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This podcast is brought to you by Ascension. To discover even more free Catholic podcasts, videos and resources to help you live your faith every day, visit ascensionpress.com hi, I'm Edward Sri and welcome to All Things Catholic, where real faith meets real life. Why do Christians talk so much about self control? They need to have self control over our passions, our appetites, especially this virtue called temperance, which moderates our attraction to pleasure, especially pleasures involving food, drink and sex. Why can't we just enjoy these things? God put pleasure in these things. Should we enjoy the good things of this world that God created for us to experience pleasure with? Why do we need self control? What we're going to do today is take a look at this great virtue of temperance, but I want to understand it with a Catholic lens, not the way the secular world may view it as something negative and repressive. No, no. I want us to see it as about creat creating space in our soul to enjoy the highest pleasures of life so we're not weighed down and become slaves to the lower pleasures in life. So it's really about making space for the greatest things that God made us for. And that's we're gonna take a look at in this week's podcast. So welcome to All Things Catholic. I'm your host, Edward Sri. And so excited to be back here in the Denver area. We've had some travel recently. Beth and I were a part of the grand getaway conference on Mackinac island, which was amazing being with people like Teresa Tamio, Father Mike Schmid, Steve Ray, Father Leo and others. So that was a wonderful event, meeting so many Catholics from around the country for that. And we also dropped off one of our kids at college. So we're launching all of our boys, our three boys. We did a little boys getaway before everyone had to leave. So I took the boys up into the mountains and then we launched them. One was being launched to graduate school for physical therapy. Another one is being launched into college. And then another one is being launched to a new high school. His high school closed down this last year, so he's at a new high school here in the Denver area. So we have a lot of transition, a lot of change going on. But grateful to be with all of you here at the start of a new school year. I wanna give a shout out to my friends in the land down under. If you are in Australia, especially near Sydney and Melbourne, guess what? I'm coming your way for Labor Day weekend. Labor Day here in the United States. So it's a short little trip, but August 29 to September 1, you can check out our wonderful partners at Perusia Media. They're the ones hosting me on their website. They'll have my schedule, where I'm speaking and when and if you're there in Sydney or Melbourne area, I'd love you to come out to event, but I'd love to get to meet you. Please come up and introduce yourself. I always love getting to meet listeners of the show, but especially those overseas. Please come up, introduce yourself and I would love to get a chance to meet you. That's August 29th through September 1st. Check out Parousia Media. We'll put some of those details in the show notes as well. September 13th Beth and I are doing a marriage conference, marriage retreat on Saturday, September 15th up in Fort Collins, Colorado, so just north of the Denver area. So if you live in the Front Range, come join us at St. John Evangelist Church for a whole day long event for married couples or if you're engaged preparing for marriage, you want to go deeper in your marriage, check it out here. September 13th at St. John Evangelist Parish in Fort Collins. Now, thinking about this topic of temperance, again, it gets a negative view. People tend to kind of think of temperance as just depriving ourselves of pleasure. It's very dark and gloomy and that's not what it's about. It's a very joyful virtue that we want to acquire. As I mentioned at the beginning, it's about making space in our soul for the greatest things in life. Do you want to experience the highest pleasures in this world? Well, that's what we're going to take a look at here. And it reminds me of, you know, when you go to a Mexican restaurant, this just happened actually. Beth and I took our son when we were dropping him off at college. We went out for Mexican food. It was our last meal, us three together, before we left him there. And you know, we go to the Mexican restaurant, we're starving, you know, been waiting for this dinner for a long time and we finally place our order and then they bring out the chips and salsa. And I'm sure you've had this experience, you're just so hungry, you eat the whole thing of chips and salsa. We devoured that first basket and by the time they came back with water, they're like, oh, do you need another basket? We're like, yes, somebody eat another basket. And then we, we fill ourselves up with chips and salsa so much that when the burrito comes or the enchilada comes, there's not as much room in our stomach to enjoy the main dish. Now, I think that's an analogy for what happens in life. That when we focus on lower pleasures, which aren't bad, but when we focus on them in an inordinate way and not a moderate way and not at the proper time, the proper setting, then what happens is we don't have room in our soul to enjoy the greatest things in life. You see, we're made for more than just attraction. Pleasure related to food, drink and sex. We share that with the animals. Right? The animals experience pleasure of food, drink and sex. And we share that with the animals. And we are able to enjoy those in the right setting, the right time, the right way. Of course. But we're made for more than that. We're not just mere animals. We are human persons. We are not just bodily creatures. We're body, soul, creatures. We have a spiritual dimension. What