Catechumens: It is difficult to write of excess in a culture in which we slather our foods with gravy and sauces and oils and sugars. Everything must be seasoned and coated and drowned in stimulation and titillation. It is folly to write of it while smoking like a coal engine, drinking caffeine like any drug addict, and sucking down soda, desserts, and rich foods like a pagan king in a city aflame and at its foul end. I cannot do it. I can only say that I know that I live in this city, and that it is a time on the brink of death.
Master, let me not be found at the Altar of Excess, blind to Your coming at the end, and blind to Your coming every day. I came to You and asked, “Lord, what must I do to me saved?” And You said to me, ‘Sell this world of excess back to the world, and concern yourself with your brethren, the poor.’ But I, desiring to always be full, went away empty, because I am the rich man. – Catechetical Letter 12/28/2005
For in our bodies too all distempers arise from excess; and when the elements thereof leave their proper limits, and go on beyond moderation, then all these countless diseases are generated, and grievous kinds of death. — St. John Chrysostom