Third Rule: EATING IN GOD
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have promised you to come and tell you about My life, so you might be able to imitate it. I want to leave you a template, so you might follow Me in everything. I have taught you how to fall asleep and to wake up in God; always give Him back a kiss of love, with which He gifts you by awakening you to a new life every day. Renew your soul through the power of the Holy Spirit, the power of His love, and the power of faith, which He wishes to bestow upon you.
Today I want to teach you the next subject. I will teach you to eat. As a tender mother, I will teach you everything. Now I direct your attention to one of the basic activities, which you accomplish every day. Eating is not an ordinary activity. It is unusual considering that it sustains life in man. It is a tangible gift from God. If the hand of God did not feed man, he would die of hunger and thirst. You are helpless as infants waiting for the milk of their mother, and it seems to you that that you possess everything and decide about everything. If God did not bestow upon you abundance in harvest, no one could feed himself. Thus, while eating, man should remember one fundamental truth. He eats from the Will of God, from the goodness and the blessing of God. Just because His generous hand still remains open. The most important truth, which has been supplanted from the consciousness of man, is the full dependence of man upon God. Man feels that he is the master of his fate and dares to think that he does not need God. This is the biggest fraud of this century: the illusive self-sufficiency.
Going in for a meal, be aware that you will eat what has been prepared for you by your heavenly Father. In times when man needed to look for food himself, he knew that he would grow from the earth only what God will bless, on what He will send down rain, and what He will warm with the sun. He knew that he would nourish himself only with animals that will be kept healthy, that God will guard against predators and bad water. When he was hunting, he prayed for a blessing from Heaven. When he set out for a hunt, he asked for it to be abundant. Today, when everything belongs to everyone and nothing does not belong to anyone, no one prays either for the blessing of the earth nor for the success in hunting. It seems that God has been excluded from the process of food production and became completely superfluous in it. This is the illusion of self-sufficiency to which you are subjected.
Before each meal, you should say a short prayer in order to become aware that you receive the nourishment from God and only from Him. It is Him who makes the inventions of man work. When He will close His hand, the whole theory of human self-sufficiency will fall apart. The prayer before a meal reminds man about his place in the world and gives glory to God in the form of simple gratitude for His care and blessing.
The meal itself should appease hunger. However, it should not exceed what is necessary. A child feeding on the milk of its mother never overeats. It eats exactly as much as it needs. Growing up and experiencing prosperity, man has learned to make from eating a sort of pleasure in itself. You should enjoy the gifts of God, but in such a way so that God will always be is in the first place. When the very act of nourishing yourselves gains superiority over God and masks Him before man, sin sneaks into the soul. You need God for Life, and food to sustain the earthly life. These proportions and the memory about them must be maintained.
Too plentiful meals have bad effects on the soul and on the body. The spirit of man becomes lazy and lethargic; reluctant to do mortifications and contemplation. The human body, in a similar way, weakens instead of strengthening and develops in itself many diseases, which result from the accumulation of too large quantities of food, and the lack of adjustment of their size to the processing capabilities of the organism. Thus, first of all, after saying the prayer, try to eat only as much as you need, and when you will stop feeling hunger, stop eating. This is the signal that you are satisfied and further eating will now work to your detriment. The meaning and purpose of eating is primarily to satisfy hunger; and, in the second place, it is a shared meal during which the family meets.
However, eating which goal is not to satisfy hunger, but to satisfy other goals, brings bad consequences. From the first moment of the life of man on Earth and the use of its gifts, this temptation appeared in the form of an apple, which man picked not to satisfy hunger, for he was full. Remember this event, so heavy in consequences, and do not treat your stomachs as toys to satisfy childish cravings, but reasonably and with respect, as people created in the image and the likeness of God.
When you appease huger, do not forget to thank the One who has fed you. May God be always present at your meals. Do not be ashamed of doing the sign of the cross before and after the meal. In that way, everything takes on a different value, and even the food becomes submerged and sanctified in the Passion of Christ, which gives a different, sacred dimension to everything. In that way, every subsequent meal can sanctify the soul, becoming more and more prayer and thanksgiving, and less and less ordinary consumption of food.
The baptised man is a temple of the Holy Spirit. God is the true interior of man. Food sustains only his body. Remember this while sleeping, eating, working and performing the multitude of daily chores. You are created in the image and the likeness of God and as His temple you move and live in the world. I want to remind you about your dignity and teach you to live in accordance with the Will of God, so that everything you do would please God. I bless you, daughter, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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Translated from : Reguła Mariańska Rycerzy Chrystusa Króla, Żertw Ofiarnych I wszystkich dzieci Maryi. Grzechynia 2014, p. 22-27
Image credit: ”She is your mother. Turn to her in all your needs.” by Holy Card Heaven, attribution © Creative Commons License.
Christus Regnat 