{"id":3702,"date":"2016-02-28T10:00:41","date_gmt":"2016-02-28T15:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=3702"},"modified":"2016-02-24T13:27:50","modified_gmt":"2016-02-24T18:27:50","slug":"the-spirituality-of-the-christian-east-20160228","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=3702","title":{"rendered":"The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20160228"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ladder<\/a>The fourteenth step on St. John\u2019s Ladder deals with GLUTTONY. What comes to mind when you hear the word gluttony<\/em><\/strong>? You probably think of someone overweight eating large quantities of food. One might even think that, outside the fasting periods, this is quite acceptable. After all, if a Christian observes all the fasts, he spends about half the year fasting. So perhaps you might think fasters are entitled to feast when it is permitted.<\/p>\n

But as a passion, gluttony is a little more complicated than this. For passions are not mere actions, but conditions of soul and body that distort our relationship not only with our fellow human beings, but also with our natural environments and our own bodies.<\/p>\n

It is interesting that St. John, on more than one occasion, uses the term \u201cgluttonous soul\u201d or \u201cgluttonous spirit\u201d. While I am speaking of what is commonly thought of as a physical sin, the distinction between physical and spiritual is an oversimplification. We cannot make such a sharp distinction between body and soul, since there is nothing human beings can do without both of these together. Thus physical sins have a spiritual\u00a0\u00a0 dimension.<\/p>\n

The Ladder<\/em><\/strong> gives us a good example of how a gluttonous spirit distorts our approach not only to food, but also to the feasts and fasts of the Church. He writes<\/p>\n

The gluttonous monk celebrates on Saturdays and Sundays. He counts the days to Easter, and for days in advance he gets the food ready. The slave of the belly ponders the menu with which to celebrate the feast.<\/p>\n

It is important that we approach fasting with the right attitude. I will continue John\u2019s thoughts about a \u201cgluttonous spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fourteenth step on St. John\u2019s Ladder deals with GLUTTONY. What comes to mind when you hear the word gluttony? You probably think of someone overweight eating large quantities of food. One might even think that, outside the fasting periods, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-spirituality-of-the-christian-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3702"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3703,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3702\/revisions\/3703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}