Sixth Saturday in Lent.
GLUTTONY.
1. Gluttony is the vice of greedy love of eating and drinking beyond measure. If it be a love of eating too much it isgreediness; if a love of eating and drinking only choice and palatable things, then it isdaintiness. Now God requires us to eat and drink what is necessary for our life and health, and He gives to us a sensation of pleasure in eating and drinking in order to encourage us to eat and drink what is good and healthful.
Gluttony is the opposite vice to the virtue of temperance.
Some people are particular not to drink fermented liquors, but gorge themselves with food. They are quite as guilty of excess in one way as those who drink beyond measure. The gifts of God are bestowed to be used, and used in moderation. To despise and reject any gift of God as in itself bad is to sin against God. So S. Paul speaks of those who forbad meats, and so nowadays some intemperate advocates of temperance forbid all fermented liquors as in themselves bad. Sin does not exist in eating and drinking, but in eating and drinking immoderately.
2. There is sin when (a) one eats and drinks in excess of what nature requires, merely for the sake of the pleasure of eating and drinking.
(b) One eats or drinks with daintiness, picking and choosing, and disparaging food or drink if it be not quite what suits our pampered tastes.
(c) One spends too much time, or thought, or money, over food and drink.
(d) One disorders the health, and confuses the mind, through overmuch eating and drinking.
3. There is a virtue in self-denial in eating and drinking. Our Lord Himself exhorts to fasting (Matt. vi. 16), and Himself set us the example to fast. It must, however, never be done to excess, so as to injure the health. And as it is well to abstain from food, so is it well to abstain from intoxicating drinks, if done merely as an act of self-denial, and to avoid scandal.
4. Gluttony or Drunkenness is the fruitful mother of several evil children.
(a) Thedegradation of the superior faculties, which are weakened by surfeiting and drunkenness. The mind is abased, and the soul smothered by excessive eating and drinking.
(b)Forgetfulness of Salvation.The soul becomes so lost in the grossness of the life led by the glutton, and the gourmand, and the drunkard, that it does not care for the things of the life to come.
(c)Laxity of Morals.When the thoughts are given up to pampering the animal man in one particular, the power to resist temptation to indulge the animal appetites in other particulars is weakened, if not lost.
(d)Passion.The glutton and the drunkard are liable to give way to explosions of rage and anger, to quarrels and discords. Self-restraint being sacrificed in one quarter is lost in another.