Monday, January 28, 2008

Acedia

Terry Nelson quotes Dom Bernardo Olivera on "acedia."
The chief symptoms of this devilish “scourge that lays waste at noon” are inner instability and the need for change (with wandering fantasies of a better place), excessive care of one’s own health (with special emphasis on one’s food), escape from manual work (with laziness and inactivity), uncontrolled activism (under the appearance of charity), neglect of the monastic practices (reducing observance to a minimum), indiscreet zeal in a few ascetic exercises (with extreme criticism of one’s neighbor), generalized discouragement (with the beginnings of a depression).
Share

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like the symptoms experienced by much of the population of this country.Scary! Bring on the Prozac.