Food is happiness. Food is joy. Food will fill the aching loneliness in our lives. This is the marketing strategy that we have been pummeled with since infancy. We see it on the Internet, billboards, and buses. We cannot step outside of our homes without being inundated with messaging that tells us gluttony is a virtue. It is no longer a vice according to the culture. Most of us have never actually heard that overeating to the point of harming our health is gravely sinful and spiritually destructive.
This is what happened to me in recent years. I have never heard a homily or teaching on the spiritually dangerous and destructive lies that the food industry has overwhelmed us with 24/7. Countless Catholic writers justify constantly indulging in food or drink as good because we are not Puritans after all. Our pews are filled with people who are struggling with food addictions—myself included—that are causing serious health problems. Regular fasting has been jettisoned as an unnecessary spiritual practice of a bygone era for most Western Catholics.
Thankfully, the Lord never abandons us even when we fall into spiritual blindness and forget our own story. The Western Church may have forgotten how essential it is to fast regularly in order to grow in holiness, but scientists are discovering the health benefits of fasting. Studies are revealing that fasting heals our bodies through a process called autophagy. Cancer patients are being put on fasting regimens to stop the growth of cancer cells. What Judeo-Christian tradition has said for millennia is being proven scientifically.
The timing of these discoveries is providential. It is providential because the antidote to our enslavement to gluttony comes about through fasting. The Lord says certain demons—both preternatural and metaphorical—must be cast out through prayer and fasting. He did not say only prayer. He said it needs to be combined with fasting. This combination makes sense for those enslaved by gluttony.
For people who struggle with addictions to food or drink, there is a deep healing that needs to take place. I know in my case that I have used food in response to grief and pain since childhood. As is typical of so many people who struggle with food, I have had periods of my life when I have been in peak physical shape through both diet and exercise. In fact, my gall bladder stopped working and was removed when I was in the best shape I had been in since my time in the military. My chronic health issues started when I was an avid runner, but my issues with food were still present. The underlying spiritual and emotional issues were still under the surface.
The Lord wants to lead us to freedom. There are times when he leads us into dark places within us so that we can come to see a particular sin that is wounding us. Emotional eating is not only tied to gluttony and addiction to food. It is often connected to unforgiveness of others and ourselves, traumas, despair, unresolved grief, self-hatred, and lack of trust in Christ. Gluttony is usually one sin connected to a whole host of others. As long as we seek comfort in food and drink, the Lord will not be able to heal us. We have to enter into the pain rather than continue to dull it.
Our sins and wounds have also made us easy prey. The food industry is quite literally making hundreds of billions of dollars by addicting us to their products and tapping into our brain-based reward systems and our suffering. Where did it become the norm to binge on ice cream during a breakup? Why has the food pyramid undergone so many changes with connections to powerful lobby groups? It may take only one glance or reference to a particular food for us to crave it. We have been led to believe it is worth the momentary pleasure in a sea of pain…except, it isn’t worth it, not ultimately.
The battle against gluttony is unprecedented in our age. It is much harder to fight than previous generations. We are up against scientists, marketing firms, and an entire food industry that has tapped into the human brain in powerful ways and knows how to addict us. Our weakness is a major factor, but so is the fact that we have been tricked into addiction. In mice, sugar is more addictive than cocaine. Combine sugar with caffeine–which has an overwhelmingly powerful response in our brains–and we start to understand why Starbucks is packed first thing in the morning and mid-afternoon when everyone crashes from their morning sugar laden coffee and “needs” a pick me up. That was me for two decades.
If we are honest with ourselves, our addictions to food and drink leave us miserable. We are filled with self-loathing, grogginess, mood swings, health issues, and an ever-deepening indifference towards the spiritual life. We convince ourselves that we can hold onto particular addictions and still grow in intimate union with the Lord. I told myself this lie for years as He started to reveal to me that my addiction to sugar and other unhealthy foods is destroying my body and soul.
What the Lord is asking of us is a battle, but the rewards are great. He wants to heal our wounds. He wants to take away the griefs, self-hatred, bitterness, unforgiveness, and pain that leads so many of us to emotional eating and addiction. He wants to free us from the clutches of greedy companies who are profiting off our misery. He wants us to grow closer to Him. Fasting leads us to give everything to Him. It is not only for Lent. If more intense fasting is not an option, then we need to consider items we enjoy that we need to fast from for a time or for forever.
It is encouraging to know that more and more Catholics are discussing the current health and spiritual crisis tied to food—from Eric Sammons at Crisis Magazine to Tammy Peterson. On her recent podcast, Catholic convert Tammy Peterson discusses fasting with Dr. Margarita Mooney Clayton. Both women have come to recognize the spiritual, emotional, and physical necessity of caring for our bodies. We are body and soul, so the way we treat our body impacts our soul.
Much like me, Dr. Clayton realized in her 40s that something wasn’t right with her relationship with food. She started to notice how it impacted her spiritually and physically. She and Tammy discovered the power of fasting; Tammy through the fact that she only eats meat and drinks water, and Dr. Clayton through cutting out alcohol and foods that she notices get in the way of her prayer life.
The same thing started happening to me. After 5 years of being in peak physical condition, my health began to deteriorate. My fifth miscarriage and the very difficult symptoms of late perimenopause that I battled for years left me grief stricken and discouraged. I gained back some of the weight that I had lost, and I stopped focusing on my diet. As someone with bile reflux disease, this only made things worse. While it is true that nothing I eat seems to make me feel better, there are clearly foods that make things worse, especially high fat and sugary foods. More and more science is revealing that fat is good for us, but I have a medical condition that is exacerbated by fat intake.
Like these two women, the Lord started to show me how gluttony is harming me spiritually. For me, it is covering up very deep hurts, anger, and unforgiveness. In my experience, unforgiveness and wrath are the devil’s playground. It is one of the easiest ways he drags us to hell. The pleasure of food is what he uses to cover up these other sins and pains. We convince ourselves that it is not a big deal to drown out our pain and sin through food.
There is a very direct link between prayer and fasting, and the enemy knows it. The more we indulge in gluttonous behaviors, the less we pray. Once self-loathing kicks in, we hide from God. Fasting coupled with prayer serves as an antidote to get us out of sinful cycles and to re-align our vision to Him.
Running to food is ultimately a lack of trust in the truth that we are loved by Him. When we are hurt from being rejected or abandoned by others or grief-stricken from loss, our vision becomes darkened, and we can stop turning to Him. Turning to food only deepens the spiritual blindness. Fasting forces us to confront these wounds and bring them to Him in prayer and Confession where He can heal us.
As Catholics, we need to once again embrace our long tradition of fasting in order to draw closer to Christ and to find healing. It is a lie that we should not have to give up certain foods or drinks. If they are harming us, or if we are committing the sin of gluttony, then we have a spiritual obligation to cut them out. We could very easily be lost because gluttony often covers other sins and wounds within us that either need to be pruned out or healed. The Lord Himself tells us why He doesn’t want us to be enslaved to anything of this world:
I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)
Fasting and prayer leads us to the abundant life He has in mind for each one of us. I am beginning in earnest to turn towards the Lord through the ancient practices of prayer and fasting. For those who are battling similar sins, I pray you do the same. May He free us from every yoke of Satan and the world, so we may only wear the sweet yoke of the Lord.
