9781644135945

The Time After Pentecost
and dangers for our unstable supernatural aspirations and efforts. The chief danger and difficulty
lies in our natural inclination toward spiritual sloth, which hinders us in our attempts to make use
of our time for God and for the cultivation of a deep spirituality. The three chief forms of spiritual
sloth are distraction, melancholy or depression of spirit, and occupation with unnecessary things.
Distraction is a state in which we are occupied with things which should not occupy us at the
time. It is a “sin without a body.” Distractions work in silence and call no attention to themselves.
In fact, one of the most dangerous aspects of distractions is the fact that we scarcely notice that
we are distracted. They are like a cancerous growth on our spiritual life, which gives birth to
many unwholesome conditions, such as dissatisfaction with ourselves, a critical attitude toward
others, a restless desire to justify ourselves, and an unhealthy tendency to criticize others. It
destroys our recollection in prayer, makes us listless after our Holy Communion, causes us to
fulfill our duties without zeal, and fills us with an overpowering distaste for mortification. This
condition causes us to postpone till later deeds which we should do this very day and this very
moment. We fall into a state of unrest and spiritual sloth, and we no longer see God in our duties,
but only an intolerable burden. Distraction prevents us from beginning a work which we have
long been about to commence. Distraction causes us to overburden ourselves with too many
oral prayers and too many outward practices of piety.
Spiritual melancholy. No other condition in the spiritual life can lead to so many grievous
sins as melancholy. It is opposed to humility, since it makes us quarrelsome and contentious
rather than patient. It is in no sense contrition, but rather a secret anger with ourselves; it is
not a true sorrow because we have offended God. It is, in the last analysis, a species of selflove.
We become melancholy because we are too slothful to be faithful to our duties and to
act properly. We have lost the courage necessary to break with our faults and imperfections.
We inwardly turn to creatures and seek consolation from them. We want to be noticed and
recognized, and we think that others ought to know how we feel and how we travail and suffer.
Such spiritual melancholy gives the devil power over our soul. It weakens and impedes the effectiveness
of the sacraments. It makes sweet things bitter, and causes the salutary instruments
of the spiritual life to act like poison. We lose our courage for struggle and renunciation. We
can no longer find God, and this very difficulty plunges us into a deeper melancholy. How
effectively all this checks us in our attempts to make good use of the graces that God gives us!
The chief source of such deep melancholy is the tendency to be less concerned with God and
His honor and will than with our own will and what is pleasing to us. This tendency is true
even in practices of piety; even many religious set as the goal of their spiritual effort, not God’s
honor, but rather their own spiritual progress. They are more concerned about themselves
than they are about God’s glory.
Preoccupation with unnecessary things. There perhaps never was a time when men
were so prone to become absorbed in unnecessary things as now. They are tempted on all
sides to waste their precious time in an inordinate and excessive preoccupation with lectures,
newspapers, radio programs, movies, sports, celebrations, and new sensations. Not
only worldly people give themselves to this intemperate concern with the things of this
world, which prevents them from attending to the one thing necessary; but even we who are
consecrated and dedicated to the service of God, have become absorbed in these unnecessary
things, and thus impair our spirit of prayer and recollection, and prevent ourselves from
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