TEARS<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nTears have a specific meaning for the desert fathers that was carried along in an especially profound way through the Eastern traditions. Tears basically signify recognition that one desires to be saved and the acknowledgement that one can\u2019t go it alone. In my first post on acedia I mentioned the word\u00a0ak\u00e8dia\u00a0<\/em>while sketching a definition \u2013 not caring about salvation. Tears are the physical manifestation of it\u2019s opposite, a recognition that one desires to be saved. But Nault mentions a second meaning: tears act upon us as we shed them. He uses the example of water over time sculpting and softening the hard rock of our hearts. Nault writes, \u201c[Tears] will make a notch so that mercy might pour into that gap, into that wound, just as the mercy of God was engulfed in Christ\u2019s wound of love on the Cross.\u201d And Evagrius adds:<\/p>\n\nSadness is burdensome and acedia is irresistible, but tears shed before God are stronger than both. \u2013\u00a0Evagrius of Pontus,\u00a0Exhortation to a Virgin<\/em>, 39<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a02. PRAYER AND WORK<\/p>\n
Not just work. Not just prayer. What\u2019s meant is a balance between work and prayer. Nault makes frequent references in his book to \u201cThe Image and Acedia\u201d, an article by R\u00e9mi Brague in the 1985 issue of\u00a0Revue Thomiste<\/em>, which contains a useful (if rather long) quote on this balance from the sayings of the desert fathers:<\/p>\n\nOnce when Antony was [sitting] in the desert [he fell into] boredom and irritation [ak\u00e8dia<\/em>]. He said to God, \u201cLord, I want to be made whole and my thoughts do not let me. What am I to do about this trouble, how shall I be cured?\u201d After a while he got up and went outside. He saw someone like himself sitting down and working, then standing up to pray; then sitting down again to make a plait of palm leaves, and standing up again to pray. It was an angel of the Lord sent to correct Anthony and make him vigilant. He heard the voice of the angel saying, \u201cDo this and you will be cure.\u201d When he heard it he was very glad and recovered his confidence. He did what the angel had done, and found the salvation that he was seeking. \u2013\u00a0The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks\u00a0<\/em>trans. by Benedicta Ward (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 60<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a03. THE ANTIRRH\u00caTIC METHOD, OR CONTRADICTION<\/p>\n
Despite the \u201cdifficult expression\u201d, Nault tells us that this simply means imitating Christ\u2019s method of resisting temptation in the desert by confounding Satan with scripture. Evagrius in fact wrote an entire book about the method, called\u00a0Antirrh\u00eatikos<\/em>, recently translated into English as\u00a0Talking Back<\/em>. Basically, it means using scripture to argue with acedia. Saint Benedict famously adopted this method himself, writing:<\/p>\n\nWhen evil thoughts come into one\u2019s heart, to dash them against Christ immediately. \u2013 Benedict of Nursia,\u00a0Rule of Saint Benedict<\/em>, 4<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a04. MEDITATION ON DEATH<\/p>\n
This of course isn\u2019t to be taken in the morbid sense, as fixating upon a fear of death or grasping for the transient, but rather a focus on the endpoint of the Christian journey. Evagrius considers\u00a0philautia<\/em>, or self-love, the root of all sin, and this meditation on the ephemerality of worldly life as a worthy antidote. I don\u2019t think I could put it any better than Nault, who writes, \u201cThe thought of death also makes it possible to counteract self-centeredness absolutely. I told you earlier that there was a temporal dimension to acedia. Now the thought of death, precisely, gives meaning to passing time, restores a linear orientation, gives it a\u00a0sense<\/em>, in both senses of the word: direction and signification.\u201d<\/p>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a05. PERSEVERANCE<\/p>\n
Perseverance, the heart of all the remedies for acedia, isn\u2019t a passive thing. It doesn\u2019t merely mean holding tight to your vessel in the storm. Nault calls it an \u201cappeal\u201d, an \u201cincrease of fidelity\u201d. Fidelity to what? To everyday routine and final purpose all at once. \u201cPerseverance sometimes consists of remaining without doing anything, or else, on the contrary, doing everything that one did not think one had come to do,\u201d Nault writes.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s important to remember that with these remedies, Evagrius instructs to avoid the trap of appealing to purely human or non-spiritual solutions to acedia. There are none, acedia being a spiritual problem. And as Nault says, \u201cEverything happens in God\u2019s light: the tears are tears in the presence of the Lord; the work is closely bound up with prayer; the battle against wicked thoughts is waged with the Word of God; death is not simply the end of your human life, it is the encounter with the Lord\u2026\u201d Perseverance then isn\u2019t a kind of dry, secular stoicism, a KEEP CALM AND X exhortation, but something that adheres to the same spiritual realm as acedia itself \u2013 endurance in the sight of God.<\/p>\n
Oh, almost forgot some music. Here you are:<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=uMEiggGt9hg<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/p><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fra Angelico\u2019s\u00a0Scenes from the Lives of the Desert Fathers\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Google Cultural Institute \u2013 Public Domain Spiritual remedies prescribed by the desert fathers can often be intimidatingly simple. Intellectually simple, at least, however spiritually profound. Building on Nault\u2019s reduction of the manifestations of acedia to five, he gives us a mirror of those five in his remedies. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2750,"featured_media":80,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
