Address to members of the Supreme Council, September 22, 2018.
Supreme Director,
Substantive Past Supreme Knights,
Supreme Knight
Past Supreme Knights,
Deputy Supreme Knight,
Worthy Brothers,
Regional Grand Knights,
Grand Knights,
Dear Brothers.
When I had the opportunity to give the key note address to brothers and sisters of the Ashanti-East and Ashanti-South Denkyira Regional Conferences last year, I suggested that to foster fraternity which is one of the hallmarks of the Noble Order, we must be able to address issues that face us as brothers and sisters in a brotherly and sisterly but frank way. We must be able to purify our thoughts and actions.
I further mentioned that to grow in love, we must be ready to cleanse our lives of anything that could hurt us as a group and or individuals. It is the frank counsel of brothers and sisters who are confident enough of their relationship with us that can tell us areas of our lives where we need to improve. One of life’s greatest blessings is a friend who is not afraid to tell us the truth even when it is painful. One of the greatest services we can provide a genuine friend is honestly letting him/her know of a concern we have about him/her.
I also suggested that our reputation with the people outside the Noble Order needed to be looked at. I urged that we need to do all we can to assure our public good name, for we are a noble order. This is quite different from simply affirming our membership. I had in mind here making sure that people couldn’t use we ourselves either individually or collectively, as weapons against us in our parishes and elsewhere. We were not to allow people to knock our heads against each other.
Even though we shall never achieve perfection in this area, it deserves our most serious attention. If I try to see to it that you have a good name among the people and you try to see to it that I do as well, then our fraternity would have been well protected. Where we may have some question about each other regarding anything, I mentioned that we should use the avenue of speaking to ourselves more directly for our own good to keep each other from looking foolish, in the eyes of others. We owe this honesty, spoken in charity to one another for our own sake and the upholding of our fraternity.
It is in the light of these that when the Supreme Knight asked me to deliver a short address in place of our Supreme Spiritual Director, on any subject, I have chosen to speak on our behavior and conduct in public and gatherings as knights. I have chosen this for our consideration because I understand that some of these issues came up at the last Reunion Conference in Accra. I understand that it was a great concern of some members that at our gatherings and some other events we as knights drink and eat too much. I understand that there were some ill-feelings amongst brothers that some of us are in illicit amorous relationships within the Marshallan fraternity. I have heard some of these allegations before, from well-meaning parishioners, even before I joined the Noble Order.
I bring these up for our serious consideration with a great sense of humility and fraternal sentiments. I do not claim to have been immaculately conceived nor am I perfect. I do so as a sinner and a pilgrim brother with you towards the living out of our motto and ultimately towards salvation.
I know it might make some of us feel uncomfortable, but please do not get me wrong. If we do not consider them they can easily mislead others and weaken our unity. Assuming without admitting that these are true we still need to consider them seriously and advise ourselves as brothers. I know that all of us herein gathered are honorable and noble men. We command great respect from people. We support very good initiatives and take good stands in various issues in our respective countries and communities to the admiration of some of our people.
However, the rank and file of our membership at the lower level may not realize the high level and disciplined quality of life to which we have been called as members of the Noble Order. They may have been attracted to join us only because of our regalia and neat appearance. So they do not care about how, where, when and what they eat and drink, let alone how much.
Eating and drinking too much is gluttony which is the excessive desire for food and alcoholic beverages. There are several biblical references that warn against too much drinking. From Genesis 9:21 ff where Noah’s nakedness is exposed to his sons while he was drunk and asleep, to what some scholars suspect may have caused John the Baptist losing his head since King Herod was drunk at a party (Mark 6: 21). There are strong warnings against those who from early morning hours go in search of strong drink and stay up late at night inflamed with wine (Isaiah 5:11). When the book of Proverbs has described the effects of too much wine as recklessness, strong drink as quarrelsomeness and called those who are seduced by them as unwise (Prov. 20:1), the same book says, don’t follow those who drink too much (Prov. 23:20). St Paul even says drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God (1Cor. 6:10).
There may not be any deep analysis of this problem in the papal magisterium of the Church as some have argued but gluttony is mentioned in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as one of the capital vices (CCC 1866). The angelic doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas says “eating and drinking are gluttonous when one knowingly exceeds his measure from desire for pleasure” Aquinas teaches that behind this vice is the “desire for pleasure”. Thomas cites St. Gregory the Great who says: “Because in eating and drinking, pleasure is blended with necessity, we fail to discern what necessity itself demands and what pleasure secretly demands.”
