There is a Portuguese proverb which goes “o peixe morre pela boca” (it is by its mouth that the fish dies). As with the proverbial fish, so too with Adam, our first parent, who though created to not experience death, but to live forever in the embrace of the Father, encountered death through his consumption of the forbidden fruit. And so, Origen (c. 185–c. 253), one of the important early theologians of the Church, teaches us that it was the temptation of gluttony that led Adam to sin.
As the Devil tempted Adam, so too did he try to tempt the second Adam, Our Lord Jesus Christ, with gluttony. Knowing that Our Lord had not eaten for forty days, and that He was now hungry, the tempter says:
“If you are the Son of God,
command this stone to become bread.”
However, the second Adam, Our Lord, did not descend to this earth so that He could repeat the errors of the first Adam. On the contrary, He came to initiate the great re-set, He came to recapitulate, or start again, so that the error of Adam could be set right and humanity – the children of Adam – could learn how to avoid falling prey to the Devil, avoid death, and thus have eternal life.
And so Our Lord teaches us that the response to the vice of gluttony, and part of the road to salvation, is abstinence. In so doing, he teaches us the discipline not just for Lent, but for the Christian life. As Cyril of Alexandria, a Father of the Church, taught: “By eating we were conquered in Adam, by abstinence we conquered in Christ.”
Last week, after reading my homily for Ash Wednesday, where I described Lent as the pursuit of love, a friend of mine responded: “I love ‘pursuit of love’! [But,] I can’t get behind the ‘abstinence & sacrifice.’”
This friend of mine was articulating a common problem in our times; we don’t seem to understand the value of abstinence. Last week, on Ash Wednesday, I had suggested that the disciplines of Lent should be seen as exercise, spiritual exercises for a soul that is fit, and can fight the tempter when he should appear. Abstinence is a part of this exercise regime, and it should ideally start with small sacrifices, abandoning things we like. For example, I really like tendli (gherkin) pickle, which was on the table on Ash Wednesday. It would have made no difference to my material life had I eaten a little portion of it, but abstaining from it, and postponing the pleasure that it would give me, was the exercise I decided to undertake. As Our Lord says:
Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. (Lk 16:10)
Brothers and sisters, though the first temptation Our Lord faced refers to the mouth, it denotes all the sensorial organs and the pleasures that they desire. That the mouth is the gateway to more than just gustatory desire I can very easily demonstrate through a personal anecdote. I had gone, some decades ago, to view the jewels of the Nizam, and faced with rubies, diamonds and emeralds the size of my fist, I experienced the very odd desire to physically eat them. These stones appealed to me like luscious fruit. In other words, my mouth was watering, not for some gustatory pleasure, but as a visceral response to the desire that the pleasures that jewels could bring. If the mouth is the gateway to desire, then the mouth should be trained to desire what is good.
The verse before the Gospel captures well what should be in our mouths when it says:
One does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.
Our mouth should be full, of the word of God. As King David sings in the psalm (104: 33):
I will sing to the Lord as long as
I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
One can do this by constantly having an ejaculatory prayer in one’s mouth.
“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.”
“Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in You.”
“I love you, Jesus; my love above all things; I repent with my whole heart for having offended Thee. Never permit me to separate myself from Thee again. Grant that I may love Thee always; and then do with me what Thou wilt.”
With our mouth full of these prayers, constantly repeating them, so too will our heart. As Saint Paul teaches us today in the second reading:
The word is near you,
in your mouth and in your heart
—that is, the word of faith that we preach—,
for, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord
and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved.
Abstinence does not mean, my dear brothers and sisters, that we reject the cornucopia that is placed before us. It requires only that we moderate our response to it, and that we recognize its place in our lives. An example of how to deal with the resources Our Lord has provided us is available in the first reading. Here Moses instructs Israel that having harvested the produce of the land overflowing with milk and honey, they place it in a basket and offer it to God, recognizing that it was God who gave us these gifts and it is to Him that we must return it. In other words, recognize that these resources are not ours to consume as we wish, stuffing ourselves silly with them, but gifts to be used for the common good.
Abstinence is necessary spiritual exercise dear brothers and sisters, and something we can, and should, practice throughout Lent, increasing the things we abstain from, the closer we approach Good Friday. May St. Joseph the model of temperance aid us in our spiritual exercises this Lent and always.
St. Joseph, model of temperance, highest among the virtuous, pray for us.
(This homily was prepared to be preached to the faithful at the parish of Our Lady of the Rosary, Fatorda on 3 March 2025.)
(Image reference: The Temptation of Christ detail , Juan de Flandes, 1500 1504, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.)
No comments:
Post a Comment