October 6, 2003 

"Sloth Part III: Resisting Sloth"

How can we resist sloth?  One of the main ways is prayer.  We need to choose to be on a Heaven-bound path.  We need to choose where our focus is going to be.  We need to choose that destination and choose to make resolutions to stay on that path.  It's like when we take a trip.  We get out the map.  There are options.  There are different ways of getting from one place to another.  We make that choice in our spiritual journey so that we know exactly where we're coming from and the way that we're going to get there.  It's a very firm resolution, particularly a resolution to pray. 

St. Thomas Aquinas said the more we think about spiritual goods, the more pleasing they will become to us, and then sloth will die away.  Theologians tells us to conquer sloth with a real love of God and true devotion of the will.  So this is our choice.  It's our choice to choose life or to choose death.  It's our choice to accept this zeal, this passion, this fire of God in our lives, which is so important to Jesus, or to not accept it.  Jesus said, "I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!" (Lk 12:49).  That's His desire.  We can choose those desires of His to ignite our hearts, or we can choose mediocrity, compromise, and complacency.  It's our choice.   

Once we have chosen our priority for that relationship first and foremost with the Lord, we need to choose to persevere in our daily prayer life and be faithful to it.  Fidelity to God goes a long way in keeping this sin of sloth at bay.  Many times we might have to practice sacrifice and obedience and charity even more faithfully, but these will safeguard our resolution constantly.  Sacrifice will set us free from the bondage of the flesh and the bondage of these sins.  It will restore a vigor to our spiritual life as that freedom starts to come day after day.  Love is the number one virtue because love gives us the power and the energy.  Scripture tells us and the saints gave us a constant example to do everything in love. 

There's a purification process as we grow and start to get away from this particular sin.  It's to labor, to really take the effort to be free of this sin even at a venial level.  We only want to be totally with God.  So we need to make resolutions on what we will do to combat this sinful area.  It will entail sacrifice.  Just a commitment to daily prayer can be sacrificial.  We're not saying long periods.  We begin with short prayer periods and then as we get more energy, we can see there are more ways and time slots when we can pray.  The enemy would like us to begin with big time frames for prayer.  He likes exaggeration.  The enemy likes big things, but God likes little things.  The problem with starting out being overly generous and really big is that we have a tendency to do it for one or two days, and then we abandon the whole idea totally.  We have a tendency to do this at Lent each year, "Oh, I'm  going to pray an hour.  I'm going to make a holy hour every day."  That's nice, but did God really ask that?  Did He really want it because if He didn't, if we're being inspired by the enemy, then obviously two or three days and then something will come up.  What happens then is that we feel guilty and beat ourselves to death.  Self-condemnation comes because we feel we have let God down, but He never asked for it in the first place.  The enemy did.  This happens quite often to people who pray, so we have to be really careful.  What is God really asking?  Does He want fifteen minutes a day every day?  He would rather have that than nothing.  If we promise an hour and give Him only five minutes, He'll take that, but we might feel that we have failed Him, we have let Him down, and so we'll almost stop prayer totally then.  So watch the fruits of your prayer and  your relationship in your lives.  That's going to tell us a lot of who we are listening to. 

Another way to help diminish this sin in our lives is to keep some kind of a schedule and do what we tend to put off.  We can walk right into those things that we have a tendency to procrastinate about.  We can keep a schedule, not a real detailed schedule but something that is reasonable for you in your lifestyle with your family obligations.  Make an effort to especially get rid of as many faults as the Spirit starts to show you because that will bring us into more and more freedom.  The more we can get airborne into our spiritual selves, the more energy we definitely will have. 

And persevere.  Perseverance is key for this sin because this sin itself does not want us to finish anything.  I think this is why Jesus' sixth word on the Cross really nails it when He said, "It is finished" (Jn 19:30).  "Father, I have finished the work You have given Me to do" (see Jn 17:4).  That's how we can put this sin to death. 

We must realize how important our choices are and not be fooled into complacency.  Choose to exert your will.  Come against yourself if you have to because sloth is where we will just give in and kind of take the easy way out.  There's a discipline to come against all the capital sins, of course, but perseverance can overcome tepidity.  It's very important for intercessors.  It's very important for prayer warriors because we are in a ministry of taking on sin when we pray for others, in addition to these personal capital sins as they manifest themselves in our own lives.  But when we can get rid of them, then we are better able to take on sin for others with Jesus and become victim lambs.   As St. Paul says, "To really make up now in our bodies what is still lacking to the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His Body, the Church" (see Col 1:24).  We can stand in the gap then and know the power of interceding and connecting God and man again.  But as long as it's our personal sin, it can take us down, and we can't really be used in that real powerful burden-bearing ministry that God is calling us all to, particularly as prayer warriors.
 
Excerpt from Mother Nadine's Prayer Warrior Summit: The Power of Prayer Warriors," 2002.