Five Cures for Acedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Fra Angelico's\u00a0Scenes from the Lives of the Desert Fathers\u00a0-\u00a0Google Cultural Institute - Public Domain Spiritual remedies prescribed by the desert fathers\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/2016\/07\/five-cures-for-acedia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Five Cures for Acedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fra Angelico's\u00a0Scenes from the Lives of the Desert Fathers\u00a0-\u00a0Google Cultural Institute - Public Domain Spiritual remedies prescribed by the desert fathers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/2016\/07\/five-cures-for-acedia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Through the Threshold\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-07-25T14:58:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/680\/2016\/07\/Fra_Angelico_-_Scenes_from_the_Lives_of_the_Desert_Fathers_Thebaid_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"5980\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"4235\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scott Beauchamp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scott Beauchamp\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/2016\/07\/five-cures-for-acedia\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/2016\/07\/five-cures-for-acedia\/\",\"name\":\"Five Cures for Acedia\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-07-25T14:58:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-07-25T14:58:10+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/#\/schema\/person\/78443a2dc53c409ac9845be70f131a96\"},\"description\":\"Fra Angelico's\u00a0Scenes from the Lives of the Desert Fathers\u00a0-\u00a0Google Cultural Institute - Public Domain Spiritual remedies prescribed by the desert fathers\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/2016\/07\/five-cures-for-acedia\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/2016\/07\/five-cures-for-acedia\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/2016\/07\/five-cures-for-acedia\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Five Cures for Acedia\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/\",\"name\":\"Through the Threshold\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/#\/schema\/person\/78443a2dc53c409ac9845be70f131a96\",\"name\":\"Scott Beauchamp\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8cd04ae53b2506e4b020feac736fa130?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8cd04ae53b2506e4b020feac736fa130?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Scott Beauchamp\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/author\/sbeauchamp\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Five Cures for Acedia","description":"Fra Angelico's\u00a0Scenes from the Lives of the Desert Fathers\u00a0-\u00a0Google Cultural Institute - Public Domain Spiritual remedies prescribed by the desert fathers","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/2016\/07\/five-cures-for-acedia\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Five Cures for Acedia","og_description":"Fra Angelico's\u00a0Scenes from the Lives of the Desert Fathers\u00a0-\u00a0Google Cultural Institute - Public Domain Spiritual remedies prescribed by the desert fathers","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/2016\/07\/five-cures-for-acedia\/","og_site_name":"Through the Threshold","article_published_time":"2016-07-25T14:58:10+00:00","og_image":[{"width":5980,"height":4235,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/680\/2016\/07\/Fra_Angelico_-_Scenes_from_the_Lives_of_the_Desert_Fathers_Thebaid_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Scott Beauchamp","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Scott Beauchamp","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/2016\/07\/five-cures-for-acedia\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/2016\/07\/five-cures-for-acedia\/","name":"Five Cures for Acedia","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-07-25T14:58:10+00:00","dateModified":"2016-07-25T14:58:10+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/#\/schema\/person\/78443a2dc53c409ac9845be70f131a96"},"description":"Fra Angelico's\u00a0Scenes from the Lives of the Desert Fathers\u00a0-\u00a0Google Cultural Institute - Public Domain Spiritual remedies prescribed by the desert fathers","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/2016\/07\/five-cures-for-acedia\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/2016\/07\/five-cures-for-acedia\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/2016\/07\/five-cures-for-acedia\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Five Cures for Acedia"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/","name":"Through the Threshold","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/#\/schema\/person\/78443a2dc53c409ac9845be70f131a96","name":"Scott Beauchamp","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8cd04ae53b2506e4b020feac736fa130?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8cd04ae53b2506e4b020feac736fa130?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Scott Beauchamp"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/author\/sbeauchamp\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2750"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/throughthethreshold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Fra_Angelico_-_Scenes_from_the_Lives_of_the_Desert_Fathers_(Thebaid)_-_Google_Art_Project\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/680\/2016\/07\/Fra_Angelico_-_Scenes_from_the_Lives_of_the_Desert_Fathers_Thebaid_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg\")
<\/p>\n