come, receive grain and eat;
Come, without paying and without cost,
drink wine and milk!
My dear brothers and sisters in Our Lord Jesus Christ; reading these words from the prophet Isaiah in the first reading over the past week I was constantly reminded of the vice of gluttony. Superficially, gluttony is about overeating; taking more than you can eat (or drink), eating/drinking more than you need. But gluttony is not just about our relationship with food and drink, it relates also to our attitude of consumption of objects. How many of us have not had visceral responses normally associated with hunger when we see some object that we greatly desire? To quote the sixteenth century Jesuit Gaspar Loarte: “the full stomach and overly pampered flesh are easily lit on fire and make you fall into the stench of lust.” And this is precisely the point. As prudence is the Auriga virtutum – the charioteer of the virtues – gluttony is more than a disordered relationship with food, it is the gateway to the other vices, commencing with lust.
As with all things Our Lord provides a solution to the vice of gluttony. As he instructs us in the acclamation to the Gospel today:
One does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.
Too often, gluttony is the result of fear, when we fear the lack of food, we eat more. We fear the lack of money, we chase it, if we fear powerlessness, we chase power. But as St. Paul teaches us today, that neither anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword should tempt us into gluttony, for:
in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.
In his catechesis on the vice of gluttony, Pope Francis recounted a proverb that he thought relevant: “We should eat to live, not live to eat.” And I ask you, what is it that we can eat to live, if not the Eucharist?
Indeed, the words from the Prophet Isaiah are in fact references to bread and wine that we are encouraged to eat. And we know that when scripture refers to bread and wine it refers to the Most Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord, the Eucharist, which gives us eternal life.
Tradition teaches us that the opposite of the vice of gluttony is temperance. And Holy Mother Church teaches us temperance even in the consumption of the Eucharist. There was a time when our ancestors communicated perhaps four times a year, but definitely on Easter. More recently Pope Pius X (1903-1914) corrected this exaggeration and strongly encouraged the Catholic laity to receive Holy Communion frequently, and even daily. We can licitly receive communion upto twice a day, provided we have been present at each Mass.
And yet (and yet !), even this urging to regular communion is not without its own forms of temperance. We receive communion only if we are in a state of grace; that is, only if we have confessed our sins prior to communion. When we receive communion we receive it in a worthy and dignified manner, recognizing that this is the bread of life, Our Lord truly and really present in the host we consume.
In his catechesis on gluttony, Pope Francis teaches us that the way we eat is a manifestation of something inner. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to learn polite etiquette know this of course; which is why it is important to eat in a mannered way. Similarly, we need to follow manners and politeness when receiving the Most Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord. The practice of receiving communion in our hands is permitted by the Church, but there are protocols that are to be followed. Protocols that are too often violated. One may not reach out and grab the host, for example. Neither can one’s hands be holding something else. Above all, we must make sure that not even the tiniest particle of the Most Precious Body and Blood remains on our hands or our fingers. Too often, people grab the host, casually put it into their mouths, even as they walk away! Which is why I recommend, my dear brothers and sisters, if you are not confident that you can prevent this sacrilege and disrespect to Our Lord, it is best to piously receive communion on your tongue.
Our Lord teaches not just temperance, but also self-sacrifice. In the Gospel today we heard him tell us:
give them some food yourselves.
In other words, having consumed of His Most Precious Body, Our Lord asks that we become a Eucharistic people and give to others not just the food, and resources, we may have, but our very selves! And he assures us that just as was with the case of the five loaves and two fish, there will be baskets left over.
May Our Lord give us the grace to avoid gluttony, adopt temperance, and give of ourselves to those starving for His Real Presence.
(A version of this homily was first preached to the faithful at the Chapel of Nossa Senhora do Cabo, Cabo Raj Nivas, Dona Paula on 2 Aug 2026.)
(Image reference: The Wedding at Cana (detail), Paolo Veronese, 1562–1563, Louvre.)
