Making a Fresh Start

One of the great gifts of the practice of our Catholic faith is that we have many opportunities in the course of the year to make new beginnings and fresh starts. What the world only has on New Year's Day, we also have on Ash Wednesday and the first Sunday of Advent.

To make a fresh start in our nutritional practice, follow what works for you. Here's an example of a plan:

• Think and reflect about the occasions of bad habits and slips and how they may be avoided or counteracted.
• Ask God for the grace of willingness to change.
• Ask the intercessions of Mary and the saints who are dear to you.
• Make the best confession you can.
• Be fortified through Holy Communion.
• Stay vigilant and thank God for His desire to give you the grace of conversion, even when we're not quite ready to accept it.
  

The Our Father for Overeaters

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Help me, good and gracious God to learn to eat according to the plan of your creation and for the health and joy you wish for my life.

Give us this day our daily bread

Help me to know and appreciate how you nourish me in the Eucharist and through the many acts of love and care I receive from the people you have put into my life. May my gratitude for these gifts help me to receive bodily food as a blessing as well, rather than a selfish luxury I grasp at apart from you.

and forgive us our trespasses

Forgive me for all the damage I have done to my body and soul through my gluttony and the bad choices I have made so far in life. Forgive me too for sinning against all who are hungry by my own greed, and for any good I have failed to notice was mine to do because I was preoccupied with food.

as we forgive those who trespass against us

Help me to forgive all who have enabled me in my overeating and bad choices, and anyone from whom I learned these habits.

and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Break the chains of my inordinate attachments, and help me to walk a vigilant path away from sin and its occasions in my life. Amen.

Gluttony and Chastity

Mere excess in food is much less valuable than delicacy. Its chief use is as a kind of artillery preparation for attacks on chastity.

--C S Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Food of Life

At the beginning of the "Bread of Life Discourse," Jesus gives this rebuke to those who were seeking him:

"Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you." (John 6: 26-27)

Do we allow disordered concern for earthly food to find a place in our thoughts during the day? Do we set our heart on things toward which we look forward to eating?

Let us seek first the sustenance of our souls in Holy Communion and adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Listen, my Daughter

Listen, my daughter, and understand; pay me careful heed. Forget your people and your father's house, that the king might desire your beauty. He is your lord; honor him, daughter of Tyre.(Psalm 45:11-13a)

Here the psalm offers us an image of God speaking to the soul, desiring the beauty of the soul for himself. In this invitation to the spiritual life we are invited to leave behind the place from which we have come: our habits and patterns of daily life included. God wants the soul to be radiant and beautiful and invites us to let go of what holds us back.

Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas

Thomas, please pray for me, another heavy priest, and for the diet inspiration of all who read this blog. Amen.

John of the Cross

"Renounce and remain empty of any sensory satisfaction that is not purely for the honor and glory of God." Ascent of Mount Carmel, I,13,4

What would it look like if we ate in a way that honored and glorified God rather than satisfying ourselves?