Abbey-Roads2

Being too spiritual. 

I mentioned acedia in my post yesterday.  To be sure, I’m no spiritual expert, but in the post I said this vice is often mistaken for the “dark night” of the soul.  In fact, I think it can be part of the passive purification of the dark night John of the Cross writes about, but that is for a good spiritual director to determine.  While of course, there are rules of conduct for those who may find themselves in this state.

In my personal experience, I believe what had been diagnosed as the dark night, was most likely the effects of acedia.  Earlier spiritual directors I consulted were not so much at fault for supposing this, as I was for being disingenuous with my spiritual director.  I was not deliberately attempting to present a false image to my Father, but I wasn’t revealing everything about myself either.  In one of his letters of censure of a nun, John of the Cross lamented that her case would be easier if she wasn’t so spiritual.

Keeping up appearances.

Spiritual pride is so subtle, we are often not aware of it.  We may unconsciously desire to present our best self to the director or confessor, not so much as to appear holy, but to avoid appearing spiritually inept, uneducated, or maliciously sinful.  Another big reason for the lack of candor with a spiritual director may be an exaggerated esteem for either his education or reputation for sanctity, based in his natural gifts and graces, or even inordinate affection.  I doubt if the phenomenon is really all that uncommon however. 

A strong willed person, who on the surface does everything right, can be very convincing, even sometimes with a knowledgeable priest, that their way of progressing in the spiritual life is generous and faithful in every detail.  Hence the blanket conclusion that what the soul is experiencing is really an aspect of the dark night.  (Unless of course, the priest is very experienced, or has dealt a long time with souls.  Surprisingly, a less spiritual priest, though knowledgeable in mystical theology, can sometimes cut through the crap better than a priest who is very spiritual.)

Navel gazing.

What is the advantage of believing oneself to be so spiritually advanced as to be suffering the consequences of the dark night - as opposed to recognizing the mired effects of acedia?  In my opinion, little to none.  It often conspires to elevate spiritual pride in a soul, leading to greater lethargy in either spiritual duties or the duties of one’s state in life.  Not to mention, a certain backsliding, as suggested by Anita in her comments on my earlier post dealing with acedia.

I personally think that one’s self-conscious preoccupation with the stages of prayer is not a good thing, being a distraction and creating too much emphasis on self in  one’s spiritual life.  Carmelite spirituality absorbs certain souls in this preoccupation, whereas most should may be better off studying those writings which concern the faults of beginners, as St. John writes about.  Knowledge of, as well as understanding the stages is helpful for the purpose of attracting the soul, and encouraging him to strive and advance in the love of God.  Although the diagnosis or concern for the stages a soul is at should really be the concern of the spiritual director.  (This is just my opinion based upon my own personal experience, as well as meeting not a few Carmelite Third Order members who sometimes seem to be convinced they are on the threshold of transforming union.)

Acedia - what it is.

Anyway - one of the signs of acedia can be verbosity, and I have definitely digressed from a one paragraph post, with a snippet and a link to help people understand better what acedia is.  Here is the snippet, and the link will be at the end.  It is from the circular letter of the Abbot General of the Cistercians of the Strict Observance:

The great doctor of acedia is Evagrius Ponticus. His theories express his gift of conceptualising his lived experience and of putting it into words. Evagrius presents the different manifestations of acedia with penetrating zeal. 

For our purposes, it is enough to point out several key aspects of Evagrius’ teaching. Acedia is a complex mixture of thought and emotion. It feeds simultaneously on both the irascible and the concupiscible appetites, and usually stirs up all the other vices. This explains why its manifestations can appear to be extremely contradictory: it can cause both laziness and activism, paralysis and frenzy, frustration and aggressivity, escape from what is good and dedication to evil. The result can be a sort of inner disintegration.

Sadness, or self-pity, is the twin sister of acedia. They are similar in some respects, but not identical. The sad person finds relief more easily, whereas the one besieged by acedia is trapped. Sadness is a temporary, part-time experience, but acedia is global and permanent. In this sense it is opposed to human nature.

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).

Since acedia stirs up all the other vices, it cannot be cured by a single contrary virtue. What is needed is a varied, multi-layered therapy: tears of compunction (and non-verbal cries for saving help); recourse to God’s Word (to oppose the inroads of vice); meditation on death (to evaluate the present in the light of eternity); patient, persevering resistance (avoiding little compensations and putting one’s trust in the Lord). It is easy to see that all these remedies or weapons lead to an encounter with God. In the last analysis, acedia is a flight from God and is only cured by the patient, practical search for his Face. -  Link: Circular letter of the Abbot General, 2007

(My thanks to my Bruderhoff brother for sending me this link a few months ago.)