How to Overcome Gluttony

First, then, we must trample gluttonous desires underfoot. To this end the mind must be brought low not only by fasting but also by keeping vigil at night, by reading, and by frequent heartfelt sorrow over the things in which it remembers that it has perhaps been deceived or overcome. At one time it should sigh with horror at sin, at another burn with the desire for perfection and holiness, until it is wholly taken up and possessed by such cares and thoughts. Then it will recognize that taking food is not so much a concession to pleasure as a burden laid on it, and will consider it a necessity for the body rather than anything the soul should desire. Kept safe by this eagerness of mind and constant sorrow of heart, we will beat down the wantonness of the flesh, which grows prouder and more arrogant when it is fed with food, and its dangerous provocations. And so, by an abundance of tears and the weeping of our heart, we will manage to put out the fiery furnace of our body. That furnace is kindled by the king of Babylon, who constantly supplies us with opportunities for sin, and with vices that make us burn more fiercely, in place of naphtha and pitch. We will keep on until, through the grace of God poured into our hearts like dew by his Spirit, the heat of fleshly lusts can be deadened altogether. [a]

This, then, is our first contest. This is, so to speak, our first trial in the Olympic games: to put out the desires of the palate and the stomach by longing for perfection. For this reason we must not only trample down every unnecessary desire for food by contemplating the virtues, but also take what is necessary to support our nature not without anxiety of heart, as though it were opposed to chastity. So at last we may enter on the course of our life in such a way that there is no time when we feel ourselves called away from our spiritual pursuits, except when the weakness of the body forces us to come down to give it the care it needs. And when we are subject to this necessity, of attending to the needs of life rather than the desires of the soul, we should hurry to withdraw from it as quickly as we can, as though it were holding us back from the pursuits that truly bring health. For we cannot possibly scorn the pleasure of the food set before us unless the mind is fixed on the contemplation of divine things and is caught up instead in the love of virtue and the delight of heavenly things. So a man will despise everything present as passing away when he has firmly fixed his mind’s gaze on the things that are unmoving and eternal, and already contemplates in his heart, while still in the flesh, the blessedness of his life to come.