On few interior battles is the voice of the masters as continuous, precise, and unanimous as it is on acedia. From the fourth century onward, in the deserts of Egypt, the first monks identified and named an enemy they considered the most formidable of all: not a burning passion like anger or the flesh, but a muted sadness, a disgust for spiritual good that assailed them at the same hour, in broad daylight. They called it the "noonday demon", and they made it the object of a true science of the soul[1].
From this diagnosis of the Desert Fathers, an unbroken chain of masters transmitted the analysis and the remedies: Evagrius Ponticus — a monk of the desert, not canonized —, who first gave it its classic portrait; Saint Anthony the Great, to whom an angel showed the antidote; Saint John Cassian, who carried this wisdom to the West; Saint John Climacus, who engraved its step in his Ladder; Saint Benedict, who made it a rule of life; Saint Thomas Aquinas, who gave it its exact theological definition; Saint Francis de Sales, who tracked it under the name of sadness in the heart of devout life; and, down to our own day, Pope Francis, who devoted an entire catechesis to it at the general audience of 14 February 2024[2].
This article gathers that voice: what the saints, doctors, and the magisterium have said about the fight against acedia, each with his own accent. They are not theorists: they are men who fought this evil hand to hand, in their cell, at the hour when fervor falls away, and this gives their words their weight. The practical "how" is not treated here — the nature of acedia, its distinctions from depression or dryness, and the detail of the remedies are covered in How to Grow in the Fight Against Acedia, to which this article refers. Here, we listen to these masters, from the Egyptian desert to Rome today.
Why Listen to the Saints on the Fight Against Acedia?
A Science Born in Battle, Not at a Scholar's Desk
Acedia was not discovered by philosophers, but by combatants. The monks of the desert did not speculate about the passions: they faced them, alone, in the silence of the cell, and they observed the enemy with the precision of a physician describing an illness. This is why their word has the authority of experience. When Evagrius Ponticus (c. 345-399), himself a monk in the desert of Kellia, describes minute by minute the assault of the noonday demon — the glance constantly turned toward the window, the sun that seems motionless, the desire to flee elsewhere — he is not reciting a theory: he is recounting what he endured. On this subject more than on others, it is better to listen to them than to reason alone.
A Striking Unanimity, From the Desert to Today
Placed end to end, their texts form a single doctrine, strikingly stable across sixteen centuries. The same evil — sorrow over spiritual good —, the same symptoms — instability, disgust for duty, the "what is the point?" —, and the same remedies — remain, work, pray, hope — return in Evagrius in the fourth century, in Cassian and Climacus, in Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth, in Francis de Sales in the seventeenth, and even in Pope Francis's catechesis in 2024. This continuity is not the accident of scholars copying one another: it is the mark of a true observation, verified by generations of souls who fought the same battle.
All Echoes of a Word of Christ
Before the saints, there is Scripture. The Fathers did not invent acedia: they recognized, in the "scourge that lays waste at noon" of Psalm 90, the enemy that besieged them — the Vulgate's daemonium meridianum[3]. And they heard, in Christ's warning at Gethsemane, the basic diagnosis of all acedia:
"Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." — Gospel According to Saint Matthew 26:41[4]
It is this phrase that the Catechism cites, describing acedia as a "form of depression due to lax ascetical practice, decreasing vigilance, carelessness of heart"[5]. Likewise, Saint Paul already gave the watchword of the combat, which all the saints would repeat after him:
"Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart." — Letter to the Galatians 6:9[6]
"To grow weary in doing good": here Paul names acedia itself, and its remedy — "not to lose heart". Everything these masters will say about the fight against the noonday demon is only a lived commentary on these words. We can verify it by passing, century after century, through this great choir of masters.
