The Prodigal Son and Acedia

In the Gospel of the Mass today, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, neither the younger nor the older son accepted what they were, sons of the Father. The younger rejected his sonship, wishing his Father dead to receive his inheritance and go and do as he pleased; the older son, by his own words, revealed his true conviction when he said to his father, “all these years I have slaved for you.” For some reason, neither could accept they were sons of the father. Maybe it was the deadly sin of acedia, otherwise known as sloth that prevented them. Sloth is that sin in which we wish to escape the effort, self-control and sacrifice it takes to be an adopted son or daughter of God. In our fallen human nature, it is hard, I mean there is stuff that will have to change in our lives, we will need to detach from disordered desires and addictions that keep us from living according to our true identity and dignity. As I stated yesterday Acedia is an aversion to the invitation from God to become godlike, a saint. What follows is the effort to escape our noble calling through busyness, workaholism, entertainment, news, sports, drunkenness, drug use, pornography, or sex In the last analysis, acedia is this that man will not be what God wants him to be, His son Magnanimity conquers sloth or acedia - Magnanimity is this: I want to be what you O God want me to be – your son and a saint! I don’t want to escape this call to greatness. I accept it, with all its responsibilities, knowing that I cannot do this on my own, but I am confident you can do it in me! I stand ready – Father, go to work on me! I will not run away. This is why magnanimity is so closely related to Hope – the confident expectation that God can and will do in me what He wants if I stand still and don’t run away. Why is it necessary to stand still, to sit in quiet and stillness? First, Because in pride we think everything depends upon us and so we have to be diligent responsible and keep busy. This pride and self-reliance blocks the action of God because only God can make us holy. Second we are afraid of what needs to be done in us to reach our potential and we think if we keep moving, God wont notice us and He will leave us alone and we can prevent God from doing what needs to be done in the us Third we just don’t want to become what God wants us to become so we avoid him through those things I mentioned above: we avoid God by being responsible in the sense of being so damn busy that we are really just running away, or in distraction with news, entertainment, social media, kids sports, on and on and on…However when we sit in quiet, solitude and stillness we have to say to God: Not my will but Your will be done! God I am going to sit here in silence and stillness because I want you to do in me whatever you want to do in me Its really very simple, stop trying to escape. Make some small break in the routine and rut of your life. Give God 5, 10, 20, 30 minutes of undivided attention with no distractions, be still and let Him do in you what He wants. Then make a habit of this every day. You have settled for far too little and its time to demand more for yourself which is exactly what God has always wanted – but you wouldn’t let him.