Death from cardiovascular disease in early adulthood - what could be sadder for spouse, children and friends? A common cause of such diseases is overeating and the complications associated with it in the form of excess weight, high cholesterol and inactivity (you don’t want to move with excess body weight, the vicious circle closes absurdly). And the reason for the abnormal attitude to food in Christian asceticism is called gluttony. This is a grave sin in both the Orthodox and Catholic traditions. Why?
Satisfaction as the goal of life
It is believed that a person infected with this disease of the spirit puts his satiety and pleasure from eating above everything else in life, including above the Lord God. This submission to the lower needs of the body is, in fact, a form of bondage. How many people want to lose weight without trying to overcome the cause of this trouble - an abnormal relationship withfood!
Not only gluttony
In the view of so many, gluttony is an excess consumption of food. In fact, gluttony is just one of the demons that torment the soul. The second is the addiction to delicious food. Such a social phenomenon as gourmetism, the desire to "understand" delicious things, is very dangerous from a spiritual point of view.
Anorexic gluttons too
You probably noticed that many people who are losing weight begin to be painfully attentive to food, plan each meal and spend hours imagining what exactly they will eat tomorrow morning, when it will already be “possible” to eat what is forbidden in the evening ? They are obsessed with gluttony! Bulimia and anorexia are also manifestations of an abnormal attitude towards physiology.
How should you eat?
So what, eat only bad food? There is no need for extremes, we are not monks, and therefore absolute strictness is beyond the reach of many. You just need to try to eat especially attractive food on holidays, preferably church holidays, and limit yourself to just one small portion without additives. Then we won't make a mistake. The main thing is not to dream about the holiday a month before the event, making gastronomic pleasures the most important thing in the "program".
Wrong time
The third demon that torments the soul of the glutton is impatience with meal times. That is, when a person eats earlier than the time that is usually or appointed for him. It turns out that the ideal Christian is the one who is able to do without "goodies", heeat moderately and on schedule. Gluttony is a disease of the soul because it makes the sinner dependent on food. All the diversity of the phenomena of the world for a person turns out to be overshadowed by the opportunity to enjoy the "here and now."
Mother of passions
Gluttony is a mortal sin because all other passions begin with it. In particular, a person who has allowed himself too much develops excessive or inappropriate sexual desire, laziness, leading to idleness, despondency (from being overweight, for example). It can even come to pride (when a person is wounded by the fact that he, the "titan of will", took and was defeated).
Is there a prayer for gluttony? There is no specific one, but it makes sense to pray to Mary of Egypt, who was pursued by passions for many years of torment in the wilderness. But magic “from God” does not exist, it is best to pray for help to Christ himself, remembering that it is impossible to completely defeat the passion of gluttony, even great ascetics failed to do this. You just need to try to keep yourself within the limits every day. And ask God for strength to fight. Gluttony is also non-observance of fasts…