The Desert Fathers: The Birth of a Science of the Soul
Evagrius Ponticus: The Classic Portrait of the "Noonday Demon"
Everything begins with Evagrius Ponticus, the first to give the "noonday demon" its classic portrait and to organize interior combat around eight evil thoughts, of which acedia is the sixth[7]. He is not canonized in the Catholic Church — only the Syriac Orthodox Church venerates him as a saint — and his name was associated with the condemnations of the Origenist theses at the Second Council of Constantinople (553)[8]. The word itself is older than he is — it is the daemonium meridianum of Psalm 90[9] — but it was he who fixed its portrait and its place for the whole tradition:
"The demon of acedia, which is also called the 'noonday demon,' is the heaviest of all; it attacks the monk around the fourth hour and besieges his soul until the eighth hour. It makes the sun appear slow to move or motionless, and the day fifty hours long." — Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos, ch. 12[10]
"The heaviest of all": the expression states the gravity of the combat. Evagrius then describes, with a clinician's finesse, the symptoms — the gaze constantly turned toward the window, disgust for the place where one lives, the conviction that one would be more useful elsewhere, the urge to flee. Pope Francis would still cite this portrait in 2024: "the eye of the person under acedia continually seeks the windows"[11]. But Evagrius does more than describe the evil: he gives its sovereign remedy, which the whole tradition will repeat — do not flee:
"One must not abandon the cell at the hour of temptations, inventing apparently reasonable pretexts; on the contrary, one must remain seated within, be patient." — Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos, ch. 28[12]
Saint Anthony the Great: The Angel Who Worked and Prayed
If Evagrius named the evil, tradition attributes the most beautiful illustration of its remedy to Saint Anthony the Great (c. 251-356), the father of monks. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers report that the great abba himself was one day crushed by acedia:
"Abba Anthony, while he was in the desert, was seized by acedia; he said to God: 'Lord, I want to be saved, but my thoughts do not leave me alone; what shall I do in my affliction, how shall I be saved?' Going a little outside, Abba Anthony saw someone like himself, sitting and working, then rising from his work to pray, then sitting again to weave a rope, then standing once more for prayer. It was an angel of the Lord sent to Anthony to correct and strengthen him. And he heard the angel say to him: 'Do this and you will be saved.' Hearing these words, he felt great joy and courage, and doing this, he was saved." — Sayings of the Desert Fathers, alphabetical collection, Anthony 1[13]
The whole teaching lies in the alternation the angel shows: work and prayer, each sustaining the other. Against the torpor of noon, there is no grand theory or dramatic stroke, but the humble rhythm of an ordered life — do what one has to do, pray at the appointed hour, and begin again. It is the same lesson as the famous desert saying, transmitted by the Fathers: "Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything."
Saint John Cassian: The Combat Transmitted to the West
It was Saint John Cassian (c. 360-435) who carried the monastic science of the East to the Latin West. In his Institutes, he devotes the whole of Book X to "the spirit of acedia", of which he draws an unforgettable portrait: the monk assailed "around the sixth hour", disgusted with his cell, contemptuous of his brothers, persuaded that he would be more fervent in another monastery, sliding toward drowsiness or flight[14]. For Cassian, the first weapon is manual labor against the idleness that opens the door to the evil, and he grounds it in Saint Paul's word:
"If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat." — Second Letter to the Thessalonians 3:10, cited by Saint John Cassian[15]
Cassian reports that the Fathers of Egypt never left a monk unoccupied, knowing that a heart held to its work gives the noonday demon less purchase. Through him this doctrine became the common possession of the whole monastic West.
Saint John Climacus: Acedia on the Thirteenth Step of the Ladder
In the sixth and seventh centuries, at the monastery of Sinai, Saint John Climacus (c. 579-649) gathered the wisdom of the desert in The Ladder of Divine Ascent, where the ascent toward God is climbed step by step. He devotes the whole thirteenth step to acedia, which he defines with a clarity that has remained famous:
"Acedia is a relaxation of the mind, a languor of the soul, a disgust for the exercises of the religious life, an aversion for the holy profession. [...] While we are in the holy exercise of prayer, it brings before us the image of a thousand different things." — Saint John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, step 13[16]
Climacus unmasks acedia's master ruse: it never says "stop praying", but "remember some indispensable business" in order to draw the soul out of prayer by "good reasons"[17]. Unreasonable itself, it always disguises itself as practical wisdom. And Climacus promises, like Evagrius, that victory over this vice opens the whole spiritual life: "He who, by the victory he has won over sloth, has climbed this thirteenth step, will excel in every kind of virtue"[18].