is the soul? What's that spiritual dimension? It's our intellect, our will. What is that spiritual dimension, the soul? It's our intellect. It's the capacity God gave us to know, to know truth, to know other people, to know God himself. And he gave us a will, the power of self determination, to choose, to choose to commit our lives to other persons, to love others and to love God. So we have an intellect and will, a knowing power and a loving power. And that's what makes us different from everything else in God's physical creation. That makes us different from all the animals. We're made not just for food or not just for drink or not just for sexual pleasure. We're made to know truth, goodness and beauty. We're made to know and love other people. And we're ultimately made to know and love God. And so when we fill ourselves up with the chips and salsas of life, when we fill ourselves up with the pleasures of food, drink and sex, we don't have the space to enjoy, to appreciate friendship with other people. In fact, we're going to see that when we give in in these areas of intemperance in relation to food, drink and sex, it actually hurts friendship. It hurts love, and it hurts our relationships. It hurts our marriages, our families, our friendships, and hurts our relationship with God. Another thing to highlight is something the great Greek philosopher Aristotle mentioned. He said that temperance is a childish fault. Now, he doesn't mean that in a shaming way. He just means that it makes us like a child. It makes us like an immature child, a child, you know, think of like a little toddler that just is Stomping its feet and just wants pleasure, comfort right now, it's not seeking what's best for himself. The child lacks discipline. And so when we give in to eating all the chips and salsa of life, to use that as an analogy, when we give in to intemperance and these lower pleasures over and over and over again, we lack discipline ourselves. We become like that child that just wants a cookie right now, wants ice cream right now, wants a drink right now, and is just attracted to just the pleasure itself. Now, what I want to do is take a look at one of the vices. And we're going to do a little series here over the course of the next few weeks on different virtues and vices related to temperance. And I want to take a look at one that I bet most of you are going to go at first. Oh, I don't struggle with that. Well, that's only for certain kinds of people. I probably don't have a problem with this one. But as we get into this, it's going to be revelatory. It's going to be a good examination of conscience, I think, for all of us, including me, because when I was preparing for this, and I've taught this for many years, it was good for me to go, oh, I need to do some fine tuning here. I'm falling short in this area. And it's the vice of gluttony. Now, we think of gluttony as just eating too much, overeating, you know, And I don't overeat like other people. I'm not overweight, so I don't. I don't have a problem with this. That's what many people may think, but I want us to see that the vice of gluttony can seep into our souls in ways that has nothing to do with eating too much. There are many other ways we fall into gluttony. So let's talk about this here. What is gluttony itself? It's the inordinate consumption of food and drink, the immoderate consumption of food and drink. And that can include how much I eat, Am I eating too much? I'm eating more than I need. I think that's. That's the key. We want to ask ourselves, am I eating more than I need to? And everybody has a different personality, temperament. But you know how you reach that point when, okay, I've had my fola dinner, you know, I'm satisfied in a certain level. Like, I know I've reached my full. But, man, that was A really great pasta or that was a really good burger. I'm going to have one more. I just love the taste so much. I'm just going to. And I'm filling myself up. I'm filling myself up beyond what I really need to eat. I think that's the examination. We want to take a look at that saying, okay, am I eating too much? I'm eating more than I need to. I think that's important. But there's more than just how much I eat. We can also ask ourselves what I'm eating. Am I very particular about the food that I eat? Am I very picky? Do I impose my foodie culture on everybody else around me such that they're going to feel uncomfortable if I got to satisfy what he wants? He's very particular. He likes it this way. Do I eat only costly foods? I can only eat foods from the organic store. Do I complain when the food is not cooked a certain way? Maybe I don't say it out loud, but I'm complaining in my heart. Don't they know how to cook it this way? Wow, they really got it wrong. Do I have to use certain ingredients all the time? Is it only certain kinds of food? Now, I want to be clear. There's some people that may have certain health needs, food allergies, or if you're gluten free, for example, it's good for you to let your host know that that's an act of kindness for them and for you. So no problems there. But when I am so picky about how I eat and other people know it, it makes other people feel uncomfortable. They feel they always have to bend over backwards for my particular interests, my particular wants. And my pickiness is making life difficult for others. Is it okay if I normally don't like to eat a certain kind of food, but it's served on my plate, Can I just eat it one day? Is it okay if I eat some of it again? If I have an allergy, that's a different thing. But just because somebody didn't use the right ingredient, cook it the right way, or didn't give me the kind of food that I want, can I just eat it? Reminds me of this happened when I was in, I think I was in seventh grade. I grew up hating vegetables. I just never ate vegetables. I love my wife Beth