By Tom Thomas –
The Holy Father, Pope Francis continues to focus on the vices. This time it is on Acedia, a most appropriate topic as we head into the desert season of Lent. In the General Audience of 14 February 2024, the Holy Father says, “Among all the capital sins there is one that is often overlooked, perhaps because of its name, which is often incomprehensible to many: I am talking about acedia. Therefore, in the list of vices, the term acedia is often substituted by another, much more commonly used: sloth, or laziness. In reality, laziness is an effect more than a cause. When a person is idle, indolent, apathetic, we say he is lazy. But as the wisdom of the ancient desert fathers teaches us, often the root of this laziness is acedia, which from its Greek origin literally means a “lack of care”.”
Acedia
There is a term for this condition and it is called Acedia (pronounced asi-dee-aah).
Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) has to say about it: “Another temptation, to which presumption opens the gate, is acedia. The spiritual writers understand by this a form of depression due to lax ascetical practice, decreasing vigilance, carelessness of heart. “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The greater the height, the harder the fall. Painful as discouragement is, it is the reverse of presumption. The humble are not surprised by their distress; it leads them to trust more, to hold fast in constancy (CCC. 2733).
The New Catholic Encyclopaedia defines it as, “The loneliness of the hermitage in the barren desert, a body worn out by fasting, and a mind fatigued by long prayers were conditions calculated to bring on the ennui and restlessness that was called acedia.”
History
Evagrius, the monk who lived in fourth century AD was the first to compile a list of the eight temptations which, after various revisions over time, became known as the seven deadly sins against which Christians are exhorted to battle against. Acedia, which was recorded to have been mentioned by him first, is equated to sloth or laziness.
Here is what Evagrius has to say: “The demon of acedia, also called the noonday demon, is the most oppressive of all the demons. He attacks the monk about the fourth hour and besieges his soul until the eighth hour. First of all, he makes it appear that the sun moves slowly or not at all, and that the day seems to be fifty hours long. Then he compels the monk to look constantly towards the windows, to jump out of the cell, to watch the sun to see how far it is from the ninth hour, to look this way and that.”
Symtoms of Acedia
The symptoms of the disease are restlessness, drifting and indifference, a deep feeling of “disconnectedness” with everything. But it is actually the shadow side of every commitment. In it the potentialities are negated by the yes that made one a Christian, a husband, a wife, a priest, a monk, a nun, a religious or a celibate person.
Acedia brings with it, therefore, the torture of second thoughts, daydreams of what might have been, and complaints about what is. This spiritual malaise has these inevitable symptoms: laziness, sleepiness, melancholy, nausea, sadness and lack of enthusiasm and motivation. Acedia is a sort of asphyxiation or suffocation of the spirit that leads us to suffer unhappiness that causes so much discontentment emotionally, socially and work-related.
Remedy for Acedia
Evagrius believed that Acedia needed to be overcome by Perseverance (cutting off such thoughts as soon as they occur) through the reading of Sacred Scripture, tears, and physical labour.
He suggests in his work “Eight Thoughts: “ Set a measure for yourself in every work and do not let up until you have completed it. Pray with understanding and intensity, and the spirit of Acedia will flee from you.
Evagrius’ work was brought to the West by his faithful disciple, John Cassian. Pope Gregory 1, adopted the teachings of John Cassian, and the noted theologian St Thomas Aquinas, refined this in the 13th Century in his seminal work “ Summa Theologica “into the seven deadly sins as we know them today. The Catechism of the Catholic Church follows this same list today with the only terminology change being “Pride” replacing “Vainglory.”
Holy Father Pope Francis says on this topic, “Faced with this vice, which we recognize to be very dangerous, the masters of spirituality envisage various remedies. I would like to note one that to me seems most important, and which I would call the patience of faith. Although in the clutches of acedia, man’s desire is to be “elsewhere”, to escape from reality, one must instead have the courage to remain and to welcome God’s presence in the “here and now”, in the situation as it is. The monks say that for them the cell is the best teacher of life, because it is the place that concretely and daily speaks to you of your love story with the Lord. The demon of acedia wants precisely to destroy this simple joy of the here and now, this grateful wonder of reality; it wants to make you believe that it is all in vain, that nothing has meaning, that it is not worth taking care of anything or anyone. In life we meet slothful people, people about whom we say, “He is boring!”, and we do not like to be with them; people who even have an attitude of boredom that is infectious. This is Acedia.
How many people, in the grip of acedia, stirred by a faceless restlessness, have stupidly abandoned the good life they had embarked upon! The battle of Acedia is a decisive one, that must be won at all costs. And it is a battle that did not spare even the saints, because in many of their diaries there are some pages that confide terrible moments, of genuine nights of faith, when everything appears dark. These saints teach us to get through the night with patience, accepting the poverty of faith. They recommended, under the oppression of sloth, to maintain a smaller measure of commitment, to set goals more within reach, but at the same time to endure and persevere by leaning on Jesus, who never abandons us in temptation.”
The solution that the desert fathers suggest is also to contradict sloth head-on. This is a hard teaching, but a universal one: if we give way to sloth in order to ease its pressure on us, if we allow ourselves to behave according to the feelings of inner spiritual deadness, it will only get worse.
This is an experiential wisdom coming to us directly from those great ammas and abbas of the Egyptian desert who lived their whole lives out in that harsh solitude. It is confirmed in the experience of thousands of spiritual practitioners since then. If we leave our spiritual practices to find someone to chat with in order to ease the burden of sloth, or if we indulge in fantasies about all the good works we could be doing elsewhere, or if we indulge in obsessive, negative thoughts about the community we are in, either in our families, or our particular life situations—if we idealise states of life other than our own, or if we give in to physical torpor—these will only get worse, and drive us into deeper irritation and laziness, and cause us to be busybodies. Eventually, we will lose our zeal and commitment to the contemplative journey.
The Church provides a series of exercises, some simple and some complex, to enable people of all kinds to live a life of self-awareness. At its best, these spiritual exercises enabled people to remain self-aware, especially through the examination of conscience.
In summary, these words of the Holy Father provide understanding on the impact of our Faith when struggling with this vice, “Faith, tormented by the test of acedia, does not lose its value. On the contrary, it is the true faith, the very human faith, which despite everything, despite the darkness that blinds it, still humbly believes. It is that faith that remains in the heart, like embers beneath the ashes. It always remains. And if one of us falls prey to this vice, or to the temptation of acedia, try to look within and fan the embers of faith; that is how we keep going.”
Lord, help us to keep going.