In titling this post I was primarily regarding my own experience, specifically with regards to this awful-lousy-no-good-bery-bad whole food / plant based diet I've been trying out. My intentions were good--to cut out animal products, eggs, dairy, oil etc, for my health and heart--and the science seems to back it up.
But my inner foodie-concupiscence has been rearing up. I started out well for the first few weeks--lots of leafy greens, beans and legumes, quinoa, sweet potatoes, vegetables, etc. Then I got kind of...bored. I would catch my self grouchily thinking "I just want a freaking burger, is that so wrong?"
Admittedly, I hadn't acquired a good habit of "eating clean," so it felt onerous. I would get cases of the "F-its" more frequently, where I would just throw out my good intentions, knowing whatever it was I was going to eat was not especially healthy. A book I listened to on audiobook about this diet extolled how it can extend your life for years. I was thinking to myself, "why would I want to do that, when this doesn't feel like living at all?" Ha.
I always go back to the pivotal epistle of St. Paul (Romans 8) when it comes to this mystery of knowing the good and being unable (or unwilling) to carry it out with regard to sin. "I do that which I do not want to do." When I would teach and give lessons in the prison, I would read from Romans often. So many of the guys in there seem to know what is good and simply feel unable to carry it out based on their past or their lack of acquired virtue and good habits.
St. Thomas defines virtue as a good habit bearing on activity. But it was interesting to me to realize that Aristotle was wrestling with this as well way before that, before Christ, as he said, "it is no easy task to be good." I only read that after titling this post, but it affirmed this consistent struggle with concupiscence that affects all men and Christians, from the sinner straight up the saint.
According to Aristotle, the aim of all virtue is the mean, to avoid what he calls the "excess and defect;" ie, too much or too little. Excess would be considered "a form of failure, and so is defect, while the intermediate is praised and is a form of success."
For St. Thomas, "the act of virtue is nothing else than the good use of free will." Knowing the good comes from grace, from the Holy Spirit, and from the teachings of Christ, the Church, and the Commandments. Carrying out the good is within our power when we cooperate with grace, but this is where habit comes in.
I have always regarded our inherent concupiscence as the attraction which takes resistence to overcome; that our natural inclination deep within is towards what is good, true, and holy; but that because of the Fall, we are like leaves that float where the current takes them because...well, let's face it, it's easier to 'go with the flow.' Acquiring virtue is arduous, because it depends on the work of developing habit, and it is called work for a reason. To know something is possible--our sanctification--does not make it immediately attainable. If it was, why would our Lord say the "straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth to life, and few find it?" (Mt 7:14).
I love St. Philip Neri's exhortation to his followers: "Well, brothers, when will we begin to do good?" This is the essence of our work, our habit, and our calling as Christians: to acquire virtue not as an end in itself, but to carry out the work of the Lord in our own lives, and to show others the way as well. He gives us the grace to "be good" (ie, virtuous) because "those who ask, receive" (Mt 7:7). To do so leads to our own happiness in this life, even when we suffer, and sets us up for it in the next life as well.
The 'work' of Christian living is knowing that what is not always pleasant or pleasing to the senses is often in effect good for the soul, and so our task in overcoming concupiscence by the exercise of the will (the work) helps to develop this good habit St. Thomas talks about so that we begin to love the pursuit of virtue, rather than seeing it as something onerous to overcome. In the spiritual life, St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila speak of perfect union with God in the seventh mansion as the point in which the gravitational pull of sin loosens and rather than being subject to the strengths and wily nature of the tempting demons, the demons rather fear the saint and leave them alone. We may perhaps draw the same analogy when virtue has become perfected in a soul, that it is practiced out of love, rather than by grit, because of both habit and grace.
Whether it's a diet or trying to remain in a state of grace, we need to be mindful of the "F-It"s that bubble when we "grow weary of doing good." It can drive us outside of the means Aristotle references, to the antithetent vices opposed to temperance, prudence, liberality, etc. This is the struggle for me in dieting, of course (JUST GIVE ME THE BURGER!), but also in my prayer life where I may be tempted towards apathy, or doubt, and falling out of the good habit of regular prayer, spiritual reading, and intimacy with the Lord; or in falling into one minor sin, we figure "well, might as well go big or go home at this point!" The Devil will leverage this thinking and our propensity towards concupiscence, against us. How hard it is to be good! But then again, all things worth something, cost something.
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