Saint Benedict: "Idleness Is the Enemy of the Soul"
What the Desert Fathers had observed, Saint Benedict (c. 480-547) made into a law of life for the whole West. In chapter 48 of his Rule, which orders the monk's day between prayer and work, he lays down a principle of famous concision:
"Idleness is the enemy of the soul; therefore the brothers should be occupied at certain times in manual labor, and at other times in divine reading." — Saint Benedict, Rule, ch. 48[19]
The Latin formula — "Otiositas inimica est animae" — has become one of the axioms of monastic wisdom. Benedict does not say that rest is evil, but that the unoccupied soul offers itself defenseless to the noonday demon: the famous Benedictine balance of prayer and work (ora et labora) is, in its principle, a strategy against acedia. By filling each hour with a precise duty, the Rule removes the emptiness in which torpor thrives.
Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Doctor's Definition
Three centuries after Climacus, Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) gives the combat its definitive theological analysis. He devotes the whole of question 35 of the Secunda Secundae of his Summa Theologiae to acedia, and fixes its exact definition, following Saint John Damascene:
"Acedia is sorrow about spiritual good insofar as it is a divine good. [...] It implies a certain disgust for action." — Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIa-IIae, q. 35, a. 1-2[20]
Everything is contained in these words. Acedia is not sadness before an ordinary misfortune: it is sadness before divine good itself, felt not as an attraction but as a burden. It therefore stands directly opposed to the "joy of charity" that should be the life of the soul. Thomas also shows that it is never alone: taking up Saint Gregory the Great (540-604), who first placed acedia among the capital sins, he enumerates its offspring:
"From acedia are born malice, rancor, faintheartedness, despair, torpor before the commandments, and wandering of the mind toward forbidden things." — Saint Thomas Aquinas, after Saint Gregory the Great, Summa Theologiae, IIa-IIae, q. 35, a. 4[21]
This last "daughter" — the wandering of the mind — is decisive: it explains that acedia manifests itself as much by feverish agitation as by softness. Spiritual discouragement does not beget only collapse; it also begets instability, dispersion, and flight forward.
Saint Francis de Sales: Sadness, Enemy of Devotion
In the seventeenth century, Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622), bishop of Geneva and doctor of the Church, tracks acedia under the name by which it most often hides in ordinary life: sadness. In the Introduction to the Devout Life, he devotes a whole chapter to distinguishing good sadness from bad, taking up Saint Paul's distinction:
"The sadness that is according to God, says Saint Paul, works repentance unto salvation; but the sadness of the world works death." — Saint Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part IV, ch. 12[22]
He then dismantles its mechanism with thoroughly pastoral precision. Bad sadness is not innocent: it is the tool of the tempter, who uses it to discourage souls and make them incapable of any good:
"The enemy uses sadness to exercise his temptations against the good. [...] Bad sadness troubles the soul, puts it in anxiety, gives disordered fears, makes it disgusted with prayer [...], takes away all sweetness from it and makes it almost crippled and powerless in all its faculties." — Saint Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part IV, ch. 12[23]
"Disgusted with prayer", "crippled and powerless": Francis de Sales is describing, trait for trait, the acedia of the Fathers, transposed for the Christian in the world. His remedy lies entirely in spiritual joy, which he will make the subject of the following chapter: against the moroseness that paralyzes, the devout soul must deliberately cultivate gladness of heart.
Modern Voices: An "Obscure Evil of Our Time"
The choir did not fall silent with the great doctors. Recent centuries have rediscovered the burning relevance of this ancient combat.
Saint Alphonsus Liguori: Persevering in Prayer Against "What's the Point?"
The heart of acedia is a miniature despair: the feeling that effort is vain. Against this lie, Saint Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), doctor of the Church, sets perseverance in prayer, which he makes the great means of salvation:
"I say, and I will always answer as long as I have life, that all our salvation lies in prayer." — Saint Alphonsus Liguori, The Great Means of Prayer[24]
The teaching aims exactly at acedious weariness: as long as the soul prays, it does not despair; as long as it asks, it receives the strength to hold fast. Alphonsus recalls that "God refuses no one the grace of prayer, by which one obtains help to overcome concupiscences and temptations"[25]. The noonday demon's "what is the point?" breaks against this confidence: persevering prayer is the weapon of the discouraged.
Dom Jean-Charles Nault: Acedia Rediscovered
In the twentieth century, the Benedictine Dom Jean-Charles Nault, abbot of Saint-Wandrille, devoted to this vice the most complete study of recent decades, with an eloquent subtitle: "the obscure evil of our time". He insists on the misunderstanding that must be dispelled:
"Acedia is not laziness; on the contrary, it can manifest itself through frantic activism." — Dom Jean-Charles Nault OSB, Le démon de midi[26]
Nault connects acedia with the "midlife crisis", disgust for the duty of state, spiritual minimalism, and the chronic instability of contemporary man — the man who flees silence, can no longer stay in place, and no longer knows how to last in a commitment[27]. Far from being a vice of vanished monks, acedia may be one of the most widespread evils of our age, precisely because we no longer know how to name it.
