They should take their meals not only to eat, but also to obey God, remembering that it is His Will that they use food to sustain their strength and that the food they are about to receive comes from the kind hand of their heavenly Father.
If there is anyone who is too fastidious or too greedy in eating, let him, before eating, make a good resolve invoking the grace of Our Lord in order to overcome himself courageously. Let him who is over fastidious consider the gall offered to Our Lord at the height of His bitter sufferings. Let him who is too greedy think of the abstinence and rigorous fasts of the Fathers of the desert and so many other saints who did so powerfully overcome their sensuality.
Let them not leave the table without having practised some mortification; nevertheless, they should use without hesitation or formality the food given them for the relief of their infirmities, accepting with utter indifference from the hand of Our Lord, both in meats and all other things, what they like and what they do not like.
COMMENTARY
Eating and drinking are the most material, the most animal of all our actions. Therefore, we must take care to spiritualize, supernaturalize them. We should give every morsel of food, every sip of liquid to Our Lord. We do this by the Direction of Intention before our meals. When we are about to take our meals, we should be very attentive to the Ad quid venisti? of our heavenly Father. "My child, why have you come here?" And we will answer, "Eternal Father, I have come here to continue the most holy eating and drinking of Your Divine Son and His mortification in regard to food and drink."
On the last Wednesday of His mortal life, our Blessed Savior sent His Apostles into the city of Jerusalem to ask the master of a household, "Where is the dining room in which I may eat with My disciples?" (Lk. 22:11). Every devout Christian should answer this question, "Lord, our dining room! You may eat here with those who love You."
Our Lord will then be present at our meals and bless them, as He blessed the repasts of the Gospel, those at Nazareth, at the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee, at the feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee, at the meals in the home of Mary and Martha, at the twilight supper in Emmaus, above all, the Last Supper in the Cenacle.
St. Francis de Sales wants us to find Jesus everywhere. This is the great truth of the Spiritual Directory.
Prayer for Fidelity to the Article on Meals
My Jesus, I want to continue Your most holy eating and drinking and Your most holy mortification in regard to food and drink. When I sit at table, I will occasionally glance at You as Your Blessed Mother and St. Joseph did at Nazareth, as Mary and Martha did at Bethany, as St. John and St. Peter did at the Last Supper, as the two disciples did at Emmaus. O how joyful shall all my meals be then!