for many reasons. She's an amazing woman. One side reason, not as important as the other ones, but I do appreciate this. She can make vegetables taste good and I just love that. So I do eat vegetables now. But growing up, I didn't eat vegetables. And we were at my friend's house and my friend was hosting, his parents were hosting a very nice dinner. I remember we had to get dressed up a little bit for this. And we were eating at a certain table and the mom and dad were eating in the other room, but they would come in and give us this four course meal and it was formally presented to us. And I remember they put out a salad for the second course, I think. And I had never had a salad before. I know that's really embarrassing, I'm in seventh grade. But I'd never had a salad before. And they put the salad on my plate and I'm like, oh my goodness. Oh no, I've never eaten this. This is going to be disgusting. And so I whispered to my friends, I don't eat salad, I don't like salad. And they just like whisper back, eat it, just eat it. I go, no, I don't like it, just eat it. And I ended up having to just eat the salad because I got the sense I knew, okay, it would be kind of offensive to the cook and to the family. And I just needed to eat the salad and it didn't kill me. And I like salads now, so it's a good thing. But there's moments in life where we might just need to die to our preference diet or a certain style of eating and what we like to eat in order to serve the larger community, to serve something bigger than myself and my personal preferences. So we can fall into gluttony by not just how much we eat, eating more than we need, but also being too attached to what we eat. Are we very particular about the kind of foods we eat? Thirdly, how we eat, do we eat too quickly? Do we eat too quickly? You know, a meal isn't simply for the sake of getting food into our stomachs, getting nutrients into our body bodies. We know from scripture that meals were covenantal. They were convivial, they were about sharing life together, sharing fellowship together, deepening friendship together. So coming together for a meal is about sharing the life, having conversation together. And so if we just eat food so quickly, we're just downing all this food. We're looking down at our plate too much and we're not looking up at the faces of the people around us probably. And we're not paying attention as much to what they're saying and we're not contributing to the conversation as much because we're filling our mouth with all this food. So eating food too quickly At a meal hinders our conversation. Because a meal is not simply about getting the food into our stomach. It is about fellowship together. And when we eat too quickly, it hinders the fellowship. When I eat too quickly and the other person, then I'm waiting for the other person to finish. And so I should be looking around at the table and be thinking about, oh, am I pacing myself with the pace of this table? Because if I all of a sudden just down all this food and I'm done and then they're all still eating, it's just a little awkward. It can make them feel uncomfortable. I want to be with them, and so I'm going to try to eat in pace with them. That's an act of charity. It's an act of kindness. And here's the other thing. It's not just about, you know, hindering conversation and fellowship. I actually don't enjoy the food as much when I eat it too quickly. This is the irony. I'm eating so quickly because I just want to satisfy my taste buds, satisfy my appetite, but I don't actually enjoy the food as much. See, God put pleasure into good food and we want to eat it slowly so that we can enjoy it. It's like a good wine. Same thing with a good wine. You don't want to just down a good wine. No, you want to take a small taste, you want to smell it. You want to take a taste, have a few bites, have another taste. You drink it slowly to enjoy it. We want to enjoy the goodness that's there in the food, and we hinder the enjoyment. When we eat too quickly, we also can eat too greedily. That's another way we can fall into gluttony. So it's how much we eat, what we eat, how we eat. Do we eat too quickly? Do we eat too greedily? In other words, do I eat more than my share? See that? There's only so many burgers left at the party and I take three of them, or I take two of them and well, maybe if I took two, then maybe others aren't going to get a chance to take two. So maybe I should just take one for now and then see how things develop. And if there's time or space and room, if there's enough for seconds, then I'll go get seconds. But maybe I don't have to grab the second burger right now. I know sometimes my boys will come back from soccer practice and they're just so hungry. My wife's made a great carbonara pasta and they like you Know, can just come right in for practice in the middle of dinner and they're just, just like, they take like a third of the pasta in the bowl, like all on their own plate. And then they notice, oh, wait, oh, you guys haven't eaten yet. Oh, okay, let me give you some back. So, but we can do this sometimes where we take more than our share, and we want to be careful of that. So how do we fall into gluttony? How much we eat? Do I eat more than I need? What I eat? Am I very particular in what I eat all the time? And I impose that on other people around means thirdly, how I eat. Do I eat too quickly? Do I eat too greedily? And lastly, I want to consider when I eat, when I eat, am I able to wait for others? You know, again, a meal isn't just about getting food into our bodies. It's about the fellowship, the friendships together. And so am I able to serve my plate but then wait for others? Or do I have to start on my own? Am I kind and courteous in waiting for others? Does everyone have their food? Okay, now we all begin this together. Do I eat on demand? Do I have to eat