Health and Holiness

Photo credit Len Radin

“The trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind.” – G.K. Chesterton

It is no secret that this blog celebrates some unhealthy things, like beer and pipe smoking. And inevitably, whenever I write a post on the joys of bacon or post a meme on the Facebook page featuring a smoker, I am scolded for promoting something that is potentially harmful to health. Smoking is risky and bacon is bad for you, I am told, and our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, these things are immoral and no one should enjoy them.

Because this criticism is so common, I thought it would be worth providing my reasons for promoting things that could be deemed unhealthy.

Is being unhealthy immoral?

In modern society, health is sacrosanct, and there is almost no sin greater than potentially harming your body. It is a new form of pharisaism in which things like abortion and promiscuity are praised as moral goods, but cigarette smoking is condemned as a grave evil.

One reason I believe this is the case is that our culture is largely materialistic, rejecting any notions of transcendent spiritual realities or absolute truths. As a society, we have rejected a universal moral law, and yet human beings remain moral creatures in need of moral strictures. Therefore, health has become the new summum bonum, and unhealthiness the new mortal sin.

The vilification of all things unhealthy has largely infiltrated Christianity too, with the argument that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit used to condemn anything and everything that might be deemed harmful to the body.

So where do I stand on this issue? If it isn’t clear by now, I think the whole equation of health and morality is simply wrong. Here’s why.

First, our bodies are temporary and are meant to be used, not worshiped Countless saints were extremely hard on their bodies, disciplining them rigorously with fasting and penance. Even St. Paul said, “I beat my body and subdue it.” St. Francis famously referred to his body as “brother ass,” wearing it out with fasts and mortifications.

These ascetical practices of the saints horrify the modern advocates of health, and in fact, I have seen Catholics go to great lengths to dismiss them as ignorant and misguided. But the fact remains that the saints had little use for their bodies, and in many ways viewed them as disposable. St. John Vianney sums up the attitude of the saints well, “Our body is a vessel of corruption; it is meant for death and for the worms, nothing more!”

How can we reconcile this attitude with the teaching that our bodies are holy? It’s pretty simple. If you read 1 Corinthians 15 (the whole chapter is worth reading), St. Paul teaches that our present physical bodies are essentially worthless, doomed to death and corruption by the curse. In the resurrection of the dead, however, we will receive new and glorified bodies, made after the incorruptible immortality of Christ. What these glorified, spiritual bodies will be like is difficult to tell—but we know they will be holy, beautiful, and eternal.

The saints knew this theology well, and so they didn’t take their earthly bodies that seriously. They used them and even abused them to a degree, knowing that they were entirely temporary and would be replaced with an upgraded model, so to speak. Now, obviously, asceticism and smoking are two different things, and I do not mean to equate them. My point is that, like the saints, we shouldn’t take our present bodies too seriously, pampering them or treating them as somehow of the same value as our souls. Our eternal souls are infinitely more valuable than these temporary bodies. Whether you’re a triathlete or a chain smoker, your present body is going to rot and return to the dust—but your soul will live forever.

Second, being unhealthy is essentially impossible to avoid. The problem with the modern health advocates is that wield the weapon of health selectively, condemning things they don’t like, such as smoking or drinking, while turning a blind eye to other unhealthy aspects of modern life. Those who vehemently condemn cigarettes see no moral problem with eating cheeseburgers, consuming high quantities of refined sugar, eating preservative-laden processed foods, drinking soda, breathing polluted air, using shampoo loaded with harmful chemicals, and the list goes on.

All of those things are dangerous to our health, and almost all of them escape the condemnation of the health advocates. If one were to be perfectly consistent, one would do nothing but live in a paralyzed fear of damaging one’s health. I admit there are certainly those who are consistent (my wife and I used to read the popular blog of a woman who was), but their fixation on healthiness borders on a highly unhealthy Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, in which everything is suspect and dangerous and to be feared.

But what is health anyway? Even if you were to make health your goal, health is a moving target and almost no one knows what it really is. If you ask one person, it’s using all natural and organic products. Another will say it involves eating a diet high in protein rich meat, but without dairy or grains. If you ask another person, it involves eating only plants and grains. One person says raw milk is best, another claims it is a deadly poison loaded with bacteria. The literally hundreds of specialized diets in existence, many of them contradicting each other, are enough to make one insane. Healthiness cannot be intrinsically moral because no one knows what it is.

The Heart of the Matter

Finally, Jesus makes it quite clear that morality comes from the heart. A cigarette smoker who loves God and neighbor and who lives a full sacramental life has a far better chance of heaven than one who eats all organic whole foods but who has rebelled against the law of God, embracing the corrupt values of this world.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day strictly obeyed the Mosaic law on food. There was nothing wrong with their observance of this law. But the problem was, the Pharisees began to equate eating a certain diet with internal holiness. Jesus roundly condemned this idea.

“And he called the people to him and said to them, ‘Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.'”

The Pharisees were angered by this teaching. To them, it was inconceivable that one could both be holy and eat an unclean food like pork. Bacon? Blasphemy! Yet the words of Jesus were clear—what we eat or drink cannot be intrinsically immoral. As St. Paul teaches, “To the pure, all things are pure.”

Virtue is the key

If you’ve read what I have written thus far, you may think I am advocating carelessness and recklessness when it comes to health. I truly am not. I am simply trying to counteract what I believe to be an unhealthy fixation on the health and fitness of our temporal bodies. So what’s the solution? How should we as Catholics treat unhealthy things?

The answer is simple: We should enjoy them virtuously. By virtuous enjoyment, I mean we should exercise both prudence and temperance. We must be prudent with our health in the sense that almost all of us have obligations to others. As a husband and father, it is not prudent for me to chain smoke three packs a day or binge drink every night. Doing so would unquestionably destroy my health, and I would not be able to care for my family as I ought to. A cloistered monk, on the other hand, does not have such obligations, and so he may be able to fast more rigorously and be harder on his body than a layman with a family.

Similarly, we must be temperate. Intemperance is almost always harmful, whether that involves fatty foods like potato chips, tobacco, or even using the internet or watching TV. Moderation in all things should be our rule. We are called to enjoy things without loving them, to use things without growing attached to them. The virtue of temperance helps us keep all things—even unhealthy things—in their proper place. Above all, we should give thanks to God, our loving Father, who “gives us all things richly to enjoy.”

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