Our soul waits for the Lord,
who is our help and our shield.
May your kindness, O Lord, be upon us
who have put our hope in you. Psalm 33:20, 22
Here in the State of Maine, it has been five weeks since public Masses were suspended. It has been three weeks since Governor Mills issued a stay-at-home order for the residents of Maine. Some people are working at home. Others who have “essential” jobs continue to go in to work. Still others have lost their jobs, at least for the time being. For Catholics, we find that our weekly routines have changed. Going to Mass on Sundays is no longer on the schedule. Masses are live-streamed from many parishes, and efforts are being made to reach out to people in various ways.
Early on, when all this was new, some people (at least) may have felt some excitement about it. There may have been the novelty of seeing our parish church and our pastor celebrating Mass on TV or on one of our digital devices. But the novelty has worn off, at least for some. I hear of a growing hunger for the Eucharist itself, a feeling that “this can’t go on indefinitely”, a desire to go to Mass and celebrate the sacraments. Some people now find the live-streamed Masses insufficient. A few even say that they prefer the emptiness of not watching Mass than the sense that watching Mass may give them that “everything is okay”.
And there is more. The pandemic drags on. Some people are pushing for a re-opening of our economy even as others warn that going too quickly could cause a surge in COVID-19 cases. In the meantime, we wait. We feel the pain of those who have COVID-19, of their families and friends who often cannot be physically with them. We also feel the sense of having more time on our hands than before.
At first, the extra time may have felt welcome – even long overdue. But, as day follows day and week follows week, we find something else happening. Some of us, at least, may begin to feel a heaviness that will not leave us, a tiredness, a feeling that nothing we do means anything – so why bother? We may feel a resistance to doing our daily routines. Even things we once enjoyed may now seem burdensome and unfulfilling. We may call it boredom. We may call it depression. For some of us, it could be one or both. However, it could be something else.
This feeling of heaviness, resistance, and restlessness was known to the first Christian hermits and monks. They called it acedia, the “noonday devil”. Acedia is not laziness as we normally think of laziness. It is a weariness of the soul; a moodiness that we can’t easily shake. It is hard to see in oneself. It may appear as a dissatisfaction with spiritual things, an inner distancing from one’s prayer life and the daily routines of ones vocation. It can manifest itself in a constant restlessness – the notion that our faith life would be so much better if we could be somewhere else… anywhere else. Often people react to acedia by avoiding their spiritual and vocational commitments as much as possible, plunging themselves into busy-ness that has nothing to do with their faith or their vocation but is an escape from both.
The early Christian monks and hermits considered acedia a greater danger than lust or pride or anger or any other temptation. It is not only an ancient temptation. Many people wonder whether acedia is the primary weakness or sin of contemporary American culture. Check out a book like Acedia And Me by Kathleen Norris. If this is so, then if people are beginning to experience something like acedia now, is it because of the quarantine we now experience, or did the quarantine become the occasion for us to finally confront the acedia that was there all along?
Saint John Cassian, who spent time in the ancient monasteries of Egypt in the late fourth century, wrote two books about what he learned – The Institutes and The Conferences. Here is a quote from The Institutes about how acedia affects a monk. Change “monastery” to “workplace” or “school” or “family” or “parish”, and the description may prove more relevant and psychologically astute than we may like:
Once this has seized possession of a wretched mind it makes a person horrified at where he is, disgusted with his cell, and also disdainful and contemptuous of the brothers who live with him or at a slight distance, as being careless and unspiritual. Likewise it renders him slothful and immobile in the face of all the work to be done within the walls of his dwelling: It does not allow him to stay still in his cell or to devote any effort to reading. He groans quite frequently that spending such a long time there is of no profit to him and that he will possess no spiritual fruit for as long as he is attached to that group of people. He complains and sighs, lamenting that he is bereft and void of all spiritual gain in that place inasmuch as, even though he is capable of directing others and of being useful to many, he is edifying no one and being of no help to anyone through his instruction and teaching. 2. He makes a great deal of far-off and distant monasteries, describing such places as more suited to progress and more conducive to salvation, and also depicting the fellowship of the brothers there as pleasant and of an utterly spiritual cast. Everything that lies at hand, on the contrary, isharsh, and not only is there nothing edifying among the brothers who dwell there but in fact there are not even any of the necessities of life to be obtained there without a huge effort. Thereupon he says that he cannot be saved if he remains in that place. He must leave his cell and get away from it as quickly as he can, for he will perish if he stays in it any longer. – Institutes, X, II, 1-2
The remedy that the ancient Fathers and Mothers prescribed for acedia is basically patient endurance. Remain at our daily tasks and honor our primary commitments, they will tell us. Continue with daily prayer and loving service of those closest to us. Seek the Lord’s help at every moment. Persevere in doing the right, until the spell of acedia passes. This is because the main temptation we feel when under the spell of acedia is to flee our commitments, to break faith with the Lord and with others in our lives. Remain where we most need to be, the Fathers and Mothers tell us. Acedia will pass. Christian joy will return.
Here, our model is Mary Magdalene, who appears in today’s Gospel reading. In spite of a great deal of outward resistance to Jesus and his disciples, she follows him to Jerusalem. She is one of the few who is there at the Crucifixion. She goes to Jesus’ tomb after the sabbath to anoint his body for burial – because there was no time after Jesus died to do so before the sabbath would begin. Even when it appears to her that Jesus’ body has been taken away, she remains at the tomb. She remains with Jesus no matter what. She witnesses his sufferings and death. She faces her own grief, and does not run away or seek distractions of any kind. She remains faithful, no matter what. It is no surprise, then, that the risen Lord comes to her first, calls her by name, renews her spirit, and sends her forth as the “apostle of the apostles” to announce the good news of the Resurrection to the Twelve. She has not given in to acedia, nor to doubt, nor to despair. Now she is ready to receive this overflowing grace.
So it is with us. When acedia, the “noonday devil”, seeks to have us give up the good fight of faith, lose ourselves in busyness, distractions, the addictions of the moment, we need to hang in there. We need to face our own weaknesses, our own fears, our own listlessness or boredom, and to realize that distractions are not the answer. The answer is a renewed, steadfast commitment to all that the Lord has given us, a commitment made in faith and hope – hope that, in spite of our dullness of heart, the Lord will come to us at last, speak our name, and rekindle in us the fire of his love, just as he did for Mary Magdalene and others who endured those very painful days before that first Easter. We wait in hope for the Lord to bring our drooping hearts back to life. We can’t do it on our own. No amount of “busyness” can do it. Only the Lord can do it, and only our daily faithfulness to every commitment we have undertaken in the Lord’s name can open our hearts to the Lord’s grace.
We need to be willing to face what is right there before us. The fear and uncertainty, the longing for the Eucharist and for being at Mass, the change in our usual routines, our reduced physical contact with some and our greater physical presence with others. We need not be afraid to face everything just as it really is. Only when Mary Magdalene faced her own pains and fears, just as they were could she be ready to truly meet the reason for her hope, the Risen Lord Himself. May we also encounter the Risen Lord once again, in our hearts and in the Sacrament of His Presence among us!
Come, Lord Jesus. Send forth your Holy Spirit into our hearts. Enkindle in them, once again, the fire of your love. Pour forth your Spirit, and you will renew not only us, but the face of the earth!