Two Antidotes to Sloth

one

The CCC (1023) and 1 John 3:2 teach us that Heaven means primarily to be like God by grace and the practice of virtue. God created every person for this high calling. 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.

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. This is when you don’t like spiritual things like prayer, rooting out vice and practicing virtue and talking about God and ultimate things like heaven – basically of everything that matters most.

B.  It 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. 

two

There are two 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

three

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.

Two antidotes to sloth:

·       Rest to refocus on the purpose of life

·       Detaching or fasting from bodily pleasures to grow spiritually hungry

four

A Rule of Life helps to conquer Sloth

·       It helps lazy people do what they should

·       It prevents busy people from doing what they should not

A rule of life is a plan, a strategy, a schedule or structure – whatever you want to call it - to help you get the good things you need each day to be happy. I like to call it a Recipe for Life.

Every recipe needs

·       The right ingredients

·       In their right order

·       And right proportion

The ingredients to be happy and fully alive…

·       Physical needs – sleep, food, water, shelter, coffee

·       Friendship with God, through Sacraments and Prayer

·       Relationships with family and friends

·       Achievement through meaningful work inside the home and out. Meaningful work is not limited to a job. Work is any way we do good for the world and for others. Recall the corporal and spiritual WORKS of mercy. How about spending time with someone who is alone.

·       Knowledge,

·       Beauty,

Living a well ordered and balanced life is a great strategy to help oneself do what we should to reach our God given greatness and avoid those things that prevent us from reaching potential. Get to be on time in order to get sufficient sleep; get up with enough time for daily meditation and or daily Mass; give enough time to work to be responsible but not so much as to neglect other necessary good things in life; spend time in friendship with family and friends; grow in knowledge, experience beauty; don’t give time to things that are sinful, self-destructive or simply a waste of time.

C.S. Lewis: “put first things first and we get the second things thrown in; put second things first and we lose both first and second things.”

five

A very practical help to overcome sloth is friends who are pursuing greatness and holiness, because the people we hang out with tend to rub off on us.

First must make the choice to be this kind of friend for others – especially for those who are in our life already.

·       Commit to daily meditation and the practice of virtue so you can be a better person for others.

·       Then make the choice to be more grateful, joy-filled and hopeful because everyone wants to be around that kind of person.

Friends that help us to holiness are hard to find. It takes initiative an effort on our part. Pray to the Holy Spirit to lead you to holy friends.

This is one of the reasons we have formed this Movement – to help join people together with a common identity and common mission to become saints and to help one another and to have the joy of friendship as we travel together.

Everyone needs good traveling companions.

So I invite you to become a Member of the Movement and let us help you get connected with good people who what the same things you want.