Pope Francis: "The Noonday Demon" and the Patience of Faith
As a sign of this relevance, Pope Francis devoted an entire catechesis to acedia at the general audience of 14 February 2024, in his cycle on vices and virtues. He first recalls its origin and meaning — "acedia, which literally means in Greek 'lack of care'"[28] — then gives its remedy, which joins word for word with Evagrius and Anthony:
"Instead, one must have the courage to remain and to welcome, in my 'here and now', in my situation as it is, the presence of God." — Pope Francis, general audience of 14 February 2024[29]
The pope concludes with hope, smoldering beneath the ashes of discouragement: "And if one of us falls into this vice or into the temptation of acedia, let him strive to look within himself and to keep alive the embers of faith"[30]. Sixteen centuries after the Desert Fathers, the successor of Peter says the same thing again: against the noonday demon, remain, be patient, and keep the little flame alive.
Acedia Overcome in the Divine Will
The choir of the saints finds its high point in the spirituality of the Divine Will, transmitted to the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta (1865-1947). For the deepest root of acedia is living by one's own forces alone: as long as the soul relies on its own fervor, that fervor is exhausted, and exhaustion opens the door to disgust. In the teaching of the Book of Heaven, by contrast, the soul that hands over its will to the Divine Will enters into God's continual rest and feast, and now acts with a freshness that knows neither weariness nor boredom — because God's love is eternally new[31].
"I am the Act that never repeats itself; I am always about to say something new. I am always new in Love, in Beauty, in Happiness, in Harmony. Thus, I tire no one." — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 15, 1 July 1923[32]
There, the act of good ceases to be a chore wrested from weariness and becomes a participation in the blessed activity of God himself. Acedia's "what is the point?" receives its ultimate answer: nothing done in the Divine Will is lost, and the joy of God becomes its present reward.
One Formula per Master: The Common Grammar of the Combat
Placed side by side, the great words of the saints form a true grammar of the fight against acedia. Each sheds light on the same truth from a different angle.
| Master | Formula / image | What it teaches |
|---|---|---|
| Evagrius Ponticus (monk, not canonized) | The "noonday demon", the heaviest of all | Acedia is the heaviest combat, at the hour when fervor falls away |
| Saint Anthony the Great | "Do this and you will be saved" | Alternate work and prayer: the lived antidote, not a theory |
| Saint John Cassian | Manual labor | Idleness opens the door; an occupied heart gives less purchase |
| Saint John Climacus | "A disgust for the exercises" | Acedia disguises itself as good reasons to flee prayer |
| Saint Benedict | "Idleness is the enemy of the soul" | Filling each hour with a duty removes the emptiness in which the evil thrives |
| Saint Thomas Aquinas | Tristitia de spirituali bono | Sadness before divine good itself, felt as a burden |
| Saint Francis de Sales | Sadness, tool of the tempter | Bad sadness disgusts the soul with prayer and paralyzes it |
| Pope Francis (general audience of 14 February 2024) | "The courage to remain" | Welcome the presence of God in the "here and now" |
These formulas never contradict one another: they complete one another. Evagrius's "noonday demon" states the gravity; Anthony's angel states the way; Benedict's "idleness as enemy" states the prevention; Thomas's tristitia de spirituali bono states the nature; and Francis's "courage to remain" states again, today, the remedy of always. All point toward the same victory: a fidelity that lasts when enthusiasm falls away.
What the Saints Do Not Say: Two Confusions to Avoid
The voice of the saints also corrects two misunderstandings. The acedia they fight is neither depression as illness nor dryness in prayer.
Acedia Is Not Clinical Depression
When the Catechism speaks of a "form of depression" in connection with acedia[33], it means a spiritual and moral depression, not psychiatric illness. The latter has biological and psychological causes, belongs to medical care, and is in no way a sin: a sick person is not guilty of his sadness. Acedia, by contrast, involves a consent of the will, an "I no longer want" that lets itself go into disgust. The saints never ask a heart crushed by illness to "make a spiritual effort": they fight vice, not suffering.
