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Pope Francis’ Catechesis 8 on Sloth
Paul VI Hall – Wednesday, 14 February 2024
Catechesis. Vices and virtues. 8. Sloth 8. (Laziness)
Gospel according to St. Matthew (26:36-41):
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go yonder and pray.” 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zeb′edee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch[a] with me.” 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” 40 And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch[b] with me one hour? 41 Watch[c] and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
“The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Among all the deadly sins, there is one that often goes unnoticed, perhaps because of its name that is difficult to understand to many: I am talking about sloth.
For this reason, in the catalogue of vices, the term sloth is often replaced by another much more commonly used: laziness.
In reality, laziness is more of an effect than a cause.
When a person is idle, indolent, apathetic, we say that he is lazy.
But, as the wisdom of the ancient desert fathers teaches, often the root of this laziness is sloth, which literally means “lack of care” from the Greek.
This is a very dangerous temptation that should not be trifled with.
Those who fall victim to it are as if crushed by a desire for death: they feel disgust for everything; his relationship with God becomes boring for him; And even the holiest acts, those which had warmed his heart in the past, now seem utterly useless to him.
A person begins to regret the passing of time, and the youth that is irreparably behind him.
Sloth is defined as the “demon of midday“: it catches us in the middle of the day, when fatigue is at its peak and the hours ahead of us seem monotonous, impossible to live.
In a famous description, the monk Evagrius represents this temptation as follows: “The eye of the slothful person is continually fixed on the windows, and in his fantastic mind on the visitors […] When he reads, the slothful man yawns often and is easily overcome by sleep, rubs his eyes, rubs his hands, and, withdrawing his eyes from the book, stares at the wall; then again turning them to the book, he reads a little more […]; finally, bowing his head, he places the book under it, falls asleep in a light sleep, until hunger awakens him and pushes him to attend to his needs”; in conclusion, “the slothful do not do the work of God with care”[1].
Contemporary readers see in these descriptions something very reminiscent of the evil of depression, both psychologically and philosophically. Indeed, for those who are gripped by sloth, life loses its meaning, praying is boring, every battle seems meaningless.
If even in our youth we had passions, now they seem illogical, dreams that did not make us happy.
So we let ourselves go and distraction, not thinking, seems to be the only way out: we want to be numbed, to have our minds completely empty… It’s a kind of early death, and it’s bad.
Faced with this vice, which we know is so dangerous, the masters of spirituality provide various remedies.
I would like to point out what seems to me to be the most important and which I would call the patience of faith.
Although, under the lash of laziness, the human desire is to be “elsewhere”, to escape from reality, one must instead have the courage to remain and to welcome God’s presence in my “here and now”, in my situation as it is.
The monks say that for them the cell is the best teacher of life, because it is the place that concretely and daily speaks to you of your love story with the Lord. The demon of sloth wants to destroy precisely this simple joy of the here and now, this grateful wonder of reality; He wants you to believe that it’s all in vain, that nothing makes sense, that nothing or anyone is not worth caring about.
In life we meet “slothful” people, people of whom we say: “But this is boring!”and we don’t like to be with them; People who also have an attitude of boredom that is infectious. That is sloth.
How many people, in the grip of sloth, moved by a faceless restlessness, have foolishly abandoned the path of goodness which they had embarked upon!
Sloth is a decisive battle, which must be won at all costs.
And it is a battle that has not spared even the saints, because in many of their diaries there are some pages that confide terrible moments, of real nights of faith, where everything seemed dark.
These saints teach us to go through the night with patience accepting the poverty of faith.
They advise us, under the oppression of laziness, to keep a smaller measure of commitment, to set goals that are more attainable, but at the same time to resist and persevere leaning on Jesus, who never never gives up in the face of temptation.
Faith, tormented by the trial of sloth, does not lose its value.
On the contrary, it is the true faith, the most human faith, which in spite of everything, in spite of the darkness that blinds it, it still believes humbly.
It is this faith that remains in the heart, like the embers under the ashes. It always remains.
And if any of us fall into this vice or into a temptation of sloth, let us try to look within ourselves and guard the embers of faith: this is how we go on.
