The lazy one says,
“There is a lion along the way, and a lioness in the roads.” Just
as a door turns upon its hinges, so also does the lazy one turn upon
his bed. The lazy one conceals his hand under his arms, and it is a
labor for him to move it to his mouth. The lazy one seems wiser to
himself than seven men speaking judgments.
Sloth is probably
one of the sins we commit by not doing anything. It is a sin of
omission. While it is, in fact, commendable for one to take some rest
and lie in bed once in a while, sloth goes beyond resting. It is
laziness for no reason at all.
There are several
scripture passages about sloth but the one I choose says a lot about
it. According to the proverb quoted above, sloth always has a reason
for not doing anything. The proverb even exaggerates that the
slothful person will not even put his hands to his mouth. This is not
about a person’s inability to move as in a sickness, but about a
person’s DESIRE to NOT move.
This lack of desire
to move can be physical and it can be spiritual and we see this in
situations common today, especially with those who believe in values
contrary to the gospel. The first type
of people are those who
sincerely believe these values BUT are also sincerely searching for
the truth. For these people,
what Pope Francis says holds, “Who am I to judge.”
The
second type are those who do not agree with the values of the gospel
and just do not care about searching for the truth. These
are no different from the
person mentioned in the proverb
above: the lazy one
seems wiser to himself than seven men speaking judgments.
This is spiritual sloth. The Catechism (paragraph #2094) defines this
as a refusal of the joy that comes from God and to be
repelled by divine goodness.
When
we fall into the second type who just do not care about searching for
the truth, we refuse to discover the joy God gives. We
immediately reject the truth because in us, we reject divine
goodness. We reject the truth because it is painful and difficult.
Yet, Jesus tells us that the truth sets us free.
As
disciples of Christ, we must commit to search for the truth. No
matter how long we have been learning about our faith, we need to
continue learning about God through Jesus. The moment we stop
learning about Christ, is the moment we fall into spiritual laziness.
Our
life is a continuing journey of
knowing our God. We will
never exhaust our encounter with God and as long as we live, we
continue our encounter with God. If we do not grow in our love for
God, we are sliding back. It
is difficult to maintain a loving relationship with anyone and God is
no different. But if we have that desire, he gives us the grace. God
continues to reveal himself to us, each and every day.
Lord, open my
heart, make my one desire be to know you and let me act on that
desire.
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