MOST of the saints depicted in our churches and in the works of
famous artists are united not only in their sanctity, but by the
fact that they are all apparently perfectly built. They gaze down
on us benignly with their promise of prayers, without a hint of
double chins or rounded bellies, modelling a perfection - both
spiritual and physical - that we must strive to attain.
This dovetails nicely with prevailing secular beliefs about the
body beautiful - and also with the skewed misconception that Lent
is as much about weight loss as it is about prayer. It seems that
we instinctively associate holiness with skinniness, and vice
versa.
The "theologian's theologian", St Thomas Aquinas, is the
exception who proves the saintly rule, and he must have known what
it was to be suspected of over-indulgence, although it appears more
likely that he suffered from a metabolic disorder. He was
reportedly so colossally fat that his Dominican brethren cut a
semicircle out of their refectory table to enable him to reach his
meals (though G. K. Chesterton called this a "sublime
exaggeration", and suggested that this was a story that the Angelic
Doctor might well have told against himself). In any case, Aquinas
argued that gluttony was a venial sin rather than a deadly one.
More typical, if we are inclined to associate sanctity with
asceticism, is the 18th-century Redemptorist St Alphonsus Liguori,
who claimed that "excess in eating is the cause of almost all the
diseases of the body, but its effects on the soul are even more
disastrous." But both saints would have agreed about the spiritual
dangers: even Aquinas taught that "irrational feeding darkens the
soul." "Irrational" feeding might include the habits of St
Catherine of Siena and other medieval mystics, who starved
themselves - in ways that we would now consider dangerous - for, or
so they believed, the glory of God.
THE recent exhibition of the work of Rubens at the Royal Academy
(Review, 30 January)
should act as a corrective to any obsession with the need to be
stick-thin in order to appear beautiful. When Rubens was not
painting true-to-life portraits of sitters, he seems to have let
his fondness for the larger lady - what Are You Being
Served's Mrs Slocombe called "Junoesque" - run wild. His
Three Graces of 1639 is typical: all fleshy folds, saggy
thighs, and wobbly bottoms, and yet still beautiful, charming, and
joyful.
Perhaps Rubens's contemporary successor is the Colombian artist
Fernando Botero, who has made a life's work of portraying
overweight subjects. This includes depictions of our Lord - even
crucifixion scenes - in which Christ appears, to put it bluntly, as
a very fat man indeed. Judged by Alphonsus Liguori's doctrine,
Botero's paintings appear sacrilegious. Should we be shocked by
this? Other cultures have freely appropriated the features of
Christ and the saints (Feature, 19 December 2014), and it seems
only reasonable that those who are overweight should also be able
to identify with the incarnate Son of the God, in whose image we
are all made.
TEMPERANCE, or self-control, may be one of the fruits of the
Spirit, but scripture also encourages us to celebrate the abundance
of Creation. Isaiah prophesied "a feast of fat things, a feast of
wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees
well refined" (Isaiah 25.6). St Matthew compares the Kingdom of
heaven to a great banquet (Matthew 22.2), and, with St Luke, makes
a point of noting that the Son of Man comes "eating and drinking"
(Matthew 11.19; Luke 7.34).
In the miracle of the wedding at Cana (John 2.1-11), St John
presents a number of images of the Kingdom of God, including the
wedding banquet (a precursor of the marriage-feast of the Lamb in
Revelation 19.7b). When the six ritual-purification jars are put to
new-covenant use, we are told that those jars are filled to the
brim; and the water becomes not just any old plonk, but the finest
vintage wine - delicious, addictive, strong, and calorific.
Even St Paul - for all his body-as-temple emphasis in 1
Corinthians - told Timothy to drink less water and more wine (1
Timothy 5.23), and urged the Romans to avoid criticising the
trencherman: "Let not him who abstains pass judgement on him who
eats" (Romans 14.3b).
PEOPLE fast for many reasons: as an exercise in self-discipline,
or in prayerful solidarity with those who do not have enough, for
example; or to make better use of the earth's resources. For
Christians, however, it is not legitimate to fast because of a
misconception that delicious food and drink are in some way not
part of God's generous plan - that would be heresy.
On Refreshment Sunday, and as we look ahead to the treats of
Easter, we should remind ourselves that enjoyment of abundance can
also have a place in the Christian life. God will continue to
delight in us, whatever our shape; for our diverse forms speak to
others of the contradictory and kaleidoscopic nature of the image
of God. Heaven, after all, must be full of saints of all shapes and
sizes.
Dr Ben Stephens is a freelance writer and
theologian.