Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Today, this evening, we will talk a bit about ascidia. Does the word mean anything to you? Acadia or ascidia? That is a Greek word that has been in monastic literature forever. And it's often times translated as, what would it be? It's what we pray at Compline, where you have that little litany in Compline, in Psalm 90, on the four devils. there's the devil at the night and the devil in the morning and then there's the devil that comes around at noonday.

[01:04]

Is that correct? Okay. There's four devils in that song and this is the one that always appears in the light of day. Now normally when we talk about temptations and normally when we talk about devils we're talking about some kind of shadowy existence and the devils like the night time and they like sort of half darkness and stuff in monastic literature. But this devil likes the noon day and he attacks us at the when the sun is in the middle of the sky. In Greek and also in English, Kathleen Norris wrote a 500-page book. Did you? Yes, we did. You read it in your... Yeah, okay. The book is called, ìAcedia and Me.î Itís 500 pages long. There's been psychologists, a Jewish psychologist wrote a study of about 500 pages, I saw somebody, a psychological study on ascidia.

[02:16]

Now what would it be in English? It would be indifference, it would be tiredness, it would be boredom, it would be the midlife crisis, which is not just for people in their 40s, it would be sort of disinterest. It's not melancholy and it's not sadness in itself. When you don't care that you don't care. When you don't care that you don't care. Yeah. And I, there's, we prayed a song yesterday, yesterday morning from Lodz, that was an interesting morning

[03:25]

Laud Psalm, we prayed 887, and it ended with, my one companion is darkness. Now the poet was probably describing not just melancholy and not just kind of a a barrage of things that were happening in his life at that time, but he may have been suffering from a certain spiritual dryness and maybe even ascetia. And I would say, and this is very personal to me, Psalm 39. I find ascetia in this psalm. The beautiful thing about this psalm is the poet talks about it, and if you can name something, if you can put a name to something, then that something does not have power over you. If you can really diagnose your physical or moral

[04:31]

or spiritual theological illness, that illness is not going to take over in our lives and that's the thing with Assyria in this psalm I would say. It's really a very beautiful psalm. The images will remind us of the first psalm that we read, which is Psalm 90. about life is a passing shadow and here today and gone tomorrow and time is running out. Let's read the first nine verses of Psalm 39. I'm in Psalm 39 and the first nine verses. What does it say? I said, I will watch my ways lest I sin with my tongue. I will set a curb on my mouth Dumb and silent before the wicked, I refrained from any speech.

[05:35]

But my sorrow increased. My heart smoldered within me. In my thoughts a fire blazed up. I broke into speech. Lord, let me know my end, the number of my days, that I may learn how frail I am. You have given my days a very short span. My life is as nothing before you. All mortals are but a breath. Mere phantoms, we go our way. Mere vapor, our restless pursuits. We heap up stores without knowing for whom. And now, Lord, what future do I have? You are my only hope. From all my sins deliver me, let me not be the taunt of fools. The poet is hurting, but he doesn't know why.

[06:43]

He confronts an empty life, a life that he perceives as empty. It doesn't have to be empty. But the one good thing about this devil, the one tool of this devil is to make us think what is not real. The poet is living a tense and empty life. How fragile is life. How frail I am. My days, a very short span, as nothing before you. but an able, but a breath. I think it's, how frail I am. Yes, my life says nothing, all mortals are but a breath. The word breath there is, that's the, the Hebrew word breath is hevel.

[07:52]

Hebel is the national anthem of the book of Koheleth, or Ecclesiastes. Now, what's the national anthem? Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Emptiness of emptinesses, everything is empty. Or, it's a proper name in chapter 4 of Genesis, Abel of Abel. everything is reduced to Abel. Abel is Cain's younger brother who was killed while he was sacrificed, after he did his sacrifice. Mere phantoms, mere vapor, he says, what's worth a fleeting life is a punishment for sin. He feels that somehow The poet is not explicit about sin, he just has this kind of nagging idea that somehow he's being punished for sin.

[08:58]

He confesses his sins in a general sort of way on two places in this psalm. He says, take your plague away from me, I'm ravaged by the touch of your hand. Now he's talking to God. You dissolve all that we prize like a cobweb. All mortals are but a breath. All mortals are just vanity. The physical pain and the fatigue add a sense of frailty and futility to all things. At first, the poet concentrates on himself. He vows to keep quiet. I'm not going to talk about this. so that people don't find fault with him. It is said that a man is master of his silences but slave of his speech. Despite his determination to be quiet, the poet, reminiscent of Jeremiah the prophet, can't keep silence and finally erupts to vent his feelings to God.