Acedia Is Not Purifying Dryness
Likewise, the dryness of prayer — aridity without sensible taste — is not acedia. The Catechism describes it, on the contrary, as a grace: "This is the moment of sheer faith clinging faithfully to Jesus in his agony and in his tomb"[34]. The difference lies in the response of the will: in dryness, the soul wants to pray and perseveres without taste; in acedia, it no longer wants and uses aridity as a pretext for letting go. On these distinctions, and on the detail of the remedies, see How to Grow in the Fight Against Acedia.
The Unanimous Fruit: Ineffable Joy After the Battle
On the fruit of victory, the saints are as unanimous as they are on the nature of the evil. Acedia overcome does not leave the soul where it was: it brings it into a purer joy than the sensible fervor it had stolen. Evagrius, who had experienced it, promises it to the one who does not desert:
"After the combat, a state of peace and ineffable joy take possession of the soul." — Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos, ch. 12[35]
"Ineffable joy": such is the reward of perseverance, and it is the same joy toward which the whole Christian life tends. From Gethsemane to the Egyptian desert, from Benedict's cell to the chair of Saint Peter, the message of the saints is one: holiness is not a matter of passing enthusiasm, but of a fidelity that lasts when enthusiasm falls away — and it is at the end of that patience, never before, that the joy that does not disappoint is found. To pass from listening to the saints to the practice of the combat, read How to Grow in the Fight Against Acedia.
Going Further
- How to Grow in the Fight Against Acedia — the practical path: the nature of acedia, distinctions (laziness, depression, dryness), and concrete remedies in detail.
- How to Grow in Spiritual Vigilance — the watchfulness of heart whose relaxation engenders acedia (CCC § 2733).
- How to Grow in Hope — the virtue that answers the noonday demon's "what is the point?"
- How to Grow in Perseverance — the stability that does not desert its post at the hour of noon.
- What Do the Saints Say About Detachment? — another anthology in the "Voice of the Saints" series, on freedom of heart.
- The Divine Will — where the fight against weariness is fulfilled in the joy that never grows tired.
Notes and References
Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos, ch. 12, ed. Guillaumont, SC 171, Cerf: "Le démon de l'acédie, qu'on appelle aussi le 'démon de midi', est le plus pesant de tous ; il attaque le moine vers la quatrième heure [10 h] et assiège son âme jusqu'à la huitième heure [14 h]. Il lui fait paraître le soleil lent à se mouvoir ou immobile, et le jour long de cinquante heures." Evagrius then describes the symptoms: repeated looks toward the window, disgust for one's place and state of life, desire to flee elsewhere, drowsiness.
1 10Pope Francis, Catechesis on Vices and Virtues — 8. Acedia, general audience of 14 February 2024, full text on vatican.va. The pope recalls that acedia "literally means in Greek 'lack of care'" and that it is defined as the "noonday demon" that "surprises us in the middle of the day"; he cites Evagrius ("the eye of the person under acedia continually seeks the windows") and proposes as remedy "the courage to remain and to welcome in my 'here and now' [...] the presence of God", concluding on hope: "let him strive to look within himself and to keep alive the embers of faith."
2 11 28 29 30Psalm 90 (91):5-6, official French liturgical translation (AELF): "Tu ne craindras ni les terreurs de la nuit, ni la flèche qui vole au grand jour, ni la peste qui rôde dans le noir, ni le fléau qui frappe à midi." The Latin Vulgate reads: "...ab incursu et daemonio meridiano", translating the Septuagint (daimoniou mesēmbrinou). It is this daemonium meridianum ("noonday demon") that the monastic tradition, from Evagrius onward, identifies with the spirit of acedia that assails the monk at noon.
3 9Gospel According to Saint Matthew 26:41, official French liturgical translation (AELF): "Veillez et priez, pour ne pas entrer en tentation ; l'esprit est ardent, mais la chair est faible." Christ's word at Gethsemane, taken up by the Catechism (§ 2733) to describe acedia as relaxation of vigilance.
4Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2733: "Another temptation, to which presumption opens the gate, is acedia. The spiritual writers understand by this a form of depression due to lax ascetical practice, decreasing vigilance, carelessness of heart. 'The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak' (Mt 26:41)."
