Today I draw our attention towards the virtue of temperance which is the opposite of the vice of gluttony. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. It ensures the will's mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honorable. The temperate person directs the sensitive appetites toward what is good and maintains a healthy discretion.”
Our culture does not speak a message of temperance to us. Instead we are led to believe that the more pleasures that we have the happier that we will be. Therefore there is no need to moderate the amount that one drinks or eats. There is not a need to moderate the time that we spend watching television or doing other activities. Therefore in the realm of human sexuality we do not need to moderate our pleasure with the use of healthy discretion. When we take something and indulge within it without the proper use of moderation we practice the vice of gluttony. Instead of being led towards happiness we are being led towards enslavement for through the practice of gluttony we are not being led towards freedom and true happiness.
The concept of temperance and gluttony should take us back to Genesis and the account of creation. Here at the end of each day we were instructed that it was good. Despite everything being created as being good we were later told about the forbidden fruit in the garden. The fall was caused not because this fruit was not good, but rather because it was taken and not used for its God given purpose. We must remember that the devil cannot create. Instead of creating he takes that which is good and attempts to lie to us to the point that we take it and twist it to where it no longer meet its God given purpose. When we consider an over indulgence of created goods we should see how easy it is to believe these lies and to get caught up within them to the point of being trapped.
From Saint Josemaria Escriva we hear: “Among the ingredients of your meal include that most delicious one, mortification.” It is mortification which assists us in being able to moderate our pleasures and to keep them in their proper order. Instead of practicing mortification and being led in the practice of temperance we so easily get caught up in a spirit of gluttony. By stripping away something simple from our life from time to time we practice mortification and remind ourself of the necessity of practicing temperance. From Saint Josemaria Escriva’s quote we see that mortification is something that is very important for us to frequent and that it can be something which is simple.
As we depart from here may we be sent into to action to work on this virtue of temperance. Where we find the trace of gluttony in our life may we realize that there is always a path which leads away from it and towards the Lord. In order to walk this path we will need to follow temperance which “ensures the will’s mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honorable.
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