always when I want, however I want? So as soon as I get the slightest bit of hunger, I have to go immediately satisfy that hunger and get a snack, get a meal, get a drink. It's like this is what little kids do again, they just shout out juice. You know, a little toddler just wants something to drink, you know, or pizza, chocolate ice cream. I just want this right now. Give me the candy right now. I'm reminded a long time ago, one of our kids baptisms. This is really beautiful. So we had the baptism and there was this boy, I think he was maybe 10 years old or so, 10 or 11 years old. And there was this long line of everyone going through the food line for the little reception we had after the baptism. And this boy waited for everyone else to go through and then noticed that my wife just got her food and you know, she had just had a baby and was tired and she was looking around for a place to sit. And he said, oh, Mrs. Sree, would you like to sit here? And offered her his seat at the table so that she could sit down and eat, which meant he wasn't going to get to eat until everybody else was done. And it was really beautiful. And his parents didn't say, hey, go do a kind deed and be a good son and, you know, offer the chair for Mrs. Sree. That's not what he did, he just saw. Oh, okay. She. She needs to eat. Yeah, she just had a baby. She better eat. And she needs to sit. So even though I'm really hungry and would like to eat now, I can. I can die to myself. I can practice self control to make a sacrifice, to serve others. That's why we want the virtue of temperance in our lives in all areas. We want self control so we can serve others. And how do we grow in this self control? Well, there's a certain virtue we need. If I don't want to be a slave to gluttony, if I don't want to eat too much and always have to be very particular about what I eat to attach to the kinds of foods I eat, if I don't want to eat too quickly, too greedily, and always have to eat when I want to, there's a certain virtue I'm going to need that's going to help me have that space of self control in my soul. What's that virtue? The virtue is called fasting. So this is fascinating. I think many people think fasting is just a practice we do in Lent or maybe on Fridays. The church calls us to fast every Friday, so we might think of Fridays as a practice, but I want us to think of it as a virtue. That's how Aquinas explains fasting. Jesus calls us to fast. This isn't an option. It's not just something we do every once in a while. It's meant to be a part of our regular lives. He lists it as one of the three main areas of piety that we should regularly be praying, we should regularly be giving alms to the poor, and we should regularly be fasting. Those are three things he says at the very center of the Sermon on the Mount. And so how does fasting help me fasting? By giving up something that I like. Maybe it's my favorite drink, maybe it's candy, maybe it's sweets. Maybe I give up a meal. Like I don't eat lunch on Friday, or maybe I skip breakfast on another day, or I don't put sugar in my coffee or whatever it is. There's certain little things that I may choose to give up. I know some people that when it comes to Friday, they don't eat until dinner. Maybe that's what you feel called to do. So what's something big like that? Real big fasting or just a small little thing? I'm just going to give up coffee today or my favorite dessert today, whatever that might be that you're Giving up. You're practicing self control in an area. You're saying no to a little thing like sugar in your coffee, you're saying no to a little thing like that cookie or one meal isn't going to kill you if you skip a meal. How many days do I skip a meal just because I'm busy? I didn't get time to eat. But man, when good Friday comes, I'm dying. I'm like, oh, I'm so hungry I can't survive. But when I practice fasting in my daily life, in my weekly life, if I have some kind of fasting, I'm learning to say no to little things. So that strengthens my will and gives me the ability to say no to bigger things. So that if I need to skip a meal or delay a meal to serve someone else, like that 11 year old boy did for my wife many years ago, I'm free to do that. I actually have the capacity to do that. I'm free to make bigger sacrifices for the sake of others or when I just might need to make the sacrifice for myself. When I don't practice the virtue of fasting, I'll likely fall into gluttony, which weakens my will and increases my attention attachment to pleasure. And then I'm just not free. I'm not free. I become a slave to my attraction to food and that's what's governing me. I am always thinking about food. I have to eat when I want, how I want, as I want, what I want. I'm not free. And so by building in a little bit of fasting, so that's my action item for all of you. I want to encourage you to think about how can you build in fasting in your weekly routine? Maybe it's one day a week, like on Friday you do something, maybe it's a daily thing you do. Be different for all of us. But I want to encourage you. Take time to pray and ask God, how might he be inviting you to grow in greater interior freedom to grow in the virtue of fasting so that you're not a slave to the vice of gluttony. Well, if you've enjoyed learning about this, you can check out a book that I wrote all on the virtues. It's called the Art of Living the Cardinal Virtues and the Freedom to love. And it walks through all that we talked about here, temperance, gluttony and the other virtues we're going to look at. But all the virtues put together, full of practical examples from marriage, family life, workplace, parish, environment, the life of an ordinary Christian. How do I grow in the virtues? So you can check that out. It's called the Art of Living. We'll put in the show notes. Thanks for listening and see you next time.