The Problem of Acedia

OR SOME TIME I have been engaged in the reading of a truly great little work, one I would heartily recommend to every reader of this blog, The Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnamed Evil of Our Times by Jean-Charles Nault, O.S.B. I don’t intend to lecture you with a digested version of the book (which deals neither with the Sacred Liturgy nor with music), but to discuss one section in particular that speak to me as one who strives to “labor in the Lord’s vineyard.”

Following an exposition on the thought of the Fathers of the Church on Acedia (often translated today merely as Sloth), the author tackles the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas on the same. According to St. Thomas there are two definitions of Acedia: 1) a sadness about spiritual good and 2) the disgust with activity.

St. Thomas makes note of many ways in which the vice of Acedia might manifest itself in the Christian, but one way in particular strikes me as particularly insidious for the Church in our time, that of Pusillanimity, or smallness of soul. St. Thomas refers to this vice as a daughter of Acedia and lists it as one of the vices opposite the virtue of Magnanimity, or greatness of soul. Magnanimity is the virtue that allows man to perceive the greatnes of the God’s calling and to respond to this call.

Magnanimity is that virtue that spured the saints to tackle enormous and seemingly insurmountable problems. Magnanimity is the virtue that brought to fruition the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages and inspired men like St. Francis de Sales or St. Martin de Pores to work for the conversion of thousands of souls. Think of St. John Paul II who worked to defeat Communism or Pope Benedict, a seemingly introverted professor/pope, who inspired a generation of church musicians and reinvigorated the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy. Think of Mother Teresa who worked with the poorest of the poor around the world or Mother Angelica, the cloistered nun who, probably more than any, brought the light of truth and the joy of the Gospel to generations of spiritually suffocating Americans?

Pusillanimity, the vice opposed to Magnanimity, causes man to shrink back from the greatness of God’s call and to strive for what is merely comfortable and easily attainable. It is usually cloaked as false humility. Pusillanimity convinces the Christian that the Gospel is too hard. The Good News is meant more for cloistered convents and monasteries. Marriage is too hard, being a priest or religious is too hard. Being truthful, loyal, a good friend—these are too hard and therefore meant merely as ideals for the Christian to halfheartedly strive for.

We rarely speak of greatness in the Church anymore for fear of driving people away, yet look at all of the men who responded to the call of the priesthood because of the example of Pope St. John Paul II or how many women responded to work with the poorest of the poor with Mother Teresa because they saw in her the greatness to which they felt called.

Unfortunately, the Church, in Her humanness, is not overly welcoming of the those inspired by Magnanimity at the moment. She seems stuck in the rut of minimalism, which Matthew Kelly describes as one of the three greatest problems afflicting the Church today. In this atmosphere, the professional musician is generally seen as an elitist or aesthete, the fop concerned with nothing more than producing refined music fit for the concert hall as opposed to one who is truly adept at his craft and who offers it in service back to Christ and His Church.

Of course, there is a remedy for this situation. The author of The Noonday Devil reminds us that according to St. Thomas and the Church Fathers the Incarnation is the ultimate remedy for Acedia and its many problems, including Pusillanimity. When man is tempted to despair in the face of his great calling, he should meditate upon the Incarnation and contemplate the fact that God “was willing to unite human nature to Himself personally” (St. Thomas, Summa contra Gentiles, quoted in The Noonday Devil) and will never cease to be our “help and our shield.”