Death from a cardiovascular disease at an early adulthood - what could be sadder for a 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 immobility (you do not want to move with excess body weight, the vicious circle is ridiculously closed). 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?
Satiety as the goal of life
It is believed that a person infected with this ailment of spirit puts his satiety and pleasure in eating above all else in life, including above the Lord God. This submission to the lower needs of the body is, in fact, a form of slavery. How many people want to lose weight without trying to defeat the cause of this disaster - an abnormal relationship with food!
Not just gluttony
In the view of so many, gluttony is an excessive consumption of food. In fact, gluttony is just one of the demons tormenting the soul. The second is the addiction to delicious food. From a spiritual point of view, such a social phenomenon as gourmandism, the desire to “understand” tasty things, is very dangerous.
Anorexics also gluttonies
You, probably, noticed that many losing weight begin to be painfully attentive to food, plan each meal and imagine for hours what exactly they will eat tomorrow morning, when it is already “possible” to eat what is forbidden in the evening? They are obsessed with gluttony! Bulimia and anorexia are also a manifestation of an abnormal attitude to physiology.
And how to eat?
So, is there only bad food? Extremes are not necessary, we are not monks, and therefore absolute rigor is beyond the means of many. You just need to try to eat especially attractive food on holidays, preferably church ones, and be limited to just one small portion without an additive. Then we will not sin. The main thing is not to dream of a holiday a month before the event, making gastronomic pleasures the most important thing in the “program”.
At a wrong time
The third demon tormenting the soul of a glutton is impatience with regard to meal times. That is, when a person eats earlier than the time that is usually or prescribed for him. It turns out that the ideal Christian is one who is able to do without “goodies”, he eats sparingly and on schedule. Gluttony is a disease of the soul because it makes the sinner addicted to food. The whole variety of world phenomena for a person is obscured by the opportunity to enjoy “here and now”.
Mother of passions
Gluttony is a mortal sin because all other passions begin with it. In particular, a person who allowed himself to be superfluous has an excessive or inappropriate sexual desire, laziness leading to idleness, despondency (from excess weight, for example). It can come to pride (when a person is hurt by the fact that he, the “titan of will”, took and was defeated).
Is there a prayer for gluttony? There is no concrete one, but it makes sense to pray to Mary of Egypt, who was persecuted by passions for many years of torment in the desert. But magic "from God" does not exist, it is best to pray for help to Christ himself, remembering that it is impossible to defeat the passion of gluttony to the end, even the great ascetics did not succeed. You just need to try to keep yourself within the framework every day. And ask God to fight. Gluttony is also non-observance of posts ...