The Noonday Devil: Acedia

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Have you ever heard of it?
St. Thomas Aquinas gives two separate definitions of acedia: “sadness about spiritual good” and “disgust with activity.” Here I will focus on the former conception, though Nault shows how the two definitions converge when fully understood.

St. Thomas says that man can become sad at the prospect of union with God because it requires him to give up limited or apparent (and seemingly more concrete) goods to which he is attached. Acedia is complex, however, and works on many levels and in different forms. We may flee union with God itself, or we may simply flee the things that will lead us to union with God…
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It’s even more complex than that. You can read about it more here:


I would define acedia simply as “A feeling that things can’t be overcome, and a resulting laziness to do anything about it because of that hopelessness.” Sometimes it can be accompanied by a very low, sad mood.

I will have to say I had one of the worst bouts of acedia today, suddenly feeling very down and hopeless about the difficulty in overcoming my attachments to sin. I think that’s why it’s all the more important to stick to prayer even though it may feel dry at the moment. God can get us through anything as long as we just fall back on Him with total trust.
 
Interesting concepts, I definitely go through this on occasion. Thanks for sharing.
 
Note that it is called the “Noonday Devil”: the feelings talked about in the article constitute merely the temptation of acedia. However the term “devil” is not used lightly here: acedia is a tricky temptation to overcome because it takes on several guises just so you would commit the sin of acedia, which is simply not doing with love what you are supposed to be doing right now.

Acedia is a sin because it is a kind of sadness that opposes the joy of loving. It is being sick of loving, of finding love too hard or boring or monotonous or whatever excuse you want just so you can escape loving God and men, and therefore you want distractions. This is the reason why acedia is the sin of our age, for ours is the age of distractions.

Therefore, the main way to oppose the devil of acedia is, as Evagrius Ponticus the Desert Father wrote, to “stay in your room.” The desert fathers and mothers were hermits and ascetics who lived in small caves or huts. For them, the manifestation of acedia is to leave their cells to relieve themselves of the tedium of ascetic lives at irregular hours, especially during noon, hence the name “Noonday Devil” (the term actually comes from Psalms 91:6).

To apply this to our everyday lives, it means to stay put in our duties, never let ourselves be willingly distracted during work and prayer. We should also remember that food and drink, relaxation, sleep, and recreation are all also duties imposed to us, and we should enjoy them responsibly, never skimping or indulging too much. And, of course, all these should be done for the love of God.
 
nightshade said:
Interesting concepts, I definitely go through this on occasion. Thanks for sharing.
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Seconded. It’s a big problem for me.
from the OP's link:
Those who despair of being able to attain man’s highest vocation, St. Thomas warns, run the risk of becoming satisfied with a mere “animal beatitude.” This is the modern condition, where we are not even aware of our own despair; as Flannery O’Connor put it, our age has “domesticated despair.” We begin to believe that human life is fundamentally absurd. When animal beatitude ultimately fails us, we embrace nihilism, at best with a senile and ineffectual coating of humanism, at worst as an open “hatred of being,” a belief that it would be better not to exist.
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Exactly.
 
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Isn’t this, basically, just plain-old clinical depression?
 
No, they are two different things.

As the author of Acedia and Me, Kathleen Norris, puts it,
At a basic level, depression is an illness that will respond to medical intervention, and acedia is a temptation that may be resisted. The big problem is trying to discern which affliction we’re dealing with, and what we need to do about it. Being willing to seek help is always of primary importance.

In my own experience, I can usually spot the reasons behind depression; when I look at my life, it is obvious why I might be feeling low. But acedia can arise suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, to turn a good day bad.

One reason I am certain there is a difference between acedia and depression is that for monastic people depression is not a given, but acedia is. Everyone goes through it. As one Benedictine sister put it, acedia for a monk is as unfair, inopportune, and inevitable as acne for a teenager.

Another Benedictine commented that like acne, acedia can also leave permanent scars. Benedictines in charge of formation for new members know the importance of discernment in trying to determine whether someone is struggling with acedia, or suffering from depression. If it is the latter they do not hesitate to refer the person to a physician.
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There are also different ways it can manifest. My example isn’t the only one. Everyone is different. It can manifest through constant activism, or the feeling that things would simply be better if you left your current state of life. It’s a restlessness, in a sense. A lack of peace.
 
