The struggle with the capital sins: sloth

Lenten readings

The struggle with the capital sins: sloth

"You will have to account to My Son for your errors, and for your arrogance; and for your sloth! Awaken My pastors in My Son's Houses! You are misleading the sheep!" - Our Lady, August 21, 1975

The following is an excerpt from the classic book, The Spiritual Life: A Treatise on Ascetical and Mystical Theology by the Very Reverend Adolphe Tanquerey, S.S., D.D.

Sloth¹

#883. Sloth is connected with sensuality, for it proceeds from love of pleasure, inasmuch as it inclines us to avoid effort and hardship. There is in all of us a tendency to follow the line of least resistance, which paralyzes or lessens our activity. We shall explain: (1) the nature of sloth; (2) its malice; (3) its remedies.

n1. St. THOM., IIa IIae, q. 35; "de Malo," q. 11; NOEL ALEXANDRE, op. cit., p. 1148-1170, MELCHIOR CANO "Victoire sur soi-meme, ch. X, FABER, "Growth in holiness," XIV; LAUMONIER, op. cit., Ch. III, VUILLERMET, "Soyez des hommes," Paris, 1908, XI, p. 185.

#884. (1) Nature of sloth. A) Sloth is an inclination to idleness or at least to aimlessness, to apathy in action. At times this is a morbid disposition due to poor condition of health. More frequently it is a disease of the will, which fears effort and recoils from it. The slothful want to escape all exertion, whatever might interfere with their comfort or involve fatigue. Like the real parasite, they live on others to whatever extent they can. Tractable and submissive as long as no one interferes with them, they become surly and peevish when one would rouse them from their inaction.

B) There are various degrees of sloth. a) The indolent man takes up his task reluctantly, and indifferently, what he does, he does badly. b) The sluggard does not absolutely refuse to work, but he delays and postpones indefinitely the accepted task. c) The truly lazy man wants to do nothing that proves irksome and shows a distinct aversion to all real work, whether physical or mental.

C) When sloth bears upon spiritual exercises it is called spiritual sloth. This consists in a species of dislike for things spiritual, which tends to make us negligent in the performance of our exercises of piety, causes us to shorten them or to omit them altogether for vain excuses. This is the foster-parent of lukewarmness, of which we shall speak when treating of the illuminative way.

#885. (2) Malice of sloth. A) To understand the malice of sloth we have to remember that man was made to labor. When God created our first parents, he placed them in a garden of delights, "to dress it and to keep it."¹ This is because man, unlike God, is not a perfect being, having many faculties which must act in order to be perfected. Hence, it is a necessity of man's nature that he should labor to cultivate his powers, to provide for his physical and spiritual wants and thus tend towards his goal. The law of work, therefore, is antecedent to original sin. But because man sinned, work has become for him not merely a law of nature, but also a punishment, in, the sense that work has become burdensome and a means of repairing sin; it is in the sweat of our brow that we must eat our bread, the food of the mind as well as that of the body.²

The slothful man fails in this twofold obligation imposed both by natural and positive law; he sins more or less grievously according to the gravity of the duties he neglects. a) When he goes so far as to neglect the religious duties necessary to his salvation or sanctification, there is grievous fault, and so also when he willfully neglects, in matters of importance, any of his duties of state. b) As long as this torpor causes him to fail in civil or religious duties of lesser moment, the sin is but venial. However, the downward grade is slippery, and if we do not struggle against sloth it soon becomes more dangerous, more baneful and more reprehensible.

n1. Gen., II, 15.

n2. Gen., III, 19.

#886. B) Because of its baneful consequences, spiritual sloth constitutes one of the most serious obstacles to perfection.

a) It makes life more or less barren. One can well apply to the soul what the Scripture says of the field of the slothful man:

"I passed by the field of the slothful man, and by the vineyard of the foolish man: And behold it was filled with nettles, and thorns had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall was broken down....... Thou wilt sleep a little, said I, Thou wilt slumber a little; Thou wilt fold thy hands a little to rest: And poverty shall come to thee as a runner: And beggary as an armed man."¹

Indeed, this is what one finds in the soul of the slothful man: instead of virtues, vices thrive there, and the walls which mortification had raised to protect virtue, crumble little by little, and open a breach for the enemy, sin, to enter in.

n1. Prov., XXIV, 30-34.