[10:08]

Now that's healthy. That would be healthy prayer, telling the truth to God as one sees it. Twice he claims that he made every effort to muzzle his speech. The irony is that this poet speaks with eloquence. In verses 9 to 14, he makes a final request. In verses 9 to 14, from all my sins deliver me. Let me not be the taunt of fools. Take your plague away from me. Listen to my prayer, Lord. Hear my cry. Do not be deaf to my weeping. Turn your, he says then, turn your gaze from me. Now this is the only time I remember in all of the Psalter, 150 Psalms, where he says, Take your eyes off of me.

[11:12]

Normally, he wants to be seen by God and he wants to be in the presence of God. That would be the normal prayer of the Psalter, of the psalmist that we see all the time, we hear all the time. But here he says, just don't even look at me anymore so that I can just breathe. So I just want to breathe. That's all I want to do before I die. The poet is painfully aware of the divine presence. and he notifies God that he's being reduced to nothing in God's presence. The reflection about the swiftness of life aims to move God to intervene. I'm disappearing, I'm just a vapor, I'm nothing anymore. God, you've got to do something. I can't. With this repeated word, vapor, or breath, in verse 6, all mortals are but a breath, in verse 7, mere vapor, and in verse 12, all mortals are but a breath, the poet complains about life's frailty.

[12:27]

This is koheletz. favorite word, vanity of vanities. What the poet is saying is, God, I can't do it myself. You'd better put your hand to the task before the morning mist clears, before the fog, the morning fog dissipates. I am morning fog. The emphatic In verse 8, now, Lord, what future do I have? And he raises the tone, You are my only hope. The trusting poet pleads for relief from his rebellious nature that earned such torment. If God continues to allow him to be crushed, he will vanish in thin air if he vanishes in thin air, that's a threat to God, because then praise in the world will be diminished.

[13:38]

And that happens several times in the psalms. Don't let them get me, don't let them kill me, because if I die, your praise will decrease. We find that in a number of psalms. in verse 13. Listen to my prayer, Lord. Hear my cry. Do not be deaf to my weeping. I sojourn with you like a passing stranger, like a migrant worker. I'm a guest, like all my ancestors." When he says migrant or stranger and guest, That's connecting us with Psalm 23, which we prayed yesterday. A fugitive in the desert, when he's taken into somebody's home, has the right to be protected.

[14:50]

And the poet is saying, I've been accepted in your house. Now you have to protect me. You have an obligation, moral obligation and a legal obligation to protect me. I'm just a migrant. I'm an undocumented alien. And then he says, I'm a guest. And those two words are tying, are making practically a covenant between the poet and God. What catches my attention here is a person who's suffering from the disease, perhaps, of ascetia, is really trying to do something about it. He's trying to get closer to God to find his feeling again, to find his first fervor again. This psalm was prayed by Christ, who shared our limited earthly existence, who lived in solidarity with sinners.

[16:10]

Jesus was accused, abandoned, was silent before his accusers. The fact that Jesus prayed the liturgy and we are praying the same Psalms as Jesus infuses our life with meaning. God did not excuse his son from death, but he accompanies us through the corridor of death to resurrected life. United with Christ, the poet entrusts his life into the hands of his Heavenly Father. The prayer reflects an internal anguish, physical pain, a chronic sadness, melancholy of a faithful person who reflects on the meaning of life with God. The author, the poet, here is in crisis of some sort.

[17:16]

The presence of adversaries and fools bother him, but he knows that his own failings are at the root of his suffering. Brief life, heaped up with illness, pain, and frustration, the poet confesses, is the dessert of his own failings and his own sin. in the school where God disciplines and corrects the human being, that this is the school where God corrects the human being. Saint Benedict says of the formation of novices, the novice should be clearly told all the hardships and difficulties that will lead him to God. Are you acquainted with this monk? He does all the things that you do, attends all the common exercises in the course of a week or a month, but it seems to cost him more.

[18:32]

It's as if he were suffering from chronic jet lag after a trans-oceanic flight. He sighs audibly. When you ask him, brother, what's going on with you? He just responds, nothing, just a little tired, that's all. But he doesn't give the impression of being a little tired. It sounds more like sadness. He can't be tired or sad for the reasons he gives you. Oh yes, he has every reason to complain. The food is always the same. Everything tastes alike. His confreres and the workers, the lay staff, don't pay attention to what they're doing. The community is slow in making decisions. The senior council lacks creativity.

