The Cure
I thought that this was a good word for those of us desiring to be healthier this year with our food consumption (it also provides help for other problems):
“…there is a deep unwisdom, a deep folly involved in gluttony, something more serious than an overfull stomach. It is the illusion that we can be made happy by cramming our inner emptiness, of body as of soul, full of the things of this world. It is a recipe for disappointment.
…But we must do more (not less). We must go to the root of the matter. The motivation for gluttony is the unconscious self-image of emptiness: I must fill myself because I am empty, ghostlike, worthless. Only a knowledge of God’s love for me can fill that emptiness, make me a solid self, give me ultimate worth. And that knowledge comes through Jesus Christ. Therefore Jesus is the ultimate answer to gluttony, as to every other one of our problems. ‘My God shall supply all your needs…by Christ Jesus’, Saint Paul assures us (Phil 4:19).
In this as with all sin, direct attack usually doesn’t work well. Concentrating on gluttony does not usually cure gluttony, especially in its serious stages, for it focuses attention on the very addiction or obsession that we want to escape. The same principle is true for lust. Though it sounds irresponsible and simplistic, we must ‘turn our back on our problem’ and look to God as our joy, our end, our fulfillment, our all, for the simple reason that He is. It is not a trick of thought control but a fact, the primary fact of our being. He is our life, and sin is our death. But the deadliest of deadly sins is never as strong as God’s burning fountain of joy. ‘Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more’ (Rom 5:20).”
~Peter Kreeft
“…there is a deep unwisdom, a deep folly involved in gluttony, something more serious than an overfull stomach. It is the illusion that we can be made happy by cramming our inner emptiness, of body as of soul, full of the things of this world. It is a recipe for disappointment.
…But we must do more (not less). We must go to the root of the matter. The motivation for gluttony is the unconscious self-image of emptiness: I must fill myself because I am empty, ghostlike, worthless. Only a knowledge of God’s love for me can fill that emptiness, make me a solid self, give me ultimate worth. And that knowledge comes through Jesus Christ. Therefore Jesus is the ultimate answer to gluttony, as to every other one of our problems. ‘My God shall supply all your needs…by Christ Jesus’, Saint Paul assures us (Phil 4:19).
In this as with all sin, direct attack usually doesn’t work well. Concentrating on gluttony does not usually cure gluttony, especially in its serious stages, for it focuses attention on the very addiction or obsession that we want to escape. The same principle is true for lust. Though it sounds irresponsible and simplistic, we must ‘turn our back on our problem’ and look to God as our joy, our end, our fulfillment, our all, for the simple reason that He is. It is not a trick of thought control but a fact, the primary fact of our being. He is our life, and sin is our death. But the deadliest of deadly sins is never as strong as God’s burning fountain of joy. ‘Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more’ (Rom 5:20).”
~Peter Kreeft
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