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Nov 26, 2022 1085 Father Roy Palatty CMI
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Vanquish the Silent Killer

Are you struggling with procrastination, lukewarmness and boredom? Here are 7 spiritual vaccinations to boost your soul’s immunity

Usually we associate the devil with darkness and the night. But there is a worse enemy that lurks when the sun is at its highest, we traditionally call it ‘the noonday devil.’ You begin the day with great enthusiasm and passion, but as it gets close to noon you lose your interest and vigor. This is not a physical fatigue, but more a deflation of the soul.

The Desert monks called this acedia, meaning lack of care. This vice is also known as sloth, one of the seven deadly sins, which does not stand by itself, but opens the door to other vices. After having an encounter with the Lord, a soul embarks on the spiritual journey with great passion. But to continue in the same spirit is not easy. After a few weeks or months, laziness or lack of motivation to do anything can beset the soul. This state of indifference, a boredom in the soul, is characterized by a numb spiritual emptiness.

Acedia can be described as a spiritual depression. No activity may be pleasing at this stage. Sloth threatens people in all stages of life. It is the cause of many evils. Obviously, it prevents us from working out our salvation. The noonday demon is “the most oppressive of all the demons” (Evagrius Ponticus). It is oppressive in the sense that it brings to mind how difficult it is to practice religious faith or the ascetic life. It suggests that there are many ways to serve God, so one does not necessarily have to regularly pray or perform religious exercises.

This mindset takes away all spiritual joy, and opens the doors for joys of the flesh to become the overriding motivation. One of the tricks of this demon is to ensure that a person does not realize that they are afflicted, instilling a distaste for spiritual matters, leading a person to excessive reliance on earthly pleasures until these also lose their delight. Bernard of Clairvaux speaks of this as a sterility, dryness, and barrenness of one’s soul that makes the sweet honey of Psalm-singing seem tasteless, and turns vigils into empty trials.

Temptations of Acedia

Acedia is the ultimate breakdown of one’s capacity to love oneself and others. This makes a spirit lukewarm. The Scripture speaks of them: “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3: 15-16). How do you know if you’re under the oppression of the noonday devil? Examine your life and see if you face the following struggles.

One major sign is procrastination. Procrastination does not mean that you are doing nothing. Youmay be doing everything except for the one thing you were supposed to be doing. Is that you right now?

There are three forms of sloth: occupying oneself with unnecessary things, distraction, and spiritual melancholy or depression. Someone afflicted with the spirit of sloth may involve themselves in multiple things, without focusing on anything. They vacillate from one thing to another. Moments of stillness and peace are very difficult to acquire at this point. Lack of listening to the voice of God makes the soul terribly void. Distraction disrupts focus and recollection, leading to the minimization of prayer and spiritual exercises. This weariness leads to postponing everything. This experience of an interior void and weariness causes spiritual depression. There is a secret anger within. Under this affliction someone feels like criticizing everyone, without personally doing anything creative.

Turning to the Onions

Instability is another sign of this evil -inability to focus on your own vocational call.  Symptoms of instability may be excessive desire to change one’s locality, work, situation, institution, monastery, spouse, or friends. Listening to gossip, entertaining unnecessary debates and quarrels, and complaining about everything are some of the expressions of this acedia-spirit. When they are subject to this, people behave like naughty children: as soon as one desire is fulfilled, they want something else. They may begin reading a book, then jump to another book, then to the cell phone, but never finishing any task. At this stage, someone may feel like even faith or religion is of no use. Losing direction eventually takes a soul into dreadful doubt and confusion.

The third sign is exaggerated bodily interests: feeling unable to be in the company of what is distressful and unpleasant for long. The sorrow of the soul leads one to look for alternative sources of joy, then moves on to other things that give pleasure. Saint Thomas Aquinas once said: “Those who find no joy in spiritual pleasures, have recourse to pleasures of the body.” When spiritual joy disappears, a soul will automatically turn to the pleasures of the world or to the inordinate appetites of the body, tending to regress to the sins that had been renounced and left behind, craving for “the onions of Egypt” (Numbers 11:5). Someone who fails to look to the heavenly manna that the Lord serves every day will definitely start craving for “the onions of the world”.

