Is Lent about controlling our appetites? Fr. Tugwell offers a different perspective.
"I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it (Ps. 81:10)"
"The ideal is for us not to control our appetites at all, but to allow them full rein in the wake of an uncontrolled appetite for God. We all too easily speak and think as if righteousness resulted chiefly from the curbing of our appetites, as if our appetites were only for sin. But strictly speaking we have no appetite for sin.
"What we experience as an appetite for sin is a sick appetite which has mistaken its object. In moments of despondency we may perhaps look around and think that we should be much happier if we gave up trying to be good, if we could enjoy all the vices of the world around us. But that is only a fantasy. The desire for goodness is really a much more robust desire than any alleged desire for evil...
"We must be content to grow slowly towards goodness, taking, if need be, a long time to convalesce. Most of us, maybe, will still be barely at the beginning of our recovery even when we die. But that is better than killing ourselves pretending to be healthy...
"St. Thomas says desire is the faculty that receives, so that the bigger our desire is, the more we can receive...Our part in this is to learn to want largely and earnestly enough to make us capable of the infinite righteousness of God's kingdom...The more we try to tame and reduce ourselves and our desires and hopes, the more we deceive and distort ourselves.
"We are made for God and nothing less will really satisfy us. We we must allow our innate appetite for infinity to dislodge us whenever we are inclined to settle down and call it a day," or throw down our spiritual toys and quit playing. (The Beatitudes: Soundings in Christian Traditions, Tugwell)
"The ideal is for us not to control our appetites at all, but to allow them full rein in the wake of an uncontrolled appetite for God. We all too easily speak and think as if righteousness resulted chiefly from the curbing of our appetites, as if our appetites were only for sin. But strictly speaking we have no appetite for sin.
"What we experience as an appetite for sin is a sick appetite which has mistaken its object. In moments of despondency we may perhaps look around and think that we should be much happier if we gave up trying to be good, if we could enjoy all the vices of the world around us. But that is only a fantasy. The desire for goodness is really a much more robust desire than any alleged desire for evil...
"We must be content to grow slowly towards goodness, taking, if need be, a long time to convalesce. Most of us, maybe, will still be barely at the beginning of our recovery even when we die. But that is better than killing ourselves pretending to be healthy...
"St. Thomas says desire is the faculty that receives, so that the bigger our desire is, the more we can receive...Our part in this is to learn to want largely and earnestly enough to make us capable of the infinite righteousness of God's kingdom...The more we try to tame and reduce ourselves and our desires and hopes, the more we deceive and distort ourselves.
"We are made for God and nothing less will really satisfy us. We we must allow our innate appetite for infinity to dislodge us whenever we are inclined to settle down and call it a day," or throw down our spiritual toys and quit playing. (The Beatitudes: Soundings in Christian Traditions, Tugwell)
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