraction or calumny — due to intemperate speech.  Gluttony gives us a tendency to talk too much, party too much, etc.

Usually, gluttony is a venial sin.  (Let’s say that at a party you are offered more to eat than you want but your host brings you more anyway.)

Gluttony is the enemy of the perfection of the soul – and we should all tend to the perfection of the soul. Gluttony makes our effort to be perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect, more difficult.  Gluttony makes us shy away from any kind of mortification or sacrifice and thus weakens the will.  Because of this, we can fall dangerously close to surrendering to other more grievous pleasures of the flesh, bad jokes or talk, lack of restraint, etc.

What are the remedies for gluttony?

1.  Purity of intention: when we eat, we should think that the food we are eating will help us do God’s will — in a spirit of humility recognizing that we do not deserve what we have to eat — but that we eat only because of God’s goodness.

2.  Moderation: when we eat we should eat only what is necessary to help us do God’s will.  A good way to gauge this is by checking yourself when you leave the table — do you feel invigorated, or heavy?  If you feel invigorated and maybe not completely satiated you have eaten with moderation — if you feel heavy, can’t move, and want to go right to sleep — you didn’t practice moderation.

3.  Mortification: Abstaining from eating something you like a lot (ex: mashed potatoes) and even eating something that you don’t like (ex: brussel sprouts).

By following these remedies we will be drawn away from the interest in earthly things and thus be drawn into a contemplation of divine things.

In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti.  Amen.