Homily

Writing about today's Gospel, St. Augustine says to us, “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. It’s good to stop and think about that because we are not used to thinking about paralyzed people having to be carried around. They are in wheelchairs today, and most of the time they can move themselves around. But not in Jesus’ time. In fact, the man in the Gospel would need at least two other people to take him anywhere he wanted to go. 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, even 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, some kind of result that I can measure and get my hands on. So, in that case, prayer is not about me and the Lord, it's just about me. Because, even if unspoken, it seems we don’t get any payoff for prayer. But of course, prayer is not about payoffs. It is about spending time with the Lord. It’s about Him and me.

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, we may be 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 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 it is easy 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 ignore 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 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 that we should have. It is self-centered, self-focused, and self-confident in a way we would never allow in other areas of our life. This is one reason why Lent can be difficult: it can reveal to us that we are not as concerned with our life in Christ as we may think we are.

The only cure for this kind of sloth 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. It must be a choice.

We persevere in other areas of our lives where we see the need and the goodness of sticking to the task. We go to work, we wash our clothes, we raise our kids not based on feelings but because there are things needed to be done for them so that they might have good lives. 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, rather than letting their beds be the boss of their souls.