Posted on 03/17/2009 2:31:46 PM PDT by tcg
The Catechism describes sloth as a culpable lack of physical or spiritual effort that can actually refuse the joy that comes from God. The slothful person is lukewarm towards, perhaps even repelled by, divine goodness and spiritual practices (Catechism #1866, 2094, 2733). The loss of one’s spiritual moorings manifests itself in flight from God and apathy in the service of one’s neighbor.
How can we overcome this most deadly vice? Mass society engenders a sense of powerlessness, but size need not leave us apathetic. It is possible to carve out a more human scale of life. Begin with your family, your parish, your neighborhood, your child’s school. Get involved. Contribute something,
In the midst of New York City’s millions, for example, a humanly sized community lived in my apartment building. We knew one another, knocked on doors when a neighbor had not been seen for a few days, brought chicken soup when one was sick, and had Christmas parties in the lobby.
The darkest side of sloth, however, is its distaste for worship and prayer. Sometimes this aversion strikes at a very advanced stage of the spiritual life, but for most of us, it shows itself early on, after the euphoria of conversion or the sweetness of prayer wears off. We avoid God, just when we need Him most. This can be a tipping point in our spiritual lives. Either we grow in faith, hope and love, or we collapse into sloth and, perhaps, ultimate loss. What can we do to change this?
(Excerpt) Read more at catholic.org ...
How can we overcome this most deadly vice?
Set aside time for prayerful study of Scripture. If you find this too burdensome, know that this is the deadly vice of sloth. Study anyway.
Above all, do not skip Mass or forsake the Sacrament of Confession.
Ask God to show you what your personal contribution should be to the work of the Church.
Hope
Sluggishness of soul or boredom because of the exertion necessary for the performance of a good work. The good work may be a corporal task, such as walking; or a mental exercise, such as writing; or a psiritual duty, such as prayer. Implicit in sloth is the unwillingness to exert oneself in the performance of duty because of the sacrifice and the effort required. As a sin, it is not to be confused with mere sadness over the inconvenience involved in fulfillin one's obligations, nor with the indeliberate feelings of repugnance when faced with unpleasant work. It becomes sinful when the reluctance is allowed to influence the will and, as a result, what should have been done is either left undone or performed less well than a person is responsible for doing. Sloth may also mean a repugnance to divine inpirations or the friendship of God due to the self-sacrifice and labor needed to co-operate with actual grace or to remain in the state of grace. This kind of laziness is directly opposed to the love of god and is one of the main reasons why some people, perhaps after years of virtuous living, give up on the pursuit of holiness or even become estranged from God. (Etym. Middle-English slowthe, slow.)
Another name for the seven capital sins. They may be called deadly because they are tendencies to those basic sins which, if deliberately and fully consented to, deprive a person of the supernatural life of God in the soul.
Those sins to which man's fallen nature is mainly inclined and that are, as a result, the source of all other human failings. The name "capital" does not mean that they are necessarily graves sins. They are leading tendencies toward sin and are seven in number: pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth. Theology justifies the number by pointing to the goods that human nature seeks to attain or the evils it wants to avoid. The goods desired and the evils disliked can be material or spiritual, and either real or imaginary. Thus, pride and vainglory come from wanting to be held in high honor and glory, and from wanting to be held in high honor and glory, and from preening oneself in the imagination. Gluttony comes from individual high living, lust from sexuality inborn to preserve the race, and avarice from the gathering of wealth. The repulsions are about good things wrongfully regarded as threatening our own proper good and that therefore are grieved over or actively combatted. Spiritually values menace our physical pleasure and ease, hence sloth or boredom about spiritual values. Envy is much the same; it resents another's good qualities because they may lower our own self-esteem. To flare out at others is anger. (Etym. Latin capitalis, principal, acting in the manner of a head.)
Seven deadly sins alive and well today, says Jesuit journal
I keep returning to this article. It is a diamond in the rough.
I just had to bump it again.
*bump*
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