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Hi, Jeremy —
As my colleague noted, being overweight
is not a sin, but gluttony is.
Being overweight can be caused by
genetic or hormonal factors unrelated
to the moral choices one makes. Two
people, who are otherwise built the
same, can eat the same way and one
will become overweight and the other
will not.
What's important, as in all things, is the exercise
of self-control.
If you do not exercise control of
yourself in eating desserts or candy
(for example), that would count as
gluttony. The answer to this is fasting.
Try fasting twice a week, on Wednesdays
and Fridays, not eating between meals
or making up for it during
mealtimes. Also, keep periods of
abstaining from your favorite foods.
The key is to rein in your out of
balance desires and to gain mastery
over your body. You are in control,
not your body. Confession is an excellent
help in getting free of habitual
sins. Also, self-control bleeds over
into other areas; if you practice
self-control in some matters in your
life (say, sexual), it can help you
to exercise it in other areas of
life (say, gluttony). (Which reminds
me, if you are masturbating, stop
that too — it will help your
food situation.) Try keeping track
of what you eat, noting when you
eat unhealthy food and when you eat
healthy food. You may be surprised
how much unhealthy food you eat.
Here is some nutritional advice:
Eat enough to be satisfied, not enough
to be full. Chew your food fully,
and savor it completely. Eat slowly
so your brain has time to receive
the signal from your stomach that
it's full.
To answer your last question, suppose
that same good person who gave money
to the poor or sponsored a child
in Columbia murdered a person.
- Would that be enough to send
them to Hell?
Suppose they molested a child.
Certainly glutton is not on the order
of these sins, but the amount of
good you do is irrelevant to whether
you can go to Hell. It's not a balance:
You cannot outbalance your bad deeds
by your good deeds. You can go to
Hell for one solitary unrepentant
deed whether you are Mother Teresa
or someone who's never done a good
deed. Consider a friendship:
- Can the friendship end on the
basis of one act, regardless of
all the good times shared by the
two people?
<Sure it can, if it's serious enough.>
Remember, we don't earn our salvation
by doing good deeds. This may come
as a shock to some but it's true.
Good deeds don't get us into Heaven.
They affect our reward in Heaven
and they may, in a sense, make it
easier to stay in God's grace, but
they don't get us in.
We get in by the grace of God.
We get out on our own.
Eric |
