Hi my name's Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.
One of the things I think that keeps a lot of people from God is we think that God has prohibited joy, right?
He has all of these no's, these big things he says no to
and so it seems like, at first glance,
"Well I don't know if I want to follow God because it seems like everything that I want to do,
everything that brings me joy he says no to,"
but here's the interesting thing: the more closely we look at this, we realize that God has not prohibited joy.
God wants us to enjoy good things in good ways. He wants to us to enjoy the right things in the right way.
Our problem is this, our problem is we actually need these rules, these laws that God gives us
because we don't know how to enjoy ourselves.
I mean, how many times have you been in the kind of situation where you found something you liked,
I like nacho cheese Doritos. The first couple you're like, "Oh my gosh, this is insane. This is so good."
And all of a sudden, you get to the bottom of the family size bag and you think,
"What happened with the rest of these Doritos and why am I not enjoying them?"
Here's what happens:
When we don't have the ability to say no,
we don't have the ability to enjoy the right things in the right way.
We don't actually have the ability to enjoy stuff.
We end up having two things: one, is we don't enjoy life and we become slaves to something.
This is actually the rarely confessed sin of gluttony
or the sin of intemperance, right?
Gluttony is I don't know how to say no.
Intemperance is I'm not able to say no to the right thing at the wrong time or the wrong thing at any time.
I can't say no to myself.
Gluttony doesn't necessarily come down to just quantity.
It's at least four things:
it's quantity, quality, when, and why.
Quantity. Yeah, absolutely.
I can eat a ton of stuff, that's my Dorito thing, where it's like, you know, too many.
Actually gluttony or intemperance can also be, you know, I found a TV show on Netflix, it's super good
and so, instead of watching one or two episodes, it was actually it's 3 a.m. now and I need to go to bed
because I can't stop watching this. That's intemperance.
I've taken it in in such a way that
my ability to enjoy something is now lessened.
The thing itself is probably still good, it's probably still a good TV show,
but my ability to enjoy it, I've given it away. Because why?
Because of gluttony, because of intemperance. So quantity.
The second one is quality.
Now this is one of the things that C.S. Lewis points out in his book the Screwtape Letters
where he has the patient, you know, the person that who's being tempted by that the devil, by the demon,
and the patient's mother
and he says the patient's mother would never consider herself to be a gluttonous person
because she doesn't eat a lot of food but she always needs to have food prepared for her in just the right way
and that's the big thing, is quality.
Now, this happens a lot of times when it comes to kids, right?
Kids say, "Well, no, I can't eat those eggs. They're too runny," or "I can't eat this food. It's too gross,"
or "I don't like it this way. I like it that way."
That's why Aristotle called gluttony or intemperance a childish vice.
He called it a childish vice because it makes us like children.
I don't necessarily want a lot of it
but I need to have it in just the way that I like it
and if it's not just the way I like it, then I am not happy (humpf)
So quantity, quality. When.
I'm sure we've all had the experience of, at one point, becoming hangry, right?
Hangry where you're hungry and because you're hungry, you're not getting any food, you're angry.
So you're hangry. I don't just want a lot I don't just want it the way that I want it.
I want it now! And I can't wait!
You know, there was a experiment back in the day, where they brought these children into a room
and sat them at a table in a chair and on a plate on the table, right in front of them was like a marshmallow
or a cookie
and they said if you wait here, I'm going to leave, the researcher said I'm going to leave
and if you wait, when I come back, if you haven't eaten the marshmallow, if you haven't eaten the cookie,
I'll give you two marshmallows or two cookies
but if you cannot, you can eat it now and if you eat it now, you only get the one.
And so, they leave the room and they have a camera, you know, recording these kids' reactions.
Some of them are like, "OK, I'm fine, whatever. I'll just wait. I want two, so I'll wait."
Others were like (whoop) (chomp), you know, like eat it right away.
So others, some kids were like rocking back and forth.
Other kid's covering their eyes.
One girl's sitting on our hands because yeah, I don't want to take this.
This internal battle, right,
that's intemperance.
As human beings, we are called to be free called to greatness,
called to be able to say no to ourselves
and then we get to the place where we can't say no to ourselves.
I can't wait. I can't stop. I can't say no.
That's why Thomas Aquinas, I think, would call it the most disgraceful of all the vices
because it just it takes us from being- we're made to be human beings completely free,
to be able to say no, so we can say yes.
we've become slaves.
So the quantity, the quality, the when and then the why.
How many times have you and I been in the situation where,
"Why am I drinking this?
I don't know. I just want to drink."
"Why am I eating this?
I don't know, I just want to eat.
Why am I watching this?" Why am I consuming something, right?
This can be media, it can be music, it can be food. It can be anything.
I'm just consuming. Why?
I don't know!
And if I do that,
often I become a slave to that,
not only that,
I cease being able to really enjoy stuff.
Remember, God isn't prohibiting joy.
He wants your joy.
He wants us to experience this incredible world he gave us
in joy
but that's going to require saying no.
So here's my invitation.
My invitation is today,
say no to something.
Say no to yourself.
Say no to some kind of appetite you have, not because like, "Oh, I need to punish myself
or I need to discipline myself."
I'm saying no to this good thing
so I can say yes to freedom
and so I can say yes to joy.
Does that make sense? Okay, hope so, anyways.
From all of us here at Ascension Presents, my name is Father Mike.
God bless.