One of the least
recognized spiritual ailments is Accidie. To us today Accidie appears as
depression and its resulting sluggishness. It is can also be a form of
spiritual oppression. That can happen when
the Accuser is playing havoc with our guilts and self-doubt. One of the Western Desert Fathers, Abba Poeman
says, “Accidie is there every time one begins something, and there is no worse
passion, but if a man recognizes it for what it is, he will gain peace.”[i] In
later times Accidie was too simplistically regarded as laziness or sloth, but
its original meaning was closer to the way it was used by the Desert Fathers.
Ultimately whether
or not Accidie is regarded as despondency and listlessness, or as laziness, the
cure for it rests in taking action; not on the basis of sudden inspiration, but
in taking action as a fulfillment of a Rule of Life that springs from the
discipline our Oblation. There are three types of Grace; Initiatory Grace the
first flush of the Presence of God that often, but not always, comes with the
beginning of life with Christ; Infused Grace which is the Grace that we
experience at special moments of renewal, at retreats, or conferences, worship
services, or at other occasions; and finally, Acquired Grace which is the slow
building up of an awareness of the Presence of God that is the fruit of
spiritual discipline.
Very simply, that
means praying the Daily Office and reading the Rule of St. Benedict on a
regular basis.
In making an
Oblation of our lives in the context of our Monastery, the Oblation (a gentle
vow) gives us freedom from ourselves, from distractions, from emotional ups and
downs, and from unbalanced fervor and dryness.
There is a natural rhythm of undulation in our lives, both physically
and emotionally, and also spiritually. Having ups and downs is a normal part of
our experience. The “downs” become
Accidie when the rhythm is dominantly on the down side.
We make our
Oblation in the context of a specific community but also in the context of our
state of life, married, single, employed, or retired; or in whatever state of
life we are in. That state of life
affects the pattern of spirituality that develops, but my own observation is
that our state of life should not determine the pattern of our spirituality. The Rule of Life that springs from our
Oblation calls us out of the limitations of our state of life into the Presence
of God.
What St. Benedict
says is, “At the hour for Divine Office, as soon as the signal is heard, let
them abandon whatever they may have in hand and hasten (to prayer) with
greatest speed, yet with seriousness, so that there is no excuse for
levity. Let nothing be put before the
Work of God.”[ii]
It
is very difficult to drop everything “when the bell rings.” What is often called into question by the
Rule is our priorities. Work is hard to
set aside, but so also is accidie -
that mingling of despondency and listlessness so clearly identified in The
Sayings of the Desert Fathers.
The late medieval
mystic Van Ruysbroek reminds us that "love cannot be lazy"3[iii] The
antidote for accidie, whether it is despondency and listlessness or sloth and
laziness, is action.
St. Benedict
himself says, “Idleness is the enemy of the soul.”[iv]
Part of the state in which all of us find ourselves is enmeshed in the dynamic
principle of the second law of thermodynamics, “heat flows from a higher to a
lower temperature but that it does not do the reverse.” In a spiritual context that means that, when
you are a week away from a retreat, spiritual energy tends to cool off unless
it is sustained by the balance provided by a Rule of Life. The Rule of Life builds in us Acquired Grace.
The Rule of Life should be strong enough to provide an adequate challenge, but
not so strong as to be unattainable. As
St. Benedict says, “that the strong may have something to strive for and the
weak nothing to run from.”[v]
I also note that
it seems to be a spiritual principle that God expects us to do more than we
expect ourselves to do. That has a
direct application to our Oblation. In
my experience He is always right.
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From the online dictionaries:
sloth; spiritual torpor or indifference; apathy. [1600–10; < Late Latin acēdia < Greek akḗdeia]
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