Sloth

Acedia 

The greatest joy is to possess God the Supreme Good. The Vice that prevents us from reaching our high calling of union with God is Sloth, or Acedia

A.  Sloth is a sorrow or boredom with the spiritual life. It’s being bored with the things of God which results in a spiritual apathy or complacency

B.  This is when you don’t like spiritual things

C. Acedia is an aversion to spiritual things like prayer, Mass, talking about God and ultimate things like heaven – basically of everything that matters most.

D. It is a revulsion to the invitation from God to become godlike, to become a saint.

There are two causes and symptoms of sloth:

A.  Busyness

B.  Distraction otherwise known as idleness

Both are a kind of restlessness. When you are restless it means you are not a peace with the state of your life which is supposed to be an image of God destined for glory, to become a saint. And if you are not on that track you are going to be restless.

The way you cope with being restless is you try to take your mind off it either by busyness or distraction or entertainment (Netflix binging or the constant need for new experiences through travel)

Sloth results in the effort escape the invitation to become god-like through busyness, workaholism, entertainment, news, sports, drunkenness, drug use, pornography, or sex

From the writings of Joseph Pieper

Acedia is a sadness or sorrow that lacks courage for the great things that are proper to the nature of the Christian. It is a kind of anxious vertigo that befalls the human individual when he becomes aware of the height to which God has raised him. One who is trapped in acedia has neither the courage nor the will to be as great as he really is. He would prefer to be less great in order thus to avoid the obligation of greatness. 

Sloth is spiritual laziness that is expressed through busyness and entertainment. Our constant activity can be a distraction or escape from the primary work or purpose of life – to become a saint. After all, there’s nothing more difficult than becoming holy.

Two antidotes to sloth

A.  Rest or stillness to refocus your perspective on the purpose of life – union with God and to become a saint. Rest, Silence and Stillness to think about and remember the ultimate things: the purpose of life, union with God, that this life will end in death, this life is only a passage-way to our true homeland, Heaven. To recall the great love of Christ and God the Father for us and to think about His life presented in the Gospel.

B.  The second antidote is that we must detach – take a break from filling our pleasure of the senses of sight, sound, taste, scent and touch. We are not spiritually hungry because we are stuffed to the gills with filling the desires of the body. We need to fast from feeding the desires of the body to grow in our spiritual hunger.

Father Walter Ciszek’s book, He Leadeth Me.

Father Ciszek was an American Jesuit priest who spent 23 years in Siberian Gulags because he was accused by the Communist regime of being a Vatican spy.  Father Ciszek shared the inspirational Faith of some of his fellow prisoners who were willing to make incredible sacrifices and to risk harsh punishments for the opportunity to receive Our Lord in the Eucharist.  At that time, communicants were required to fast from midnight until receiving Communion.  Father Ciszek wrote:    

“I have seen … prisoners deprive their bodies of needed sleep in order to get up before the rising bell for a secret Mass….   We would be severely punished if we were discovered saying Mass, and there were always informers.”

“All this made it difficult to have many prisoners in attendance so we would consecrate extra bread and distribute Communion to the other prisoners when we could.  Sometimes that meant we would only see them when we returned to the barracks at night before dinner.  Yet these men would actually fast all day long and do exhausting physical labor without a bite to eat since dinner the evening before, just to be able to receive the Holy Eucharist that was how much the sacrament meant to them.”

Sloth is a lack of desire for God.

We desire lots of things: a game of golf, a pedicure, an exciting vacation…But why do we not always desire God?

Think of what those prisoners were willing to do or sacrifice or risk to receive Jesus in the Eucharist. What are you willing to do?

Jesus please give me a greater desire for you – a desire above all else.