“For none of us liveth to himself; and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Therefore, whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and rose again; that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.”
Letter of S. Paul to the Romans, 14: 7-9 [link]
Once again, our second reading (above) gives us a wonderful general message about the virtuous life – living and dying for Christ. In so far as it hints at perseverance in living for Christ, it helps us with our description of the last great virtue on our present list. For we are now at the end of the list of the seven deadly sins, once again focused more on the remedial virtue that we are to cultivate, than on the sin itself. The last of the great evils that we shall look at is sloth or acedia.
We could call sloth laziness, but we have a common idea of laziness already – a resistance to labour and exertion – but we tend to think here only about physical labour, and so about employment. We know how destructive a refusal to work physically is, how it damages both mentally and with respect to our health. What I want to speak of today is spiritual laziness, which is even more destructive from the point of view of the Catholic philosophy. S. Thomas Aquinas speaks of a don’t-carishness in the divine service. If any of us struggles with prayer and divine worship – and we all know people who have struggled and given up on prayer and attendance at church – if we struggle with fidelity to divine service, we are engaging directly with sloth and acedia.
We remember that the Lord spoke often about a narrow road and a narrow gate that leads to beatitude, and a wider and more comfortable road that leads to destruction. The Catholic life is not easy, especially when things becomes difficult and we are beset with difficulties and tragedy – many fall away in these circumstances. Those of you who are family-people, who have or have had children, know how challenging it is to love – but how rewarding it also is to love. The love of God comes with its own challenges, especially when all He seems to be doing is throwing us difficulties. If we drop off from the pursuit of God, helped by a whole variety of distractions and false idols, we may find ourselves growing spiritually listless and even inert.
In the circumstances of the challenges posed to the devotional life, other temptations and other sins arrive. Sloth becomes the circumstance for other evils. We may have heard this expressed popularly as, Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. What shall we do? Shall we remain in a spiritual torpor and give it all up, or shall we persevere and strive uphill and along a narrow path towards a seemingly-elusive union with God?
I was thinking about this recently, when we had the feast day of S. Teresa of Calcutta – Mother Teresa – thinking how difficult her life was, and how she carried doggedly on as the general of a small army of Sisters who changed the world for thousands of people. The virtue we are looking for today is diligence – doing one’s duty – which I have liked to say is quite a national virtue in England (and I say this as a foreigner to this country) and one that has been rewarded even in the secular sphere – for we continue here to have a distinguished and respected military history, with our war-memorials as the centres of our towns and villages. We remember the men and women who went to their deaths to fight for what they loved and valued, and we remember those who enlisted and endured their terms of service.
Shall we speak of such diligence as this in spiritual terms? The Lord repeatedly said in the gospels that times would become difficult for the Church, but that we should persevere until the end. If we are truly zealous for union with God and not simply ‘culturally catholic,’ as people sometimes say, then we understand that we are part of a colossal spiritual battle, and we search for the armour and the weaponry we shall need to fight it. S. Paul speaks in his letter to the Ephesians of a helmet of salvation and sword of the Spirit (the word of God), etc.
And so, as we come to an end of a series of words on the virtuous life… Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war…
Our readings today are, of course, about forgiveness. The gospel message itself is a long parable that unfolds some of those last few lines of the Lord’s prayer: …forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us… There are two debts mentioned in the gospel story (below), one is an unimaginable fortune of ten thousand silver talents owed by the first servant, and the other is a small wage a hundred pence/denarii owed by the second servant. The master forgives the greater debt, and expects the immensely smaller debt to be likewise treated mercifully. Christ forgives our enormous debt of sin with His remedial sacrifice on the cross, and expects us to forgive the relatively smaller sins committed against us. Elsewhere, Christ has said that in the measure that we have ourselves been merciful will mercy be shown us. And the sage tells us in the book of Ecclesiasticus that vengeance belongs to God, that resentment and anger are ugly. Once more this bridge book between the Old Testament and the New Testament presents a message like Christ’s.
“Mockery and reproach are of the proud, and vengeance as a lion shall lie in wait for him. They shall perish in a snare that are delighted with the fall of the just: and sorrow shall consume them before they die. Anger and fury are both of them abominable, and the sinful man shall be subject to them. He that seeketh to revenge himself, shall find vengeance from the Lord, and He will surely keep his sins in remembrance. Forgive thy neighbour if he hath hurt thee: and then shall thy sins be forgiven to thee when thou prayest. Man to man reserveth anger, and doth he seek remedy of God? He hath no mercy on a man like himself, and doth he entreat for his own sins? He that is but flesh, nourisheth anger, and doth he ask forgiveness of God? Who shall obtain pardon for his sins? Remember thy last things, and let enmity cease: for corruption and death hang over in his commandments. Remember the fear of God, and be not angry with thy neighbour. Remember the covenant of the most High, and overlook the ignorance of thy neighbour.”
Book of Ecclesiasticus (aka. Sirach), 27: 31 – 28: 9 [link]
We know from experience perhaps how vengeful people appear to us, and we may remember how ugly we may have been if we were ourselves vengeful in the past. Centuries of Christian living have shown us how much more healthy is the attitude of the merciful heart, because that heart becomes an image of the Sacred Heart – the heart of God Himself. If the Lord is compassion and love, slow to anger and rich in mercy (as we chanted in our response to the psalm this weekend), so also will be His Christians, sticking to our spiritual guns (so to speak, for we are in a spiritual battle) but with the patience and the kindliness of the fatherly God Who stands above us, a Shepherd of His shepherds (who we are), Who teaches us to love as He does.
“Then came Peter unto Him and said, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?’ Jesus saith to him, ‘I say not to thee, till seven times; but till seventy times seven times. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened to a king, who would take an account of his servants. And when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him, that owed him ten thousand talents. And as he had not wherewith to pay it, his lord commanded that he should be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. But that servant falling down, besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And the lord of that servant being moved with pity, let him go and forgave him the debt. But when that servant was gone out, he found one of his fellow servants that owed him an hundred pence, and laying hold of him, throttled him, saying: Pay what thou owest. And his fellow servant falling down, besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not, but went and cast him into prison, till he paid the debt. Now his fellow servants seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him; and said to him, Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all the debt, because thou besoughtest me: Shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellow servant, even as I had compassion on thee? And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he paid all the debt. So also shall My heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not every one his brother from your hearts.'”
Gospel of S. Matthew, 18: 21-35 [link]
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 