I eat too much to die
And not enough to stay alive
I'm sitting in the middle waiting...
While surfing the "World Wide Web" I stumbled upon the fascinating subject of
Anorexia Mirabilis. I've kind of been sadistically reading about this for days so bear with the length of the post.
The phrase Anorexia Mirabilis literally translates to "
miraculous lack of appetite."
During the 13th century there was an emergence of religious movements that desired to focus on the bodily aspects of Christ's humanity.
Women were particularly devoted to this type of worship with their wish to "connect" with the suffering of the crucified Christ.
These "miraculous maids" practiced what was is now referred to as "
holy anorexia" which was a self-imposed starvation.
In in effort to prove that they did not need food to survive, these saints would push their bodies to the edge of self destruction. They saw themselves as having a sort of erotic, mystical marriage with Christ; a metaphysical becoming "one" with God.
Here a quick look at some of the pro-ana perpetraters:
St. Catherine of Siena
'I say to you that many times, when I did what I could, then I look into myself to understand my infirmity and the goodness of God who by a most singular mercy allowed me to correct the vice of gluttony. It saddens me greatly that I did not correct this weakness myself for love.'
-St Catherine, beating herself up in 1373Catherine is one of the more well known and written about Holy Anorexics.
She believed that she was actually rendered physically
incapable of eating by God and claimed that her throat automatically closed itself off to food.
"God did not make me eat to correct the depravity of my throat. I pray in order to return to eat, but it is His wish for my expiation in this way."So as not to cause scandal, she sometimes ate a little vegetables or fruit but would turn around and spit it up. If she accidentally swallowed a morsel of food, she would prod her throat with a stick or goose feather until it she threw it up. She referred to this as "doing justice."
"We do justice for our miserable sins."She was once witnessed drinking the pus from one of her patients and described it as being the most "sweet and savory" sustenance she had ever consumed.
Apparently that night, Christ rewarded her by letting her drink blood from his side.
ooooooooookkkkkkkaaaaaaaaaaayyyy
She died of starvation at the age of 33.
Oh yeah, she is also an
Incorruptible:
Saint Rose of Lima
Turns out Catherine was very "
thinspirational" to the other female saints who followed her.
Saint Rose turned up the self-torture a notch with extreme fasting and secret, severe penances for slipping up.
She also partook in the Catherine-esque practice of ingesting excretions from the sick she tended to. She once drank a dish of rotting
blood.
Rose wouldn't eat for days and when she was too weak to stand, she would lie in a homemade bed of broken glass, stones and thorns.
She also wore a crown of metal spikes and disfigured her face with pepper and lye because she was so distraught with her own beauty.
(I can TOTALLLY relate to that)
Beatrice of NazarethSorry this picture is lame; I searched long and hard and this is all I could come up with:
Beatrice was so devoted to the Eucharist that she was prone to collapsing and spontaneous bleeding. What's a "
you-ka-rest" you non-religious types are wondering?
It is the Christian ritual of eating bread or Communion which represents Christ's body. It is like literally eating Jesus.
These women felt that all they really needed to survive was to be as close to Christ as possible and that eating his body (bread) and drinking his blood (wine) was enough to sustain their lives.
Beatrice practiced other severe austerities such as wearing a girdle of
thorns or compressing her body with tight cords.
My socks are itchy.....
Saint Margaret of Cortona"I want to die of starvation to satiate the poor."
Saint Margaret claimed she was frequently instructed by the voice of Christ to maintain starvation.
She was a former sexual sinner (their words, not mine) who was molded into the second coming of
Mary Magdalen by her shady "spiritual advisor" Father Giunta. Basically, she was manipulated into a constant cycle of guilt and self-punishment over her licentious past.
Margaret was the embodiment of a sexual miscreant who became sexless; a horrible sinner who was transformed into a blessed penitent.
Through her rituals of graphic mutilation and starvation, she was the model for self purification and the ability to overcome "female weakness."
