Sloth | Spiritual Apathy
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Sloth/Spiritual Apathy
When I ask Christians what their ultimate goal is, most say to get to heaven, like it is just a destination or the final stage of life. The Scripture (1 John 3:2) and the Catechism (1023) teach us that Heaven primarily means to be like God. That we share in God’s divine life, really becoming his children and that we live a life that is God-like – we are transformed so that we live heroic virtue and become saints. Jesus said it is to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect.
God created every person for this high calling. God makes it possible for everyone to reach it. And the only way you won’t reach it is if you don’t want to and you refuse to do your part. The deadly sin of sloth or acedia is to have an aversion to this high calling, to dislike it. Sloth is a sorrow or boredom with the spiritual life, which results in a spiritual apathy. It’s when you hear people say “I’m not a religious person.” Sloth is not liking religion or prayer or growing in virtue or learning and talking about God.
We all know this feeling – the feeling that prayer is “meh,” that laying down your life for your family is “meh,” that heroism and holiness and love are all “meh.” But if we act on that feeling, the result isn’t what we ordinarily mean by laziness – it’s much, much worse. It’s the rejection of the only things that make life worth living.
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The call to greatness
We were made to become something very great – sons and daughters of God. We were made for perfection, for the heights of heroism, of sanctity, of self-sacrificial love, and of God himself. The vice of sloth is a rejection of this call to supreme excellence. Because, after all, being heroic, being godly, is hard. So, as Pieper says, Sloth is a kind of resentment. It’s resenting God for giving us such a noble calling. It’s saying, “Why couldn’t you have just left me alone to enjoy myself? Why couldn’t you just leave me to be a mediocre waste of a human life?”
But God hasn’t. He hasn’t made us that way. And try as we might, we can’t even get comfortable by being selfish and shallow. Sloth, like all the sins, just doesn’t work.
From the writings of Joseph Pieper, sloth 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 sloth 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.
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First manifestation of spiritual apathy – distracted entertainment
There are two main symptoms of sloth. The first is an attachment to distraction – to entertainment. Have any of your kids ever had a major assignment due, and instead of just consistently working at it, they try to just forget about the assignment altogether? Well, that’s what people with sloth do. They know the assignment is to be saints, but instead of working on growing in love and virtue, they try to forget the assignment altogether. They also try to forget that Death – the Day of the Final Exam – is coming.
Why do you think we waste so much time on pointless shows, games, news stories and streaming services? Because we are trying to forget that we’re going to die, and that
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The Second manifestation of spiritual apathy – being “busy” all the time
Imagine a kid who was supposed to write an essay during class, and he took out a pencil and a piece of paper, and started writing furiously. You might think, from looking at a distance, that he was working hard. But then imagine the class ended and the only thing on his paper was doodles. The teacher would say, “Why were you so lazy?” And the kid might say, “But look at how much I wrote!” But the teacher would say, “But that wasn’t the assignment!”
The assignment is becoming a saint. If you go to God and say, “Look at all the stuff I did! I was busy all the time!” It won’t work. That’s more likely to be a sign of sloth – of ignoring the spiritual good that’s supposed to come first. Martha’s sin was a sin of busy sloth – and Jesus reprimanded her by saying, “Martha, Martha, you are busy and anxious about many things. Only one thing is necessary.” That thing is intimacy with God. That one thing is love and holiness. That’s the assignment.
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Fasting from the senses and fasting from doing
Imagine a kid who was supposed to write an essay during class, and he took out a pencil and a piece of paper, and started writing furiously. You might think, from looking at a distance, that he was working hard. But then imagine the class ended and the only thing on his paper was doodles. The teacher would say, “Why were you so lazy?” And the kid might say, “But look at how much I wrote!” But the teacher would say, “But that wasn’t the assignment!”
The assignment is becoming a saint. If you go to God and say, “Look at all the stuff I did! I was busy all the time!” It won’t work. That’s more likely to be a sign of sloth – of ignoring the spiritual good that’s supposed to come first. Martha’s sin was a sin of busy sloth – and Jesus reprimanded her by saying, “Martha, Martha, you are busy and anxious about many things. Only one thing is necessary.” That thing is intimacy with God. That one thing is love and holiness. That’s the assignment.