Catholic Diet Inspiration

Mary's Magnificat

2011-12-28T07:09:00.000-05:00

Our Blessed Mother proclaims in her Magnificat:

"The hungry he has filled with good things/the rich he has sent away empty." (Luke 1:53)

If we eat so often or so much that we never feel hunger, we risk missing out on the graces promised to the hungry and receiving instead the emptiness risked by the rich.

Enjoying the Blessing

2011-06-25T09:25:00.002-04:00

"In our human life bodily health is a good thing, but this blessing consists not merely in knowing the causes of good health but in actually enjoying it. If a man eulogizes good health and then eats food that has unhealthy effects, what good is his praise of health when he finds himself on a sickbed?"

~St. Gregory of Nyssa in the Office of Readings for Saturday of the 12th week in Ordinary Time

Repentance

2010-12-26T10:26:00.002-05:00

"Repentance is a mighty persecution of the stomach, and a striking of the soul into vigorous awareness." -St. John Climacus

Bread of Angels

2010-08-31T06:17:00.002-04:00

"Those whose works seemed praiseworthy fell to the depths, and I have seen those who once were fed with the bread of angels delighting in the husks of swine." (From the Imitation of Christ)

Holy Communion must be our strength and inspiration to model all of our eating on the living bread we receive at Mass. The grace of the sacrament will help us to turn from a false and empty delight in created food to the food which is God's delight in us.

Making a Fresh Start

2009-12-31T09:28:00.002-05:00

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

2009-08-21T15:53:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-29T12:57:00.001-04:00

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

2009-04-27T09:33:00.005-04:00

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

2009-03-11T09:34:00.003-04:00

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

2009-01-28T10:54:00.002-05:00

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

John of the Cross

2009-01-16T16:31:00.003-05:00

"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?

New Year's Resolution

2009-01-01T11:48:00.002-05:00

New Year's Day is the perfect time to make a resolution, with the help of grace, to place our nutritional habits more in line with God's plan for our health and happiness. We celebrate today the motherhood of Mary, who brought the new Life into the world. As her virgin motherhood was a new beginning for humanity, may our communion with her Son be a new beginning for us.

Unity

2008-12-19T08:53:00.003-05:00

We are not a soul that has body or a body that has a soul. As long as we are on the pilgrimage of this life, we are an ensouled body or an enfleshed soul. In other words, God means for us to be this wondrous unity of spirit and matter, unlike the angels who are only spirit or the rest of creation which is only matter, or matter with a less than immortal soul.

Therefore, we in our spiritual life we ignore our bodies at our peril. Put positively, we need to include how we eat, sleep, and care for our bodies in our spiritual practice and prayer. This doesn't mean pampering ourselves! Often it means the opposite! A large part of our problem with overeating and gluttony is that we treat our bodies like spoiled children, giving ourselves what we think we want instead of what is really good for us.

Don't Take Your Medicine

2008-11-18T09:08:00.002-05:00

The one who doesn't take his medicine will soon feel sick.

Some of us use food as a self-medication against our anxiety, our depression, or whatever other intolerable feeling or situation we face. If this is the case, we must be ready for the intrusion of unpleasant feelings when we stop medicating ourselves. Taking better care of our physical practice of good nutrition will immediately call us to the spiritual practice of finding a better way to deal with our thoughts and feelings.

The Body of Christ

2008-10-27T07:35:00.003-04:00

In giving us the memorial and remembrance of his one eternal sacrifice, Jesus proclaims, "Take and eat. This is my body, which will be given up for you." Therein we hear everything we need to know about Christian spirituality. We who have become members of the body of Christ must break and give ourselves up for each other.

When we overeat or eat the wrong foods we are paying attention to our own disordered appetites rather than paying attention to how we may offer our lives and bodies for others.

Provision

2008-10-21T08:37:00.002-04:00

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh. Romans 13:14

Many times "making provision" is what we do when we overeat; we plan our day around what we want to eat or where we will go to eat, etc. Paul invites us to do the opposite, to let go of worrying about what we will do next, except to put the Lord and his service first.

Gladness of Heart

2008-10-07T08:48:00.002-04:00

You have put gladness in my heart more than when their grain and wine abound. Psalm 4:7

True spiritual happiness far exceeds the joy we try to give ourselves through food, and the joy God wants to give us will strengthen us to seek him even more.

Psalmody

2008-10-03T08:47:00.001-04:00

Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth;
Keep watch over the door of my lips.
Do not incline my heart to any evil thing,
To practice deeds of wickedness
With men who do iniquity;
And do not let me eat of their delicacies.

Psalm 141: 3-4.

Original Blessing

2008-09-28T09:13:00.002-04:00

God said, "See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. (Genesis 1:29)

Friday

2008-09-26T09:32:00.003-04:00

The seasons and days of penance in the course of the liturgical year (Lent, and each Friday in memory of the death of the Lord) are intense moments of the Church's penitential practice. These times are particularly appropriate for spiritual exercises, penitential liturgies, pilgrimages as signs of penance, voluntary self-denial such as fasting and almsgiving, and fraternal sharing (charitable and missionary works). Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1438.

Having lost the cultural marker of meatless Fridays (except during Lent), the penitential nature of Fridays has fallen into general desuetude. However, calling to mind a loving memory of the Passion, Friday is a perfect opportunity for us to crucify our gluttony and begin again to eat with holiness.

Hunger for Life

2008-09-25T07:37:00.002-04:00

Lord, you give us food from heaven. May we always hunger for the bread of life. Grant this through Christ our Lord.

(Prayer After Communion, 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

Sometimes we overeat or make bad choices because we confound spiritual desire with physical need, trying to satisfy the longing of our souls for the Mystery of God with food.

Wisdom From the Desert

2008-09-24T18:48:00.001-04:00

A brother asked Abba Poemen, "How can we acquire the fear of God?" Abba Poemen said to him, "How can we acquire the fear of God when our belly is full of cheese and preserved foods?"

From the Apothegmata Patrum.