Healing The Wounds Of Acedia (Sloth)

Recalling a past dream in the last entry has brought to light an awareness of the dreamer's current tenuous spiritual connection with the Almighty One.  Although love is still present, it has lost part of its fervor.  When indifference begins to fill the cracks of a broken love, the relationship is no longer a fulfilling one.  As God retreats further and further into the distance, the emptiness within becomes more and more prominent.

Unfulfillment is a dreaded pain, and is often masked by denial, pretense, sarcasm, envy, jealousy and rage and the like on the one hand, and addictions to work, shopping, possessions, food, sex, drugs, alcohol, politics, amusements and myriad other forms of consumption on the other.  Living a cocktail of such actions seems to lead one to think that one is content but in actuality, the interior peace that comes with true fulfillment remains elusive to the soul.

A loss of connection between man and the Prince of Peace is often overlooked as the cause of upheavals in one's life and turmoils in the world.  As man assiduously looks for worldly means to quell stresses in his life and unrests in society, he is doing exactly what a sloth does spiritually--nothing.

In the words of Kathleen Norris, who was mentioned in an article written in the Los Angeles Times, "'We appear to be anything but slothful, yet that is exactly what we are, as we do more and care less, and feel pressured to do still more.'" [1]

Similarly, Catholic Online had this to say: "Sloth can masquerade as tolerance.  It can also be very busy, but the activity of the slothful leads nowhere, simply marking time in a life that has no ultimate purpose.  Many of the slothful end up in despair, a hopelessness that is distinct from clinical depression requiring medical attention." [2]

The Los Angeles Times article continued to quote Norris: "'I would suggest that while depression is an illness treatable by counseling and medication, acedia is a vice that is best countered by spiritual practice and the discipline of prayer."' [3]

Catholic Online agreed.  "The darkest side of sloth...is its distaste for worship and prayer.  Sometimes this aversion strikes at a very advanced stage of the spiritual life, but for most of us, it shows itself early on, after the euphoria of conversion or the sweetness of prayer wears off." [4]  Or, when ennui sets in from time to time in the way one's spiritual life ebbs and flows.

In order to overcome acedia, Catholic Online recommended "spend[ing] time in prayer, at least a half an hour every day." [5] And, "[a]bove all, do not skip Mass or forsake the Sacrament of Confession.  It is precisely these life-giving Sacraments that sloth most tempts us to abandon." [6]

This blogger agrees, and adds that acedia can be healed only when one is still in the flesh, and that the cure begins first in the mind where one's imagination resides.  To clear away the clutter that is clogging free-flowing channels to and from Heaven through which communication can be frequent and instantaneous, it is necessary to step back in time, not in the physical sense but in one's imagination.

Since every one's imagination is ageless, it is never too late to be young and innocent again.  All it takes is for one to want to start over, to walk into a church as if it were the first time every time  and re-live the moment of awe and reverence, and let go of the indifference and receive again inner peace's welcoming and unconditional embrace, leading in turn to the opening of the wounds of love for the living Christ in the Eucharist to enter, in that they can be healed for the love of God to once again thrive, and the fervor to love God in return to rekindle.

Knowing the formula to treat acedia does not mean it is simple to do.  If acedia can be eliminated this easily, it would not be classified as one of the seven deadly sins [7].  It is a deadly sin precisely because it cannot be excised without spiritual determination, persistence of prayer and divine assistance for Satan has already entered those who are slothful.  It will take a miracle for this blogger to be released from sloth's stranglehold except that the strength of the miracle needed is being slowly attenuated by the increasing distance sloth is placing between him and the Church, the confessional and the Eucharist. [8]


[1] http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-kathleen-norris21-2008sep21-story.html
[2] http://www.catholic.org/clife/lent/story.php?id=32656
[3] http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-kathleen-norris21-2008sep21-story.html
[4] http://www.catholic.org/clife/lent/story.php?id=32656
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] http://www.deadlysins.com/sloth/
[8] The hypocrisy of the Catholic church certainly does not make it easy for a sheep that has strayed to return to many of its similarly hypocritical shepherd priests.  In the interim, while this blogger struggles with his acedia, the recitation of the rosary will hopefully mitigate against its dreadful consequences.