This time of Lent is an opportunity for conversion and interior renewal. I invite you to take advantage of this grace and offer you a text from a catechesis by the Pope on the capital vices.
Among the capital vices, there is one that is often neglected, perhaps because of its name, which many do not understand: acedia. This is why, in the catalogue of vices, the term acedia is often replaced by another much more commonly used one laziness. In reality, laziness is more an effect than a cause. When a person is idle, indolent, apathetic, we say that he is lazy. But, as the wisdom of the desert fathers teaches, often the root of this laziness is acedia, which literally means, in Greek, ” lack of care. ” It is the lack of care for the interior life.
This is a very dangerous temptation that should not be taken lightly. The person who falls victim to it is as if crushed by a death wish: he feels disgust for everything, his relationship with God seems boring, and even the holiest acts of devotion, those which in the past had warmed his heart, now seem completely useless and the struggle against himself deprived of meaning.
Acedia is defined as the “midday demon”: it surprises us in the middle of the day, when fatigue is at its height and the hours ahead seem monotonous, impossible to live through. In a famous description the monk Evagrius represents this temptation thus “the eye of the one who is under acedia continually seeks the windows, and his fantastic mind is inhabited by its visitors. When he reads, the one who is under acedia often yawns and is easily overcome by sleep, he squints his eyes, rubs his hands and, looking away from the book, stares at the wall; then, turning them back to the book, he reads a little longer; finally, lowering his head, he places the book underneath, falls into a light sleep, until hunger wakes him”. In conclusion, “He who is under acedia does not do the work of God with care.” Today it seems that he has lost his passion that he is demotivated.
Contemporary readers see in these descriptions something very reminiscent of the evil of depression. Indeed, for those seized by acedia, life loses its meaning, praying becomes boring, every battle seems meaningless. Even if we had nurtured passions in youth, today they seem illogical to us, dreams that did not make us happy. So we let ourselves go and distraction, the absence of thought, seem like the only way out.
We can find in Iintroduction to Devout Life p. IV, ch. 12 a similar description.
Two remedies
1) Faced with this vice, which is known to be so dangerous, the masters of spirituality consider various remedies. I would like to point out the one that seems to me the most important and which I would call the patience of faith. If, under the whip of acedia, the desire of man is to be ” elsewhere “, to flee reality, one must on the contrary have the courage to remain and to welcome in my ” here and now “, in my situation as it is, the presence of God. I am not alone in my poverty; it is inhabited by
Jesus. The demon of acedia wants to destroy precisely this simple joy of the here and now; he wants you to believe that everything is vain, that nothing has meaning, that it is not worth worrying about anything or anyone.
In life we meet people who are ” under the influence of acedia, ” people about whom we say, ” How boring he is! ” and we don’t like to be with them; people who also have a contagious attitude of boredom. This is acedia.
Acedia is a decisive battle, which must be won at all costs. And it is a battle that has not spared even the saints, because in so many of their writings there are some pages that reveal terrible moments, true nights of faith, when everything seemed dark. These saints teach us to go through the night with patience, accepting the poverty of faith.
Faith, tormented by the trial of acedia, does not lose its value. On the contrary, it is true faith, the very human faith which, despite everything, despite the darkness that blinds it, still believes humbly. It is this faith which remains in the heart, like embers under the ashes. It remains forever. And if one of us falls into this vice or into the temptation of acedia, let him strive to look within himself and keep the embers of faith burning: this is how we move forward.
2) The saints also recommended that, under the oppression of acedia, we should hold a smaller measure of commitment, set ourselves more attainable goals, resist and persevere by relying on Jesus, who never gives up in temptation .
These more accessible objectives are like vital signs: pulse, blood pressure, temperature. We must take small means that express our will to live for the Lord and to convert. I advise you 3: a prayer, a virtue, a mortification. Ask the Lord what prayer he expects from you during this Lent; it can even be an ejaculatory prayer, or a moment of remembrance of his Passion. A virtue contrary to acedia: to have care in what concerns the service of the Lord, joy in fraternal service, to overcome laziness for community work, a recreation well done despite my sadness, etc. I leave you to choose the mortifications contrary to acedia.
Let us continue our Lenten journey in hope founded on the love of Jesus who offers us the joy of his paschal mystery.
Source: Annecy