#887. b) Temptations soon become more importunate and more besetting: "For idleness hath taught much evil."¹ It was idleness and pride that brought Sodom low: "Behold this was the iniquity of Sodom thy sister, pride, fullness of bread and abundance and the idleness of her and of her daughters."² Man's heart and man's mind cannot for long remain inactive; unless they be engaged by study or other work, they are soon filled with a host of fancies, thoughts, desires and emotions. In the state of fallen nature, what has full sway within us when we do not react against it, is the threefold concupiscence. Sensual, ambitious, proud, egotistical, selfish thoughts then gain the upper hand and expose us to sin.³

n1. Ecclus., XXXIII, 29.

n2. Ezech. XVI, 49.

n3. MELCHIOR CANO, "La Victoire sur soi-meme, ch. X.

#888. C) Our eternal salvation therefore and not merely our perfection is here at stake; for besides the actual faults into which idleness causes us to fall, the mere fact of failing to fulfill important duties incumbent upon us, is sufficient cause for reprobation. We have been created to serve God and to fulfill our duties of state. We are laborers sent by God to work in His vineyard; but an employer does not ask his employees simply to abstain from doing harm; he wants them to work. Therefore, if without doing anything positive against the divine law, we fold our arms instead of working, will not the Master upbraid our slothfulness? "Why stand ye all the day idle?"¹ The barren tree, by the mere fact that it bears no fruit, deserves to be cut down and thrown into the flames: "Every tree therefore that doth not yield good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire."²

n1. Matth., XX, 6.

n2. Matth., III, 10.

#889. Remedies. A) To reclaim the slothful it is necessary first of all to form in them strong convictions concerning the necessity of work; to make them understand that both the rich and the poor come under this law, and that its infringement may involve eternal damnation. This is the lesson given us by Our Lord in the parable of the barren fig-tree: for three years the owner came seeking fruit from it, and finding none, he ordered it to be cut down: "Cut it down therefore. Why cumbereth it the ground?"¹

Let no one say: I am rich, I need not work. If you are not obliged to work for yourself, you must do it for others. God, your Lord and Master commands you; if He has given you strength, brains, a good mind, resources, it is in order that you may employ them for His glory and the welfare of your brethren. And, indeed, the opportunities are not lacking: how many poor need aid, how many ignorant need instruction, how many broken hearts are there to be comforted, what openings are offered for the carrying out of projects that would give work and daily bread to those who have neither! And, does not the rearing of a large family entail labor and toil if the future of the children is to be safeguarded? Let us keep in mind the universal law of Christian fellowship whereby the toil of each is the service of all, whilst sloth is detrimental to the common weal and to our individual welfare.

n1. Luke, XIII, 7.

#890. B) Besides having convictions, it is necessary to make a sustained and intelligent effort in accordance with the rules laid down, n. 812, for the training of the will. Since the slothful instinctively shrink from effort, they must be shown that in point of fact there is no creature more wretched than the idle man; not knowing how to employ, or as he himself says, how to kill time, he is a burden to himself, all things bore him, and he becomes wearied of life itself. Is it not preferable to exert ourselves, to become useful, and secure some real contentment by striving to make those around us happy?

Among the slothful there are those that do expend a certain amount of activity at play, sport, and worldly gatherings. These must be reminded of the serious side of life and of the duty incumbent upon them of making themselves useful in order that they may turn their activities into worthier fields of action, and conceive a horror of being mere parasites. Christian marriage with its attendant obligations frequently proves an excellent remedy for sloth. Parents realize the necessity of working for their offspring and the inadvisability of entrusting to strangers the care of their interests.

What one must constantly bear in mind is the end of life: we are here below in order to attain, through work and virtue, a place in heaven. God is ever addressing to us these words:" Why stand you here all the day idle?..Go you also into my vineyard."¹

n1. Matth., XX, 6, 7.

"When you come before Me, the Eternal Father, and the Spirit, you will be judged. If you are found lukewarm, neither being hot nor cold, I will vomit you from My mouth and cast you into the fires of eternal damnation! You cannot play the middle road, My pastors! You cannot mislead My sheep by giving in to the values of man! You must not change—you must not trade your soul and bargain for your world. No man can have both, the world and the spirit." - Jesus, May 17, 1975

Directives from Heaven... http://www.tldm.org/directives/directives.htm

D89 - Sin
D107 - Pride
D108 - Humility
D199 - Anger PDF
D200 - Lust PDF

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