I remember an episode of iCarly in which one of the young protagonists wants to meet the “fattest priest alive.” When they finally arrange for her to meet him before he can even come on screen, you hear the floor give way, and he presumably falls. No one ever actually gets to see this record-setting priest. Without a laugh track, I would imagine we probably wouldn’t even laugh at the poor man falling through the floor. The funny thing is: that episode always makes me very introspective about myself.
Several years ago I wrote a blog about the number of calories I must consume to gain a pound of weight. It reminded me that at my highest weight, I had wasted at least enough food to feed a child in a starving country for over a year. That is not counting the amount of weight I had lost and regained throughout those years of yo-yo dieting. The current numbers say that more than half the people in the western world are obese. If my math is correct, that means that there is enough excess fat in the United States alone to feed 9000 children for a year.
Abba John the short once said: “If a king wants to take a city whose citizens are hostile, he first captures the food and water of the inhabitants of the city, and when they are starving subdues them. So it is with gluttony. If a man is earnest in fasting and hunger, the enemies who trouble his soul will grow weak.” During class, a Priest once told us that he had an addictive personality. I would describe mine the same way. Throughout my life, I replace one addiction with another. From computer games to photography. Each thing taken up for a time and then left behind.
The one thing that has always held my attention and has always been less of an addiction and more of a solution is God and his Word. When I immerse myself in the Scriptures, I find fulfillment to all those desires that my body tries to make me think I have. I find peace of mind and soul. I am not free of my gluttonous desires. I see inside those words, inside the Church that God has established for us, answers to how to be free.
“Wouldn’t it be great if we had no fat deacons?” I heard someone say this at one point. At first, I was offended! I, after all, have been overweight my entire adult life. What does it portray to us though? It reveals to us men of prayer and fasting. If all Catholics around the world were to devote actual time to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we would change the world!
It has to begin with me. I know that. There is an irony to a man as large as myself encouraging others to pray and fast. I have tried this Lent to fast in many different ways. From water fasting to eating only one meal a day. Some days have been more comfortable, some have been harder than anything I have imagined. Saint Anthony of the Desert reminds us that we must go to the desert to find the place of discipline in ourselves. The desert is the place that Hosea tells us God wants to take us to as well. “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.” (Hosea 2:14 RSV-CE)
The desert is the place where Israel first encountered God. It was their first intimate embrace, where the wedding covenant began, which Christ later fulfilled on the cross of Calvary. He is our God, and we are His People. That to me is what the right key is to learn to discipline ourselves. It is returning to the place where we first met God, to those situations in my life where I encountered and relied on Him and Him alone. The discipline of fasting allows me to remind my body that I don’t need all of these things that my concupiscence tries causes me to desire. Then I can truly listen for that still small voice crying out to me in the night.
I am slowly learning to remove those things that get in my way of that desert experience. I find some of the ‘pruning’ to be quite painful. I got rid of my smartphone just recently after months of feeling a tug to do so. It has not been pleasant. I didn’t even realize how much I was attached to this silly little cellular device. What I have found though is a freedom I did not expect. Will I go back to a smart device after Lent? I am still unsure. I am leaning towards no. What I do know is that whatever I do, I will do it to grow closer to God.