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I need to read more of this above, but I was thinking that acedia is actually a vice. And a vice can either be cultivated, or vigorously rejected by some.

In that sense, I would think that actually falling into acedia is never a given, but it is likely a temptation presented to all.

Everyone is uniquely weak in certain areas. The devil will seek to attack us at our weakest point. Each person has a “favorite” of the 7 deadly sins, for example.

Misstherese, I was going to forgo some prayer time tonight because I was somewhat tired and didn’t feel like doing it tonight, but I saw your topic on acedia and just thinking upon the idea briefly gave me a little impetus to overcome that lazy inclination tonight and go do my usual devotion. Thanks!
 
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Salutations
I never heard of it. It is interesting. I may be experiencing it? At one level. It is complicated.
Prayer of Saint Teresa of Avila.
Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices. –
It makes one feel that a hurricane is gusting around you, but you have God, so what! It will be good. Inshallah! God’s will!
It makes me feel as I will be a constant! Like the sweet little nun w bowed head, quietly smiling.
It doesn’t seem right. The roof could be falling. That nun would have to run for cover.
I miss my passion. Things happen that would be painful and I’m coasting through. I’m trying to trust God implicitly to fix it. That child like,”My Dads going to fix it!” I feel disrespectful to go to Him w assurance that He’ll fix something. Maybe there is a lesson I have to learn?
We are to be as a little child trusting Him.
Obviously, I’m not where I need to be.
I’m not sure, that I can express myself accurately. But, something in Akadia fits. I must reread it.
Spiritual growth is a journey.
In Christ’s Love
Tweedlealice
 
Sloth is what people are familiar with, though often misunderstood. Acedia is a synonym.
 
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Could acedia be a stronger temptation to certain temperaments/dispositions? The melancholic disposition is characterized as being in a state of sorrow more often. There may be a sense of “comfort” and “familiarity” with that emotion that it may lead to acedia.
 
I’m not certain. I would have to ponder and research it a bit. I would say not necessarily the melancholic. The melancholic has low energy often and a proneness to depression which could make them less active but sloth or acedia is something different.

You might be right. But I have a tendency to think any of the temperaments might suffer from it. I’d have to think more about it.

It’s easy for anyone to have a tendency to not want to make a movement towards the spiritual or the transcendent things of God and rest more in worldly satisfactions, but I’m a bit up in the air…

This is kind of a difficult area, for me, anyways, to sort out.

I just read that, and would tend to agree, that sloth or acedia are hard to define and misunderstood by most people.
 
Acedia has many more nuances than what we typically think of as sloth. Kathleen Norris’ book is just excellent. She did a lot of research into the original idea of acedia and brings it into contemporary life. She’s a very good writer; although not Catholic she is a Benedictine oblate.
 
Would the habit of over indulging in eating a heavy lunch contribute to Acedia?
Is inertia the same thing as acedia ?If someone had borderline depression and suffered a type of inertia is that bordering on acedia ?
 
I’m not entirely that knowledgeable on acedia, mostly because it has so many facets and ways it can manifest. I think it all boils down to the mistaken thought that “what I’m doing is reaping no fruit so I have to do something else” or “I’m bored with this” or even “it’s pointless to try” so it causes a laziness to ensue, maybe not laziness as in “couch potato” but a laziness in that we are not doing what we are supposed to be doing and allowing distractions (even through busyness)

Despair can play a factor, as can gluttony. It all depends on the motive.
 
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Thanks 🙂 I think I have to wait seven minutes before I can like.
 
Blessings
Oh YES! I am a junior Bipolar personality. I’m more in depresseion. Melancholia. Sluggish =sloughful! I’m a tomorrow person. Procrastinator! I’m doomed!
I did work 44yrs in Nursing. I raised 4 kids. I managed staying married 50 yrs. HARD WORK!
SMILE…
Retirement and physical handicaps prevent me from doing much. I vacuumed today!!
Forgiveness and Mercy, God!!
In Christ’s love
Tweedlealice
 
I think it can be difficult to size up Acedia in a person because it has to do with the human heart, it’s interior dispositions and motivations.

There are plenty of sanguines and other temperaments who just want to slack off regarding the spiritual, finding it too much an effort, and content themselves with worldly satisfactions. You can be very energetic person and still fall into acedia and perhaps be more culpable for it than some who one might think are more spiritually slothful than themselves when viewed from the outside.
 
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