[19:37]

The sad monk compares his present assignment with previous ones or other possible positions where his ability would be more appreciated and his talents wouldn't be wasted in trivial pursuits. This monk complains that nobody understands. This monk is amiable and pleasant. He has spark and fulfills his responsibilities and tasks, but he doesn't enjoy life by getting up in the morning, attending vigils, praying the hours, keeping house. He attends the liturgy out of a sense of duty and routine, but his heart is somewhere else. He's hoping to reduce his responsibilities He longs for a change so he can rest from the chronic fatigue that plagues him.

[20:40]

He comments that he doesn't sleep well and he has very little interest in eating. What he doesn't tell you, perhaps because he doesn't realize it himself, is that he passes hours surfing the net or reading the newspapers. or playing with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, which are favorite pastimes, and he spends an inordinate amount of time just walking from place to place, just putzing. He fulfills nearly all his responsibilities, but only half-heartedly. because his tasks are not exciting, they're not worthy of his efforts. His confreres and friends give this monk a little extra time and patience, but he still doesn't snap out of his fatigue.

[21:49]

You advise him to attend the community social time after supper, something he stopped doing And he answers, well, what's the use? It's the same old script, the same old politics, the same old gossip. What's the use? The only sensation that seems to register in his life is a low degree of chronic anxiety. He's a monk bothered by his own life. but not bothered enough to do anything about it. It's not as if he's going to have a breakdown. He's just in low gear, slowly grinding to a halt in his spiritual life. Are you acquainted with this monk? I have the dubious pleasure of knowing him,

[22:55]

I've lived with him. At times in my life I have been that monk. The disease that he suffers has been diagnosed across the ages and in different societies, goes by many names. It was even known in Greek philosophy as melancholy. Evagrius, Ponticus and the desert monk monks call it ascidia, one of the, now get this, ascidia is not a sin. It's an erroneous way of thinking about things. It's a faulty way of thinking about things. That's the way Evagrius talks about sin, the seven capital ones, the seven sin, he uses, we have seven capital errors in our thinking, and one of them is Assyria.

[24:06]

It's a false way of thinking about life. It's a mistaken way of thinking about life. And erroneous thoughts, when they're capital erroneous thoughts, like the big seven, they lead to death, according to Evagrius. Other generations diagnosed this condition as sloth. Sloth is a three-toed or four-toed animal in Brazil that gets up on a limb and falls asleep and then he falls down to the ground and he doesn't even care. Sloth, faint-heartedness, sorrow, anxiety, apathy, lack of feeling, indifference, boredom, or just being fed up. Today we might say somebody is depressed or burnt out, having a midlife crisis, something that is not limited to the middle years of life.

[25:15]

This disease visits monks in various stages of life and growth. Monks today call this condition acedia, and we place the emphasis on the spiritual side of this struggle. John of the Cross compared the acedia in prayer to that of a lover whose affections have been withdrawn without expectation, without explanation. Acedia is a kind of a spiritual unrequited love. The sentiments and consolation that have sustained me in prayer fade and the sensation of God's presence evaporates. I'm not really talking about what happens normally at the end of the novitiate and the first year of profession, the first years of a monastic life. I would say that a very young crowd might be too green for

[26:22]

for acedia. But there are symptoms that can be applied to those first years of monastic life when the fires begin to burn low and the fervor is dying, going out. No one is listening and nothing comes to me from the other side when I pray. That's a common sensation at various times in our monastic life. Nobody's over there on the other side listening to my prayer talking about God. The solitude that once consoled me now just bores me. I get bored and I'm fed up with the silence. Since prayer feels like a waste of time, I'm tempted to abandon prayer altogether. in favor of more productive or entertaining occupations.

[27:25]

Though I haven't quite done it, I feel the emptiness of my spiritual life by reading books on self-help or popular spirituality. I might be more attentive to God if I prayed in a different way. something might sink in if I could force myself to be less distracted and more disciplined. What does a monk have to do to jump-start a long-lost fervor? But I would say, reading this psalm, that ascetia is also an opportunity for spiritual growth Yes, waking up to the demon of Ascidia, calling it by its name, can make us more aware and open, more aware of and open to God's grace in our life.