A frozen heart can be yet another sign of a lukewarm soul. The Scripture says about such a soul: “the sluggard says, there is a lion in the road! There is a lion in the streets! As a door turns on its hinges, so does a sluggard on his bed. The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth” (Proverbs. 26: 13-15). Again, it says, “a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest” (Proverbs 6: 7). Remember the fall of King David. When the armies were at the battleground, the military leader remained in the palace, seeking his own petty interests. He was not where he should have been. Laziness led him to lust, and later to even more heinous sins. An unstructured day leaves the soul more prone to succumb to evil desires. Later, David wrote regretfully of “the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or the destruction that wastes at noonday” (Psalms 91: 6).

Overcoming Acedia

Desert fathers like Evagrius Ponticus, John Cassian and others have proposed several ways to combat the noonday devil. Let us explore seven of them:

1.Turn to God in tears: Genuine tears mark the sincerity of the desire for a Savior. They are the outward expression of an inner desire for God’s help. God’s grace is necessary to overcome acedia.

2. Learn to speak to your Soul: Keep reminding yourself of the blessings you have already received. You may motivate your spirit by thanking the Lord for all His merits. When you thank the Lord, you experience an uplifting of the spirit. In Psalms, David says: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, my Savior and my God” (Psalms 42:5). “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity” (Psalms 103: 2). This is a fail-safe tactic to fight the demon. I personally, have found this approach very powerful.

3. Perseverance leads to greater desire to do what is good: Desire drives action. Persistent desire is required to overcome spiritual laziness of the soul. Hyper-activism will not make you holy. In our cyber age, one may easily fall into superficial relationships, social media addictions, and real dangers to purity of heart and body. Boredom of the soul and dulling of conscience makes one want to live like everyone else, losing the grace to gaze at the transcendence. We must learn to practice stillness and solitude. For this, we must intentionally set apart a few moments for prayer and meditation. I suggest two simple yet profound ways to do this:

(a) Throw some ‘arrow prayers’ to charge the soul. Make short invocations like, “Jesus, I trust in you.” or, “O Lord, come to my assistance.” or “Jesus help me.”Or you can say the ‘Jesus prayer’ consistently: “O Lord Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me, a sinner.”

(b) Pray the Surrender Novena: “O Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything.”

You can recite these short prayers frequently, even while brushing, showering, cooking, driving, etc. This will help cultivate the presence of the Lord.

4. Go to the Sacrament of Penance: A spiritually lukewarm soul resists going to Confession. But, you must do it frequently. This is actually a reset button in your spiritual life that can get you back on track. You may be repeatedly confessing the same sins, and doing the same penance for years! Just do it at once. Share your spiritual status with the Confessor. You will receive an amazing grace.

5. Surround yourself with Holy things: Read about saints. Watch good inspiring Christian movies. Listen to the challenging stories of missionaries and missions. Read a short passage of the Scripture every day; you can begin by reading the book of Psalms.

6. Devotion to the Holy Spirit: The third Person of the Trinity is our Helper. Yes, we need help. Pray: “O Holy Spirit, fill my heart with your love. O Holy spirit, fill my emptiness with your life and spirit.”

7. Meditations on Death: Evagrius considered self-love as the root of all sins. By meditating on death, we remind ourselves that “we are but dust, and to dust we shall return.” Saint Benedict taught the rule: ‘To keep death daily before one’s eyes.” Death-contemplation is not to wallow in morbid thoughts but rather to make us vigilant and to commit ourselves to the mission more passionately.

These are seven ways to help a soul beat the noonday devil. They are like spiritual vaccinations to boost your soul’s spiritual immunity. Thirst for the Lord will be quenched by “the One” who puts thirst for Him in every soul.

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Father Roy Palatty CMI

Father Roy Palatty CMI is a priest of the congregation of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate. He earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium and is a published author of books and articles. Since 2014, he has been serving as Spiritual Director of Shalom Media, a Catholic media ministry based in South Texas. Shalom Media is home to SHALOM WORLD Catholic television network and publishes Shalom Tidings bi-monthly magazine. Father Varghese is a gifted speaker and has been an in-demand preacher around the world, leading numerous retreats for priests, religious, and lay people.

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