What we have here is a simple case of
male projection....women are inherently sinful and should atone for their sins. Fuck!
In retrospect, Margaret seems to have been a manageable, controllable figure who was essentially an instrument of propaganda against her own sex.
Saint Mary Magdalena de Pazzi
Saint Mary, who lived off a meager diet of bread and water, actually succumbed to an early death due to self mortification and self starvation.
She was know to binge and purge, claiming it was the work of the devil.
Guilt=Eating=Puking=Guilt=Eating....................................
Mary of Oignies
Mary had such a particular abhorrence of her own body that she would cut off pieces of her flesh to rid herself of worldly desires.
And uh... she didn't eat meat. I kind of feel like barfing right now.
Columba of Rieti
Columba also inflicted torture upon her body. There is a story that she turned off would be rapists after they discovered her breasts which she had severely mutilated with spiked whipping chains.
She eventually died of starvation at the age of 34.
Angela of Foligno
Angela claimed to have had an intense mystical marriage with Christ.
After her husband, children and mother died, she became a penitent beggar who was devoted to helping the sick.
She supposedly once drank water which had bathed the rotting flesh of lepers.
When a leprous scab became lodged in her throat she declared that it tasted "as sweet as communion."
Often saints would eat the pus or lice from patients bodies to feel completely connected to the sick.
Saint Veronica
Saint Veronica was a Holy Bulimic?? who was often found binging in the kitchen....
She experienced intense spiritual suffering, receiving both the bleeding impression of a crown of thorns and the
five wounds of Christ.
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Why was Holy Anorexia so happenin' during this time period?
Obviously, religious zeal was in hyper-drive and women were soul-corrupting, second class citizens.
The body of a woman was seen as an expression of sexuality that needed repressing; the male body was formed by God after all. Ever since Eve convinced Adam to take a bite of that damn forbidden apple, women have had issues with food.
On the flip side of this, becoming a nun was a way for a woman to escape her destiny as a bare- foot and pregnant housewife.
In some cases, they likely feared the sexual development which would signal a readiness for marriage.
Anorexia is known to stunt physical development....just a theory.
Eventually, Holy Anorexia fell out of favor with the onset of Protestantism which deemed the behavior the work of Satan.
In place of religious transcendence and mystic themes, anorexia has taken on secular implications with motives and values related to modern beauty ideals.........
Whew! We solved that one!!!!!!!!!!
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On a side note, check out this Christian weight-loss site:
Weigh Down WorkshopTheir biblical angle is that 'excessive eating is selfishness, and selfishness is a sin.'
Apparently this workshop is a global phenomena with 30 000 locations in 70 countries.
It aims to "help people understand how God can change their hearts so that they can be delivered from the slavery of yielding to the world and its temptations"
hmmmmmmm
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I lifted these quotes from a pro-ana site:
"my workout was fabulous...i almost puked twice! and i kept going. champ.""For how long does the food stay in your stomach before it gets digested? Like when is it too late to purge after you've binged?"
"I might not be happy, but I'm never going to be happy... I'll be thin instead.""Off out to my best friends BBQ birthday party. As if today couldn't get any worse!""Food is horrible...it's driving me crazy and I'm writing down everything that passes my lips again and just looking at the list kills me.""i have been fasting for a week, and my thighs are getting smaller, but ugh...i just want them to be like...pencilllllsssssssss !!!!!!!!!!!!! i cant wait >."
"Fuck me, i am going to get fatter and fatter if i cant stop this! Im out of control! I am dying to stuff my fat ugly face!"
"i hear all of you girls who hate it when your parents make you eat!"
"I nearly went into recovery and possibly would have been referred for inpatient treatment on monday. NO WAY am I listening anymore and letting these people make me fat."
"i really want to be thin and small, like i was when i was little...i actually miss my childhood so much...that sometimes i want to just disappear."