St. Thomas admits that the most difficult desire to regulate is that for pleasure, especially natural and necessary pleasures associated with daily life such as food and drink and sex without which human life cannot stay in existence or be passed on to future generations. However, he argues that the sin of gluttony which exceeds (or exceeding) the rule of reason, consists in “an inordinate desire of eating and drinking”. In his Summa Theologiae St. Thomas Aquinas says when anyone makes the desire for pleasures of the palate an end in itself he will be prepared to break God’s commandments in order to find his pleasure (Bk 11-11 148, 2). This is what makes this sin mortal.
Aquinas says since gluttony is about an outstanding pleasure of the body, it is by default a capital sin spawning five other sins. Because immoderate eating and drinking blunts the sharpness of thinking, what follows by way of actions are not reasonable. He calls them the daughters of gluttony. The first daughter is called uncleanness of body, which in the Summa refers to any kind of sexual incontinence. The second is called dullness of the senses and defect of understanding which should rule the soul, caused by too much food and drink. The third is unseemly joy whereby the emotional state of a third person becomes infected because “reason is asleep at the helm” The fourth is verbosity (idle talks) whereby one’s speech is affected because reason fails to weigh its words. The fifth is called “scurrility”, which refers to obscene language and gestures whereby someone acts like a buffoon.
Another aspect of gluttony that is sometimes lost in our modern culture is the question of the harm to the body that results from eating and drinking too much. Thomas was way ahead of his time when he wrote: “Nevertheless if someone knowingly were to inflict great harm on his own body because of his immoderate desire for food and drink by eating and drinking too much or by taking harmful foods, he would not be excused from mortal sin” (De Malo 14, 2 ad 4).
Likewise such reasoning could also be rightly applied to the excessive use of tobacco, alcohol, and other stimulants as contrary to the cardinal virtue of temperance.
If one has not learnt to curb one’s desires for the pleasures of the palate, then living as a knight can produce a series of problems in this area of life. It can set up a problem with one’s prayer life as the desire for pleasure can weaken the desire for prayer or contemplation. It is in looking at the ills of eating and drinking too much that one can see more clearly how gluttony can become a subtle enemy to the spiritual life of a knight or more so a Christian.
When we look critically at some of the effects of gluttony especially drunkenness, we get a fuller picture of the evil of gluttony. Aquinas advises that drunkenness can become a mortal sin when someone “knowingly and willingly deprives himself of the control of reason, the power of adopting what is right and rejecting what is wrong.” It can lead to lust which is an inordinate desire for sexual pleasure as an end in itself. What makes the desire inordinate is the subtle intention of the desire contrary to the goals and meaning of marriage itself.
Referencing St. Augustine, Thomas says that lust is not the fruit of beautiful and pleasing bodies but of the soul that perversely loves sensual pleasures, to the neglect of temperance and sobriety which attach us to realities far more beautiful and pleasing in their spirituality. St Thomas says there are eight effects of lust on the human spirit which we need to watch. He calls them the daughters of Lust, namely;
- Blindness of mind. When we are lustful, we lose prudence and we cannot judge right about the end of our actions.
- Thoughtlessness. One takes little or no time to think through the consequences of his actions.
- Inconstancy. A person does not remain steadfast in his decision making and becomes inconsistent.
- Temerity. One lives in the dark and can’t see the light when it is pointed out to him. He becomes unreasonable and foolhardy.
- Self-love. The person plunges into self-seeking. He judges relationships in terms of what will be gained for the self no matter what.
- Hatred of God. One withdraws from God who looks upon the behavior of lust as sinful and an offence against Him.
- Too much love for the present world. It leads one to think that happiness is and must be found here on earth alone.
- Despair of a future world. One lives with it for the sheer delight of sinning, thinking that God will reward someone regardless of what he does.
Aquinas admits that drinking leading to addiction can hamper the sway of reason even more than excessive eating of food. He adds that while drinking wine is not unlawful as such, we need to be careful because it may become so “incidentally”. He gives examples from the condition of the drinker who cannot take wine’s inebriating effects without becoming incapacitated, or whose behavour when drinking or drunk may give scandal. Thomas warns that people of greater standing in any community (and I might add our Church and our Noble Order ), need to be especially sober to fulfill their more weighty duties whether they drink in private or in public. That is what I pray for all of us.
Conclusion
I have raised these issues for our consideration that we may order our private and collective lives as members of the Noble Order, Knights and Christians. They are not to bring anybody down nor make anybody feel disappointed, but to aid us in the whole process of our growth in the life of Jesus Christ, The True Knight. They are to help us reflect on our lives as knights who are trying to live our Christian faith in imitation of Sir James Marshall, our patron, and to make our lives shine so as to give glory to our father in heaven. These thoughts are to help us keep gluttony, the excessive desire for food and alcohol, from clogging the road to holiness. Holiness does not mean running away from nature, but ordering nature according to its purpose, and we can do it.