The Day a Student Accused Me of Gluttony

Der Völler, 1804 (Wikimedia Commons)

Perhaps the strangest insult I have ever received from a student was to be sentenced to Circle 3 in Dante’s Inferno — for the deadly sin of Gluttony. The opening sentence of his essay read: “I place Professor Watney in Circle 3 for Gluttony of his students’ time.” I was stunned. But perhaps I should explain the assignment:

Choose three contemporary sinners and place them in three separate circles in The Inferno. Explain how their crime becomes their own punishment — the logic of Hell, which Dante called the contrapasso.

My first response was to laugh. Clever! I thought. He has discovered that I am time-challenged and disorganized and has creatively found a way to get back at me. But then the gravity — and perhaps even the cruelty of what he had done — sank in, and a slow tide of depression crept over me. (I even began briefly browsing through teacher openings in the local state penitentiary).

But my wife reminded me of the common burden of professors and pastors who suffer the slings and arrows of their students’ or parishioners’ angst. And I remembered too the words of my old priest as he invited me into his office for the first time to say Confession. After a few minutes of light banter, he said to me:

Mark, I am now going to put on my priestly robe. And once I do, I will no longer be Father Guy, but a priestly conduit. I will hear your confession, and I will offer it on your behalf to God, but I will not remember a word you said to me once I remove these robes. And when I greet you tomorrow, do not expect me to remember what you said — or even to ask you about it.

I still remember the incredible freedom this gave me to confess to him at a far deeper level than I was planning to — knowing that he could never use what I said against me. And It made me yearn to be a Priest — where robes are placed over personalities, and pastors become conduits, getting themselves out of the way as they bring their parishioners before God. And dispensing wisdom and grace — not grades! — to those who may deserve it least. Something I could never do as a professor. And so I prayed:

Oh Lord, can I too
place robes over myself
to hide myself when I teach?

And then I remembered the words of a struggling priest (and professor) named Thomas Merton: Above all, we must learn our own weakness in order to waken to a new order of action and being — and experience God Himself accomplishing in us the things we find impossible. And finding within myself the Grace to be objective, I reluctantly placed a “B+” on my tormentor’s perceptive paper.

Gluttony—The Only Sin Impossible to Hide

My student may have misdiagnosed my core deadly sin, as I’m sure “gluttony” of my student’s time has deeper roots in other sins-- such as my Pride in seeing myself superior to them in recognizing Truth and Beauty and therefore belittling their “servile” goals as student-athletes or business majors (often the “default” major for students who arrive here with little desire beyond playing football and earning a living)—and laying heavy philosophical burdens upon their utilitarian shoulders.

Though Gluttony may not be my primary sin as a professor, I had one ghastly thing in common with all gluttons: an inability to hide myself. There are no robes to cover gluttons. Of all sinners, only theirs is on full display. All sin distorts. But Gluttony is the only sin that directly distorts the human body. The poor glutton therefore has nowhere to hide. Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Greed, and Lust can each hide their ravages from prying eyes while distorting the mind and soul unseen—at least for a while. And perhaps, for this reason, it has traditionally been considered among the lesser of the deadly sins. Because unlike cancer—so often hidden and subterranean—Gluttony immediately erupts in full sight.

They Have No Wine! —The Healing Cry of the Gluttons.

To understand this deadly sin, I traveled with Dante up to the 6th terrace of Mt. Purgatory—just below Lust, the final terrace before the great summit on which all sinners stand purged and ready for their final ascent to Paradise. And from this terrace I heard the strangest of cries. Each terrace on Mt. Purgatory is filled with cries—not of pain, anger, and vengeance as in The Inferno, but cries of yearning and prayer for healing and restoration.

But this cry was a cry for wine! But not for themselves. This was Mary’s cry to Jesus on behalf of the wedding guests who had just run out of wine: She turned to her son and simply said: They have no wine. It was the quintessential motherly hint –with greater weight than any command could have been. And Jesus, who had not yet revealed himself, was mother-trapped into making three jugs of the greatest wine ever made—instantly. And so these gluttons and wine-bibbers likewise took up this great motherly cry—again and again--on behalf of others: They have no wine! They have no wine!

The air is thin and cold and pure up here on the Terrace of Gluttony. And the first thing we see here is an enormous Tree from which the most exquisite smells fall -- filling the skeletal penitents beneath it with an unbearable yearning to eat its fruit. But no fruit can be seen. And as the sinners bend their necks up in vain, the Tree itself cries out to them, “No food for you!” But then, from the same Tree, a power slowly settles upon the wretched sinners below—a power which makes them “lean and fine” (23.6) rather than simply skeletal.

And the Tree then exhorts them to become like Mary, who cried out on behalf of the thirst of others: —They have no wine! And as they slowly ascend the mountain, this cry—for others rather than themselves—begins to transform their thinking, and then their wills, and then even their appetites, as they find themselves yearning to satisfy the thirst of others, rather than their own-- as Mary once did.

But as I stood alongside Dante and the penitent gluttons under this Tree, I heard, for the very first time, from far below us, this same Marian cry, faintly echoing back up the steep slopes of Purgatory— They have no wine!

“What sinners are those?” I asked Dante. “Their cry is so faint it seems to come from the very bottom of this mountain, a journey many years below us!” “Those are the Envious,” he reminded me, “who struggle with a far greater sin than mere Gluttony, as they cannot bear the sight of any who are happier than they. So they too, cry out this same Marian prayer which heals the self-centric sickness in both Envy and Greed.”

I stood amazed. I had not realized how interconnected these deadly sins could be. And how much healing would eventually come from Mary’s simple self-effacing plea to her son.

Open My Mouth, O Lord

As the gluttons slowly and painfully ascend, I begin to hear another cry rising from their emaciated lips: Open my mouth, O Lord, and I will praise your name! And the holy irony of this cry touched me to the core: that through the mouth, the instrument of their gluttony, praise would now break forth and transform their bodies, their minds, and their souls. And though they remained skeletal and gaunt, they seemed transformed by this persistent prayer.

Cover Me, O Lord

And I began to reflect back on my own self-centric orientation as a liberal arts professor—who once stood accused of the sin of Gluttony. Again, I believe this student misdiagnosed my sin. I was not a glutton. I was proud and self-centered and insisted that my students view the world the way I did; that they recognize the Beauty I could see; and the Truth I had experienced. And when they could not, I judged them unworthy. My deadly sin was Pride. And like the glutton, I was unable to hide it from my students. And got called out. And so I still pray that God—in his mercy—would cover me with his priestly robes when I teach and like Merton, “experience God Himself accomplishing in [me] the things [I] find impossible.”

This is part 3 of a Series of Reflections on The Seven Deadly Sins. See here for Envy and Lust