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LTACL: Most Popular Deadly Sin? (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) · The Catholic Current

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  You ever been in denial?
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  You ever hit bottom so hard that you can't be in denial anymore?
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  Let me give you the most vivid example I know of, of hitting bottom.
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  A friend of mine tells me a story of visiting a pal in the Florida Everglades, and they're
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  going to take a boat ride in the swamps.
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  They get into the boat, and my friend's host says, gosh, I forgot something in the trailer.
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  Be right back.
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  So my friend is waiting and waiting, and she looks under the seat, and there's a bag
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  of marshmallows.
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  So she opens the bag of marshmallows, eats another one, eats another one, scarfs down
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  the whole bag of marshmallows furtively in one sitting.
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  Friend gets back into the boat, looks around, and says, hey, did you see a bag of marshmallows
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  anywhere?
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  My friend said she nearly died of embarrassment when she admitted that she ate the whole bag
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  of marshmallows.
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  Her friend turned pale and says, oh my goodness, we got to get to the hospital immediately.
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  And he says, no, no, it's only marshmallows.
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  He says, no, you don't understand.
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  Those marshmallows, they were soaked in alligator repellent.
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  We were going to throw them out of the boat as we went along the swamps.
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  We got to get you to a hospital right now.
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  And my friend said, and that's when I knew that I had a problem.
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  What happened next?
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  Stay with me.
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  I've got a story to tell.
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  Hi, I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTigge, your host here every day of The Catholic Current.
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  Coming to you from the Station of the Cross Catholic Media Network.
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  Let's take a closer look.
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  Glad you're here.
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  You know, I recently started a series of reflections on the seven deadly sins, and I asked you
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  to prioritize which sins you wanted me to talk about first.
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  And by popular demand, you asked me to start with gluttony, which I thought was really
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  interesting because in our shop till you drop culture, gluttony is just one form of greed.
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  Now, my friend got her stomach pumped and then got into a 12-step program because she
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  realized that she had a pretty serious eating disorder.
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  And maybe it's not consuming food that's your issue, but it could be something else that
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  you just can't get enough of.
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  And I'm the kind of guy who's looked at the bottom of a bag of Doritos and say, where
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  did they all go?
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  So I get it.
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  Now let's turn to Thomas Aquinas because he talks about the five dimensions of gluttony,
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  and it could be an examination of conscience for you and for me.
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  He warns against ardenter, what he calls too eagerly.
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  When I used to get a little bit of money when I was a kid, I wanted to go out and spend
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  it immediately.
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  And my mother would say, that money's burning a hole in your pocket.
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  Whatever our object of desire it is, whether it's food or drink or something involving
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  an electronic device, for example, when you rush to that, when you prioritize it above
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  all else, above all other goods, that's a clue that there's something wrong.
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  What's another dimension of gluttony?
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  Aquinas talks about periopere, too soon.
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  What does that mean?
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  Well, remember when the credit cards first became popular, it was, buy now, pay later,
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  as if you could have all the enjoyment up front and then somehow magically, without
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  cost or pain, pay for what you consumed immediately.
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  But as the singer Tom Waits once sang all those years ago, the large print giveth and
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  the small print taketh away.
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  When we indulge ourselves on credit, there's always going to be hell to pay.
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  It brings us to the third dimension of gluttony.
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  Aquinas warns about something called laute, too expensively.
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  My mother, who grew up in the depression in the second world war, used to say, we, people
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  like us, don't shop at places where you don't have the prices.
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  Well, what has this got to do with consumables, whether it's food or something else?
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  There's a difference between having good taste and having good enough never being good enough.
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  And there are some people who define themselves by how much they spend on this or that, in
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  which case, it's not about the enjoyment of the thing.
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  It's something else, something that can never really be satisfied.
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  Aquinas talks about another dimension of gluttony called nemesis, too much of the time.
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  If whatever your object is, whether it's food or drink or electronic device, whatever it
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  is, if you're spending the majority of your time thinking about it, planning for it, recovering
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  from it, paying for it, if it's expanding to fill all the available space of your life,
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  that is a problem as well.
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  That's a clue.
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  Something is out of order.
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  Something is out of proportion.
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  And then the last one, the last dimension of gluttony is hard to translate, hard to
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  explain, studiose, what's translated roughly as consuming too daintily.
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  So in that sense, it's about the logo.
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  It's about the brand.
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  I mean, you can go on Reddit or YouTube videos where they're talking about bottled water.
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  Many people who hate their children drink this kind of bottled water.
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  And it's madness.
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  It's madness.
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  And even, gosh, going back to when I was a boy, people were literally killing each other
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  for bomber jackets or for sneakers because of that sense of studiose, the brand recognition.
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  I want not just the thing, but I want all the things associated with the thing.
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  Advertisers know this all the time.
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  I remember Marlboro, the Marlboro man, the cowboy who was the ultimate masculine macho
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  cigarette.
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  Yeah.
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  Marlboro, back in the day, used to be a poorly selling women's cigarette.
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  The manufacturers were going to discontinue it.
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  And an advertiser said, let me help you with that.
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  And people spent gazillions of dollars on Marlboro because they wanted other people
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  to see them as the Marlboro man.
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  What's the moral of the story?
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  Stuffing ourselves, stuffing ourselves, stuffing ourselves, consuming, consuming, consuming,
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  and trying to be noticed for what we consume, how expensively we consume it, on and on.
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  It's a mania.
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  And it's not about hunger.
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  Not really.
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  It's about an empty heart.
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  We have a God-sized, God-shaped hole in our heart, and we will not be at peace, and we
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  will not stop our relentless craving, our frenetic consumption, unless and until Christ
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  is enthroned on our heart.
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  I suggest, speaking for myself, maybe you too, we should be doing some examination of
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  conscience right now.
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  Meanwhile, think of these things today, take them to prayer, and talk about it with those
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  you love.
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  Go in peace, and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.