The Most Reverend Glen John Provost
Bishop of Lake Charles
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
Lake Charles, Louisiana
November 19, 2023
Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Year A)
“You wicked, lazy servant!” Matthew 25:26
Acedia is a word we rarely hear used today. That is lamentable! Because the Gospel today warns against it. So, I think it would profit us to look at the word more closely and then allow this reflection to reveal for us more fully the meaning of the Gospel parable.
Acedia is often defined as laziness or a refusal to be active. However, it means much more than that. It comes from a Greek word that appears in Homer for the first time to describe a refusal to bury the dead. Such a refusal to honor the deceased was termed acedia because it reflected gross negligence and indifference. It was, in short, a denial of one’s responsibility. When acedia enters our lives, it can have disastrous consequences especially in our relationship with God. And this is to what our Lord is refers in the Gospel.
God’s kingdom is like a wealthy man going on a journey. He entrusts three distinct sums of money to his servants, one each “according to his ability” (Matthew 25:15). Two servants invest the money and make a profit for the master. They are rewarded. The last servant, however, hides the money “out of fear” (Matthew 25:25). This prompts the returning master to call him a “wicked, lazy servant” and to have him thrown out into the darkness, where there is nothing but “wailing and grinding of teeth” (Matthew 25:30). These are not “nice” words, but neither is the punishment! The kingdom of heaven is a serious matter, so we must understand the acedia of the rejected servant.
A few years ago, I read an excellent little book by a French Benedictine monk, Abbot Jean-Charles Nault, entitled The Noonday Devil. I recommend the book highly. Acedia, Abbot Jean Charles observed, is “a lack of care given to one’s own spiritual life, a lack of concern for one’s salvation” (p. 28). Acedia is a spiritual carelessness and indifference to religion that is detrimental to the kingdom of heaven. It is, in a way, the problem of the “wicked, lazy servant”, and it is, by extension, what we suffer from in the modern world.
Acedia surrounds us. Abbot Jean-Charles refers to it as the “noonday devil.” Having reached the mid-point of the day, we are lost as to what to do. The day seems “’fifty hours long,’” Abbot Jean-Charles says, quoting an ancient writer (i.e. Evagrius of Pontus, p. 28). The sun is shining brightly on us, we are restless, tired, and seeking an escape—anything to alleviate the boredom of constantly having our appetites satisfied. I remember a grandmother lamenting that her grandchildren suffered from being blasé. That’s another good word. Blasé is that boredom that overtakes us when the pleasures of the world exhaust us. When you are blasé, nothing impresses you. Nothing is ever outrageous enough to capture your attention. Does this all sound familiar? It should.
There are two problems that seem endemic in our society: the refusal to accept responsibility for one’s actions and the undisciplined pursuit of pleasure. When mixed together, the results are deadly. Doesn’t the “wicked, lazy servant” suffer from these attitudes? He knows very well the master expects results, but he hides the money out of fear and then blames the master for his inaction. “Master, I knew you were a demanding person,” he says in his defense, “so out of fear I went off and buried your talent in the ground” (Matthew 25:24, 25). What kind of defense is that? It sounds like a child blaming a parent for giving him too much responsibility. The servant blames the master for his indifference and refusal to act. Little wonder the judgment of the master is harsh. Acedia is punished, not rewarded.
How do we avoid the fate of the “wicked, lazy servant”? How do we escape the clutches of the “noonday devil”? How do we rise from our acedia, from a blasé approach to life? I think the answer comes in the Gospel today.
What the two enterprising servants had, and the “lazy” servant did not, was a respect for the Master. The proper end of life, the goal we seek, is God Himself. He is the master who returns and expects results. Unless we are oriented to Him, setting our sight on His return, taking seriously His spiritual and material gifts, vanquishing fear and living soberly with focus and virtue, then we cannot be ready for His coming. The servants, who proved worthy of their master’s trust, were keenly aware of his expectations. Acedia is best vanquished by knowing what God expects. We cannot know what that is, if we do not know Him.
I will conclude with the profound observation of Abbot Jean-Charles: “[T]he chief remedy for acedia is found in the joy of the gift. A gift that precedes us, which is the gift of God Himself, who has come to be united with his creature, to share his weakness and poverty, so as to lead him to the ultimate goal of his existence: sharing in the very life of God” (p. 201). “[S]haring in the very life of God.” Isn’t this the reward given to the conscientious servants in the Gospel: “Come, share your master’s joy” (Matthew 25:23)?