[28:39]

We can't do it alone. We connect as we recognize a tendency to acedia in one phase of our life, we can recognize that in my weakness, no, I can't do it alone, as maybe we could when we were quite much younger, at the beginning stages of our monastic life. We connect ourselves with God's grace and God's strength. by our confession as this psalm was confessing. When the Desert Fathers, our heroes, spoke of Assyria as a deadly operation in our life, they didn't think of, they weren't talking about sin as a personal fault committed by an individual or a moral foible

[29:47]

The Desert Fathers, Evagrius and his friends, considered a deadly sin more like quicksand, as a gravitational force that attracts its victims away from growth and maturity and holiness. Now, if we look at those seven capital falls, in the spiritual life as erroneous ways of thinking about things. I wonder what that implies about other so-called deadly sins. What about gula? It doesn't just have to do with eating. It has to do with our consumption. of lots of things in life and a particularly insidious type of gula now could be leisure time, use of leisure time.

[30:59]

We're living in a society that doesn't have to work as hard as maybe our parents or grandparents did. Insidious use of, misuse of leisure time or particularly now when we're living in a with a cybernetic world at our fingertips there is gula gluttony related to our use of the communication system internet you don't you would be surprised. I am surprised. I'm a minister of the sacrament of confession. I'm surprised at the good and holy religious men and women and priests who are really struggling against the gula

[32:14]

of pornography on the internet. It's a real, real illness. The beautiful thing is that people are aware of it. They themselves are aware of it. we've become addicted to it and addiction as you know is so insidious that we don't even know that we're addicted to something. We're taking the drink and we don't even realize the drink is the poison that's killing my life. The same thing happens now with the use of internet and particularly Just sensational things on the internet, communication, easy communication on the internet, and it can get as insidious as the use of pornography. How many people, with just a click of a mouse, they can have, they open up an entire world that could really strangle them in their spiritual lives.

[33:29]

And the good news is people are thinking about it and waking up to that fact now. People in monasteries. I wonder what erroneous thinking that leads to death, how we might apply that to gula, gluttony, to anger. People get really addicted to anger. What's that called? Envy. Looking sideways instead of looking upwards. The vanities, vanities of all their form. And pride. In the spiritual tradition, as you mentioned Brother Pierre, a term from Saint Jerome's translation of Psalm 90 has come to me to refer to boredom, spiritual sloth, sadness, tiredness, distraction.

[34:44]

This chronic spiritual restlessness is known to us monks as the Noonday Devil. The Noonday Devil appears at the brightest part of the day, according to John Cashin, one of our first systematic psychologists in Christian life, 5th century. John Cashin says it's at noonday that this devil chooses to snatch the soul away from God. Other deadly sins prefer a certain darkness to thrive If you plot to murder somebody, for example, you shut down your senses to any positive thoughts about your victim, any feelings that might mitigate your resolve to do him in. Out of passion, adulterers close their hearts to their spouses.

[35:51]

But kidnappers and hijackers close their mind to humanity, their own humanity, and the humanity of their victims. Darkness shelters other faulty ways of thinking that we call the capital sins. But Assyria shamelessly stares us right in the face. The noonday devil's tactic is to convince us of a truth that isn't true. And he achieves this when he convinces us that things are what they seem to be. If unaddressed, the illness of ascidia leads, among other things, to cynicism, a hazard of monastic life. When boredom and cynicism become our usual way of experiencing the liturgy or monastic observance, Well, that's a pretty good indication that we are struck with acedia.

[37:02]

We feel bad or bored. Our good zeal, appetites and energies are out of whack. Dorothy Sayers describes it this way, Acedia is the sin that believes in nothing cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing to die for. John Cashin put a more positive spin on its ravages, saying that Ascidia comes upon us when we have learned what we are unable to be, yet it has not made us be what we are striving to be.

[38:05]

Ascidia is to be stuck in quicksand. Most cases of Ascidia are not so severe, although they are painful. No matter what we do or how successful we appear, we derive little pleasure or energy from our activities. While we're resting, a disquieting anxiety and doubt takes hold. When we're active, the weight of sadness slows us down, as if we were trying to afford a terrible, swift-moving stream. It's a little like being on steroids. You're tired and wired all at the same time. Even our favorite vices can lose the jolt they once had to drown, release, deaden, or distract one from the idle restlessness.

[39:10]

At times it becomes difficult to express oneself or follow a thought in writing. It's interesting how ascetia desensitizes us, muffles our intellect, invades us with such inertia that doesn't foster even the initiative to make a change in our lives. Ascetia is a reality, is an illness that does visit our monasteries, and visits monks at different times of our lives. And it's not symptomatic of a moral weakness or a lack of virtue. Rather, I would say, reading this psalm, acedia can be a doorway if we wake up to to this restlessness, this undefinable sort of restlessness that we sometimes suffer in life, it can be a doorway where the Spirit of God can enter the house and rearrange the furniture of our spiritual life.

