Among all the capital vices there is one that often passes under silence, it is not talked about, perhaps by virtue of its name, which is difficult for many to understand: I am talking about the the acedia. For this reason, in the catalog of vices, the term acedia is often replaced by another term that is much more commonly used: laziness. In reality, laziness is more of an effect than a cause. When a person remains inactive, indolent, apathetic, we say that he is lazy. But, as the wisdom of the ancient desert fathers teaches, often the root is acedia, which literally from the Greek means “lack of care.” Acedia means “lack of care” in Greek and is one of the vices.
This is a very dangerous temptation, don’t joke about this one. Whoever falls victim to this vice, it is as if he were crushed by a death wish: everything disgusts him; Her relationship with God becomes boring; and also her most holy acts, those that had warmed his heart, now seem completely useless to him. A person begins to regret the passage of time, and the youth that is irremediably left behind.
Acedia is defined as the “midday demon”: it catches us in the middle of the day, when fatigue is at its apex and the hours that await us seem monotonous, impossible to live. In a famous description, the monk Evagrius represents this temptation in this way: “The eye of the acedioso is constantly fixed on the windows and in his mind he imagines visitors (…) When he reads, the acedioso often yawns and easily lets himself drift off to sleep, he He rubs his eyes, rubs his hands and, taking his eyes off the book, fixes it on the wall; then, directing her back to the book, he reads a little more (…); Finally, bowing his head, he places the book under him and falls into a light sleep, until hunger awakens him and urges him to attend to his needs”; In conclusion, “the acedious does not diligently carry out the work of God.”