It is well to remember that monastic asceticism is less about denying oneself pleasure and embracing hardship, and more about reestablishing that original God-intended harmony between the body and the soul, and the spirit and the flesh. Our reading from Proverbs expresses this goal in terms of seeking neither poverty nor riches, but only the food we need. In similar vein, the Catholic Economist, Ernst Schumacher, asks how we can disarm greed and envy. He responds by saying that perhaps we can do this by being less greedy and envious ourselves; perhaps by resisting the temptation of letting our luxuries become needs; and perhaps by even scrutinizing our needs to see if they cannot be simplified and reduced. What he describes is the work of asceticism—one that is all too easily neglected. As a result, luxuries do become needs, but at the price of reduced inner freedom and disharmony between the spirit and the flesh, the body and the soul. Thus, a good opportunity to review our own ascetic practices and recommit to these time-honored means of cooperating with God’s grace in the transforming work of ongoing conversion and deepening union with God.