Homily

Writing about today's Gospel, St. Augustine said, “You have become a paralytic inwardly. You did not take charge of your bed. Your bed took charge of you.” He's speaking, of course, about Jesus' command to the paralyzed man when He tells him to pick up his mat and go home. Before this, the man could only go where his bed could go, and even then, someone else had to carry him and his bed. In fact, he would need at least two other people to take him anywhere. Don’t forget there were no wheelchairs, so this pallet he was laying on was very, very limiting. Can you imagine his life? But after he is cured, he is the one who is in charge of his bed, and in charge of where and when he wants to go. He is truly a free man, both spiritually, since his sins are forgiven, and physically, since he can walk on his own. His bed is no longer his master. And I believe that part of what St. Augustine is referring to when he talks about our beds being in charge of us is sloth, or acedia, or spiritual laziness, drowsiness, indifference, depression.

Sloth is one of the deadly sins, and when most people think of it, they think of regular laziness. It can refer to that, but the real sin of sloth is that of spiritual laziness. We do not pray, we do not worship, we do not desire to grow in grace and virtue – or else we may pray and we may come to church, but it is minimal, irregular, spotty, half-hearted, indifferent. It's when our interior bed takes charge of us, and we allow it to make our spirits sleepy.

There are lots of ways to fall into this sin of spiritual sloth, where we make only minimal efforts to grow in Christ. Sometimes, we give in to it because it doesn't seem that our prayer or spiritual efforts produce anything. If you work at a job, you get a paycheck; if you take the time and effort to plant and maintain a garden, you end up with vegetables. But it is not so easy to see or touch the outcome of our prayer, so it's a temptation to let it slide, since it doesn't seem to satisfy our need for some kind of benefit or reward or payoff. So, in that case, prayer is not about me and the Lord, it's about me. Because the main concern is: “What do I get from it?” If we aren’t in conversation with the Lord, how important can He be in our lives?

Another problem that can lead to sloth in spirit is our reliance on our emotions. It also follows on the idea I just mentioned, that prayer should produce something we can recognize. But in this case, it is looking for feelings. We would like to feel something when we pray, some warmth of heart, or joy, or consolation, or satisfaction, and if we could experience some heavenly, ecstatic vision, thank you, I'll have one of those too. Most, if not all of us, have had times when we felt especially moved when we were praying, and makes it easier to believe that prayer should produce some kind of feeling within us, some kind of feedback or stimulus when we are addressing the Lord. But do you notice that here, once again, our spiritual labor ends up becoming a labor that should bring me some payback here and now, and not a labor of love in my relationship with the Lord.

In fact, it's possible that we can allow ourselves to become so discouraged in our attempts to pray and fall into a certain kind of sloth or laziness that we don't even desire to pray more, or to pray better or even to seek any type of growth in our Christian life. We can allow the here and now to block out He who is everywhere and forever. We can allow our desire for reward in the present to overshadow our eternal reward, which is Christ Himself. We can permit distractions of a hundred different kinds to keep us from growing closer to our Savior. And when we feel dry and tired, we can look for waters that never satisfy for more than a moment, and for refreshment that is over so quickly we already are planning for the next thing to make us feel more satisfied, more lively, more comforted.

Spiritual laziness is all about what we have, or what we think we have or don't have. It is self-centered, self-focused, and self-confident in a way we would never allow in other areas of our life. (example: Child's most useless question?... Do I have to?) And we can get used to it, just as the paralytic probably had gotten used to his situation. And that makes it harder to see how our lack of action is limiting our lives.

The only cure is perseverance in prayer and good works because of, and based on faith, rather than what I consider to be results. It is perseverance not based on what I feel, or what I get from it. It is perseverance that must be based on my belief in Jesus Christ, my faith in His loving-kindness, my hope in His promises, and my desire to love Him more.

We persevere in other areas of our lives where we see the need and the goodness of sticking to the task. All the more so we should not grow tired or lazy in seeking a greater share of divine life — as people ready to labor for Christ — people who are in charge of their own beds. If we labor as Christ directs us, we also find our rest in Him.