[40:29]

An accurate diagnosis of a spiritual illness is the first step towards treatment. Diagnosing the symptoms and isolating a disease is part of the healing process. But what is the treatment? Are you acquainted with the monk who goes from doctor to doctor and never finds a cure? What might be a treatment for acedia? In the first place, the infirmed or afflicted must avoid the obvious tendency, which is to isolate the self. Saint Benedict recommends that we talk to a spiritual father about this. Choose someone to share with what's going on in your life, someone to attend to your humble truth. You know, that song that we prayed on Thursday, the song where they grab the devils and dash them against the rock, and Saint Benedict was very close to that song.

[41:49]

He quotes it twice in the Holy Rule. He says, when these devils, when they are assaulting you, we'll grab them and dash them against the rock, which is Christ. Abort them. Abort the thoughts by telling them to your spiritual father, or to a spiritual friend, or to someone who is not going to judge you, but can rather attend to what you have to say. Someone that can admire your humble truth. A spiritual director, a confessor, a colleague, a friend, Alexio Group. As important as avoiding isolation, our Father Benedict advises fidelity to a balance of prayer and work.

[42:50]

Now, acedia tends to get things out of balance, even exaggerate, exaggerate the prayer. and avoid the work, or exaggerate the work and avoid the prayer. Now that puts us out of kilter, and that is a friend or an access to acedia. Society at large looks for a healthy way to organize time and life. Rather than planning trips away or escaping from monastic life, it would be wise to ground ourselves in the daily rhythm of prayer community service, reading, work, but work with the balance in your life. Don't overdo the prayer and don't overdo the work. It's always a temptation, but overdoing something is an escape from reality in the monastic world. Reading that we

[43:54]

And we read at Compline, I think. I haven't been all the days at Compline, so I don't know. The admonition from Peter to the church, 1 Peter 5, be sober and alert. Your opponent, the devil, is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, solid in your faith. knowing that your fellow believers throughout the world undergo the same sufferings. We're not alone. The Cistercian Michael Cayce characterizes Assyria as an inability to identify with the group and a strong inclination to stand apart from the group, isolation. Assyria is not open rebellion. he says, since it's characterized by a lack of energy.

[44:57]

A monk might demonstrate a sullen and resentful disinterest towards his assigned work as well as the daily exercise of liturgical prayer, but the opposite might also be true. The monk might push himself too hard in these areas to demonstrate that he is more committed than most And that supposedly gives him just cause to complain about his own life. A monk may willfully ignore his confreres and the guests. Or on the other hand, a monk might obsess in his efforts to care for people, almost preying on those people in need. That's unbalanced. And that would be also a symptom. Ascidia, because it can tempt people to flee the monastic life altogether or overdo and exaggerate their activities, Ascidia puts up a smoke screen so that we cannot see clearly.

[46:06]

And when we can't see clearly, it's hard to keep a healthy balance. It is acedia, alone of all the bad thoughts, that is an entangled struggle of hate and desire. The person afflicted with acedia hates whatever is in front of him and loves what is not there. Hate and love at the same time. If we cannot rein in this thought and the devastating life that this thought can bring, we become, in Evagrius's vivid phrase, we become toys of our demons, no longer able to distinguish between what will enhance our lives and what will destroy us.

[47:10]

Evagrius writes, like an irrational beast. We find ourselves dragged by desire and beat from behind by hate. Dragged by desire and beat by hate from behind. As always, however, there's a remedy, and it is close at hand. Endurance cures acedia, disinterest, and so does everything done with much care and with fear of God. Evagrius, concluding admonition is good counsel, set a measure for yourself in everything that you do and don't turn from it until you've reached that. Evagrius also exhorts us to pray. He says, pray intelligently and with fervor so that the spirit of Acedia will flee. Tomorrow afternoon at five o'clock, we'll gather for a reflection on Psalm 19.

[48:43]

Now where I'm going with Psalm 19 is, I'm looking at Psalm 19 as what I think it is, an examination of conscience. Psalm 19 in the Bible, okay? Psalm 19 in the Bible is 18 in the liturgy, which I think we divided up in the liturgy. It's Psalm 19 in the Bible, it's on these sheets, and then on Monday morning we'll talk, after examination of conscience tomorrow night, then we'll talk about Psalm 130, which is out of the depths, I cry to you, Lord, that's the confession of sins and then we'll end up with building the community on Monday afternoon. Let us prefer nothing to the love of Christ. May God bring us all together to everlasting life. That's good.

[50:12]

No, that's really it.

[50:13]

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