August 18, 2003 

"Gluttony, Part I: Spiritual Gluttony"

St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that gluttony is an inordinate indulgence in eating and drinking, and it manifests itself in several ways.  One way is when we take more than is necessary.  I think the key word here is "necessary."  Oftentimes we take more than is necessary, and that's important to God.  He wants to give us what is necessary, but He doesn't go beyond that.  The world does.  The enemy does.  Gluttony can show up in very subtle ways.  It can demand within us that food be perfectly prepared.  It can demand within us expensive foods.  In other words, gluttony attaches a great deal of importance to the quality of the food.  St. Isadore said, "A gluttonous person is excessive in what, when, how, and how much he or she eats and drinks."  So again, we see and hear this word excessive.  But the theologians tell us that gluttony is more than overeating.  It's an actual abuse of God's gift because it seeks self.  It seeks to feed itself. 

What is the root cause?  There may be more than one, but the one that keeps coming up as we have prayed and read about it is that there is an unconscious self-image of emptiness.  That says a lot, doesn't it?  Obviously, we're empty.  There are lots of ways to feel empty.  As you pray, the Lord will reveal these things to each of you as He has been doing to us.  "Where are there areas within me that are empty?  Why am I trying to feed this emptiness?"  Sometimes, we may say, "What's eating you?"  It's interesting that when we forget to take care of our spiritual lives and our souls, then somehow we start to take better care of our bodies.  We shift the focus more to the material and the physical.  It's been said that there are more athletic clubs, at least in the United States, than there are retreat houses. And so we are a nation that is putting a great deal of emphasis on exercising, but maybe we have lost the balance of the spiritual exercising that our souls need.  This is one of the beauties of retreats; they are spiritual exercises. 

But God wants us to be in balance.  We need both.  We need physical food, but we need spiritual food.  We need physical exercise, but we need spiritual exercise as well.  I think we have to remember that the Holy Spirit has two wings.  If we're going to fly, if we're going to be set free, we need that balance.  We need to soar in the Spirit.  Sometimes I think we have a mentality of either/or.  I either do this, or I do that.  But when we read Scripture and hear some of the things that God speaks to us and the things the saints share, it's and and both.  It's be in the world but not of it.  It isn't totally leave the world.  God doesn't seem to go to one extreme or the other.  It's and and both.  

Like all the other capital sins, there is a spiritual form of gluttony.  Spiritual gluttony is something that we all can be guilty of day after day without even realizing it.  Spiritual gluttony is loving God more for what He can do for me, for what He can give me, for His consolations and basking in those consolations, than for Himself.  In other words, it's loving God's gifts more than the Giver Himself.

If we have the spiritual pride that we talked about yesterday coupled with spiritual gluttony, it will lead us to false mysticism very quickly.  False mysticism dwells in excessive experiences.  Often it's very showy experiences because if there is spiritual pride there that the enemy is using, and then spiritual gluttony is added, then we will want spiritual experience after experience.  It's a false mysticism. 

Spiritual gluttony will lead us to seek ourselves more than God in prayer.  It's an immature way of praying, but we all go through it.  Hopefully, we get through it, but it's kind of a gimme, gimme attitude.  I go to prayer for what I can get out of it.  We do need to receive from the Lord, but we need to receive from the Lord so that we have something to give because we can't give what we don't have.  This mentality of spiritual gluttony is keeping it all to myself, kind of hoarding it all to myself.  And so, one of the fruits of this kind of gluttony is selfishness. 

Spiritual gluttony will bring about a spiritual dullness of mind within us.  We'll become very sluggish because it kills the fervor and desire for spiritual things.  We're tapping into another capital sin which we're going to talk about later today and that is sloth.  Sloth will totally remove the desire for God.  Spiritual gluttony can actually render us so that we are not able to pray because we have slowed down to such a pace and have become so sluggish.  Apathy has so set in. 

So we need to ask ourselves:  "How does gluttony show up in myself, in my life, in my personality?  Am I eating and drinking in excess?  Am I fussy and critical about foods, particularly those not to my liking?  Do I let that be known?  (And even if I don't, God knows.)  How do I react to that?  How does gluttony show up in my spiritual life?"  In beginners, particularly, spiritual gluttony will show up right away because beginners are used to consolations, which is fine.  This is God's gift and that's how He entices beginners to start the journey.  But if we want to stay there and don't want to let go to move on into deeper spiritual maturity, then we can move into spiritual gluttony. In other words, spiritual gluttony is always more interested in what God can do for me rather than being interested in God Himself, and it will eventually shut out God. 

This is one reason for the dark nights of the soul and of the spirit are so important because God, in His goodness, will shut us down from all this excess so that we can grow in maturity.  He can take away those consolations in a second.  All of a sudden, we will have a distaste for something that we really enjoyed spiritually.  That can be God stripping us of all the exterior so that we will grow deeper into a relationship with Him, not for what He can do for us anymore but for who He is for us and to us.

If gluttony really gets a hold within us, it can bring about a tremendous aversion to the Cross itself.  The Cross is the last place we want to go.  We have no desire to sacrifice.  We have no desire to lay down our lives.  We have no desire to do anything for anyone.  It will show up in our intercession because intercession is strictly for others.  Very quickly we can lose interest in intercession because there is nothing in it for me.  Intercession is a very selfless type of ministry.  And so if gluttony gets a hold of us, it's going to turn us more and more into ourselves, which is exactly what Satan wants.  He enters into our spiritual lives when he sees we're always seeking that spiritual high, always having to have an experience, always having to have God do something for us.  Satan is watching that because he knows that we won't grow if he can keep us there.  If he can introduce spiritual gluttony into our lives, he'll keep us there so that we won't grow in faith and the pure sheer belief that God is with me and that God loves me.  (The teaching on gluttony will continue next week.)

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's Prayer Warrior Summit: The Passion of Prayer Warriors," 2002.