Dear Father, we have received a question about acedia, about scruples and also about fear as the background against which some people live; in this particular case, fear of damnation. I would like you to say something to us about these matters.

Our state of mind is a manifestation of the state of the soul. The condition of the soul is revealed through our state of mind, which, as we know, shapes the body and our gestures, is translated into language and, of course, into the outlook through which we interpret the world.

Acedia, generally understood as a state of deep and lasting sadness, derives from the absence of meaning.

No meaning is found in what happens; life has lost its colour. Nothing arouses enthusiasm because nothing resolves the lack, which, from that state, can be neither formulated nor remedied. Whoever lives in acedia does not know what they live for; they have lost their way and cannot perceive the beauty of life.

This person has lost faith, or the depth of faith. This is not said as a reproach but only in order to understand. At some point it was not possible to discern the “what for” of what was happening, and that produced a negativity that remains lodged there, darkening the heart.

If one believes that God exists and that this existence is active, in the sense that it continues in the unfolding of events; if one believes in a God who is alive in the present and whose teaching is discovered behind the veil that circumstances draw, acedia disappears. Melancholy, depression and negativity cannot survive once faith has been firmly grounded.

This state, which can affect anyone, survives on a foundation of nihilism that must be banished. The way of perceiving from within acedia tends to be gloomy, full of darkness, laden with obstacles and fears. And faced with this, the person unwittingly anaesthetises themselves, preferring the listlessness of sadness to the terror born of fear.

Within the limits of this brief exchange, can you suggest some way of gradually transforming this state, which tends to become chronic in one’s spirits?

What one does on waking is fundamental. As soon as one comes out of sleep, one should notice the outlook with which the day begins. Then, with inner eagerness, seek the best possible disposition to face the mystery of existence that unfolds throughout the day.

If this favourable position cannot be found, call upon Christ with the ardour that comes from the pain of the emptiness one is living. Acknowledge oneself overwhelmed by anguish, unable to recognise meaning. Try there to delay the moment of beginning one’s activities. Refuse to take up one’s tasks without the support of trust in the goodness of the Father of all, who provides for all and watches over all.

It is necessary to settle into a positive attitude. Attitude is the stance that precedes the event, the way we are when events find us. A positive attitude that I suggest is that position of the heart in which one, taking refuge in the Most High, acts with the greatest dedication here below.

To see one’s fears and place them in the bosom of God, in that boundless depth, most often incomprehensible to us simple mortals, who are nonetheless bearers of a mystery that makes us children of God and members of the mystical body of Christ.

Something of that mystery becomes clear in personal intimacy, when, in an act of rebellion against the darkness of the soul, I decide to embrace faith in what is luminous, which is nothing other than the manifold expression of God’s love.

As the great writer Leo Tolstoy put it in the final paragraph of his novel Anna Karenina: “But my life now, my whole life… has the positive meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it!”

To be continued in the coming days.

elsantonombre.org