5 33Letter to the Galatians 6:9, official French liturgical translation (AELF): "Ne nous lassons pas de faire le bien ; en son temps nous récolterons, si nous ne perdons pas courage." A major Pauline text against acedia: it names exactly the evil ("growing weary in doing good") and its remedy ("not losing heart").
6Evagrius Ponticus (c. 345-399), Praktikos (or The Monk), ch. 6-14, ed. A. and C. Guillaumont, Sources Chrétiennes no. 170-171, Cerf, 1971. Evagrius relates all the logismoi (thoughts) to eight generic thoughts: gluttony, fornication (lust), avarice, sadness, anger, acedia, vainglory, pride. Acedia is the sixth. From this list, transmitted by Cassian, the seven capital sins of the Latin tradition would derive.
7Evagrius Ponticus, monk of the Egyptian desert (Kellia, died in 399), is not canonized in the Catholic Church: he is venerated as a saint only by the Syriac Orthodox Church. As early as 415, Saint Jerome (Letter 133) accused him of Origenism, and his name was included in the condemnations that struck the Origenist theses at the Councils of Constantinople of 553 (Second) and 680 (Third) — which explains why some of his works circulated under borrowed names. Sources: art. "Évagre le Pontique", French-language Wikipedia (after A. Guillaumont, SC 170-171); art. "Evagrius Ponticus", English-language Wikipedia.
8Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos, ch. 28, ed. Guillaumont, SC 171, Cerf: "Il ne faut pas abandonner la cellule à l'heure des tentations, en forgeant des prétextes en apparence raisonnables ; il faut au contraire rester assis à l'intérieur, faire patience et accueillir noblement tous les assaillants." The sovereign remedy for acedia is stability: not fleeing.
12Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Greek systematic collection / alphabetical collection, Anthony no. 1); reference edition: Les Apophtegmes des Pères, trans. J.-C. Guy, Sources Chrétiennes no. 387, Cerf. The account attributes to Saint Anthony the Great (c. 251-356), father of monks, the vision of the angel alternating work and prayer, with the word: "Do this and you will be saved." It is the foundational text of the monastic remedy for acedia: the ordered alternation of manual labor and prayer.
13John Cassian (c. 360-435), Institutes, Book X "De spiritu acediae" ("On the spirit of acedia"), ed. J.-C. Guy, Sources Chrétiennes no. 109, Cerf. Cassian describes the monk assailed "around the sixth hour" (noon): disgust for his place and cell, contempt for the brothers, conviction that he would be more useful elsewhere, drowsiness and desire to flee. He assigns as the principal remedy manual labor against idleness, citing Saint Paul's word: "If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat" (2 Thess 3:10), and the custom of the Fathers of Egypt, who never left a monk unoccupied.
14 15Saint John Climacus (c. 579-649), The Ladder of Divine Ascent, step 13 "On acedia": "L'acédie est un relâchement de l'esprit, une langueur de l'âme, un dégoût des exercices de la vie religieuse, une aversion pour la sainte profession." Climacus notes that it makes the soul "cold and frozen" in chant and "weak" in prayer, and that "while we are in the holy exercise of prayer, it brings before us the image of a thousand different things."
16Saint John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, step 13: "L'acédie nous rappelle quelque affaire indispensable ; et, déraisonnable elle-même, elle met tout en œuvre pour nous tirer hors de la prière par de bonnes raisons." This is acedia's proper ruse: it does not fight prayer head-on, but postpones it in the name of a false urgency.
17Saint John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, step 13, conclusion: "Celui qui, par la victoire qu'il aura remportée sur la paresse, sera monté sur ce treizième degré, excellera dans toute sorte de vertus." Climacus includes among the remedies fervent psalmody, continual occupation, meditation on death, and compunction.
18Saint Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-547), Rule, ch. 48 "On the Daily Manual Labor": "Otiositas inimica est animae ; et ideo certis temporibus occupari debent fratres in labore manuum, certis iterum horis in lectione divina" — "Idleness is the enemy of the soul; therefore the brothers should be occupied at certain times in manual labor, and at other times in divine reading." The Benedictine balance of work and prayer (ora et labora) is, in its principle, a strategy against acedia. Reference edition: La Règle de saint Benoît, A. de Vogüé and J. Neufville, Sources Chrétiennes no. 181-182, Cerf.
19Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Summa Theologiae, IIa-IIae, q. 35, a. 1 and a. 2: acedia (acedia) is "quaedam tristitia aggravans" ("a burdensome sadness", according to Saint John Damascene); its proper object is "divine good": "acedia est tristitia de spirituali bono, inquantum est bonum divinum" ("acedia is sorrow about spiritual good insofar as it is divine good"). Article 2 specifies that it "implies a certain disgust for action" (taedium operandi). Leonine edition; French translation of the Revue des Jeunes, Cerf.
20Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIa-IIae, q. 35, a. 4, ad 2-3: acedia is a capital vice, and Saint Thomas takes from Saint Gregory the Great (Moralia in Iob, XXXI, 45) the list of its "daughters": "malitia, rancor, pusillanimitas, desperatio, torpor circa praecepta, vagatio mentis circa illicita" — malice, rancor, faintheartedness, despair, torpor before the commandments, and wandering of the mind toward forbidden things. This last daughter explains why acedia manifests itself as much by agitation as by softness.
21Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622), Introduction to the Devout Life, Part IV, ch. 12 "On Sadness". Taking up 2 Cor 7:10, he distinguishes "the sadness that is according to God" (which "works repentance unto salvation") and "the sadness of the world" (which "works death"), and describes bad sadness as the instrument of the tempter: "L'ennemi se sert de la tristesse pour exercer ses tentations à l'endroit des bons. [...] La mauvaise tristesse trouble l'âme, la met en inquiétude, donne des craintes déréglées, dégoûte de l'oraison [...], lui ôte toute suavité et la rend presque percluse et impuissante en toutes ses facultés." Text established from the reference edition (full text, Wikisource / Boulenger edition).
22 23Saint Alphonsus Mary de Liguori (1696-1787), doctor of the Church, The Great Means of Prayer (Del gran mezzo della preghiera, 1759): "Je dis, et je répondrai toujours, tant que j'aurai vie, que tout notre salut réside dans la prière." And: "Dieu ne refuse à personne la grâce de la prière, par laquelle on obtient l'aide pour vaincre les concupiscences et les tentations." Saint Alphonsus makes persevering prayer the ordinary means of final perseverance, a direct remedy for acedious discouragement.
24 25Dom Jean-Charles Nault OSB, Le démon de midi. L'acédie, mal obscur de notre temps, Échelle de Jacob (abridged reissue of a thesis awarded the Henri de Lubac Prize). Nault shows there that acedia "is not laziness" and "can on the contrary manifest itself through frantic activism": instability, agitation, the need to move and change are symptoms as sure as softness. The author, a Benedictine and abbot of Saint-Wandrille, wrote the contemporary reference thesis on acedia.
26Dom Jean-Charles Nault OSB, Le démon de midi. L'acédie, mal obscur de notre temps: the subtitle itself underlines the vice's relevance today. Nault connects acedia with the "midlife crisis", disgust for the duty of state, spiritual minimalism, and the chronic instability of contemporary man, who flees silence and no longer knows how to last in a commitment.
27Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 11, 10 April 1914: "My Will, on the other hand, is in perpetual rest. [...] My Will acts by simple acts. The soul that gives It all the space finds rest. It experiences neither anxiety nor impatience." And vol. 19, 9 April 1926: "[The soul] rejoices and celebrates. For the Works carried out in the soul by my Will have the imprint of Eternal Joy and Feast. [...] the feast resumes its course and the amusements, games, and delights begin again between the creature and Us." Résiac / Centro Studi Piccarreta editions.
31Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 15, 1 July 1923: "I am the Act that never repeats itself; I am always about to say something new. I am always new in Love, in Beauty, in Happiness, in Harmony. Thus, I tire no one." Résiac / Centro Studi Piccarreta editions.
32Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2731: "Another difficulty, especially for those who sincerely want to pray, is dryness. Dryness belongs to contemplative prayer when the heart is separated from God, with no taste for thoughts, memories, and feelings, even spiritual ones. This is the moment of sheer faith clinging faithfully to Jesus in his agony and in his tomb." The Catechism thus distinguishes dryness — a purifying trial of faith — from acedia, which is a culpable relaxation.
34Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos, ch. 12 (continuation), ed. Guillaumont, SC 171, Cerf: Evagrius notes that acedia, unlike the other thoughts, is not immediately followed by another, but that "after the combat, a state of peace and ineffable joy" succeeds in the soul that has held firm. The reward of perseverance against the noonday demon is therefore a joy superior to the sensible fervor it had stolen.
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