Your Biggest Cross

Nothing like being caught between a rock and a hard place...of self.

From my archives:


Rumor has it that a newspaper once sent out an inquiry to famous authors, asking the question, What’s wrong with the world today? And Chesterton responded simply:

“Dear Sir,

I am.

Yours, G.K. Chesterton.”



This story about G.K. Chesterton is not substantiated but I sure wish it were true. Why do I wish this?

Because sooner or later every person stumbles upon one of the great truths of life. And "stumbles upon" is the right phrase because this truth sure feels like a huge stumbling block.  God knows this truth, the saints knew it, the souls in Purgatory definitely know it. We may know it as well, but our pride resists it. This truth is:

We are our own heaviest crosses.

There, I said it.

And it's true for all of us.

When I first came upon this realization I thought it was only me. That I, myself, was my own heaviest cross and that this didn't apply straight across the board.

But it does. It applies to all of us. When you read the lives of the saints you see that every single one of them came to this conclusion about themselves. It's a common thread that runs through their writings and one we should take note of.

Those who say, "But my husband (insert person or circumstance of choice here) is my heaviest cross!"

Nope. Not true. You are your heaviest cross. This is a truth about ourselves that we tend to resist in an extraordinary way because pride has taken root in our hearts and we don't want to believe that one of our biggest problems just might be ourselves.

When we believe that others are our "heavy crosses" it may be one of the strongest signs that a virtue we should be praying for in abundance is the virtue of humility and maybe some charity to go with it.

It took me ten years to learn this. And another five to accept it.

It is part and parcel of our fallen human nature.

It's a great lesson though because as soon as we REALLY learn this, as soon as we stop resisting God's efforts to point this oh so hard-to swallow, it's stuck in my throat fact out, we can begin to make quick progress in the spiritual life because our focus is taken off the sins and faults of our neighbor and responsibility is planted squarely on the shoulders to whom it belongs. We stop blaming others for our heavy loads and start seeing that WE are the heavy loads. This is not to say that there are not external circumstances in our lives that do not make our cross heavier. There are. But the reason the *external circumstances* are so "heavy" is because of our *internal circumstances*.

In other words, if you want to lighten your load you have to work on yourself first.

As G.K. Chesterton so bluntly puts it: Not only are we all in the same boat, but we are all seasick.

Funny how some of the most obvious things in life are the most difficult to see. Not only are we seasick, we are "see sick" as well and our biggest blind spot is ourselves.

~ You cannot escape it, wherever you run. For wherever you go you carry yourself with you, and will always find yourself. Turn upwards or turn downwards, turn inwards or turn outwards: everywhere you will find the cross.                      Thomas A Kempis

~ The greatest cross of all is self.       Archbishop Francois Fenelon

A Portrait of Sloth: The Tumble into Despair

Johan Tobias Sergel: Plunging into Despair

 Sloth, often considered one of the lesser deadly sins in our day, needs to be unmasked so that we can recognize the terrible marks it leaves on our souls. Entire nations have been inoculated with this death-producing vice and we cannot fight an enemy that we can't even see. For this reason, we bring it into the light of God.

All the deadly sins are capable of producing despair but there are two especially noted for it. I always thought pride was the vice most likely to lead to despair and pride certainly can be the breeding ground for despair, but the top two vices that spawn despair as its offspring are lust and sloth.

St. Gregory the Great says that sloth gives birth to six daughters: malice, spite, faint-heartedness, despair, sluggishness in regard to the commandments, and wandering of the mind after unlawful things (see Morals on the Book of Job, xxxi 45). All the vices have "daughters" but St. Thomas Aquinas states that sloth gives birth to despair in a special way. It even beats lust as the top producer of despair. That, not one, but two Doctors of the Church considered sloth to be very deadly indeed should cause us to stand up and take notice.

What is it about sloth that leads people to despair? What is it about sloth that makes it so lethal to the soul? Can we elaborate on St. Thomas' words "in a special way"?

I think we can. When we understand how each of the deadly sins works, it opens a path to a greater awareness of how they operate and what we can do to prevent them from embedding their roots into our souls. In the case of sloth, we know that it slowly drains you of your love for the Lord. Imagine a siphon whose sole purpose is to draw out the love of God in your soul and inject it instead with sadness and hopelessness and you'll get a grasp of sloth's  "job description in the unholy annals of Hell", to put things bluntly. As this love is leached out it draws along with it the joy and awe which are the companions of  holy love. Soon the soul, instead of experiencing joy in the Lord and for the things of the Lord, feels sadness (or repulsion). Left unchecked, this sadness leads to the loss of hope, which, when taken to its full measure, results in despair. This is how sloth has gained the top, albeit blighted, honor as the number one architect of despair.

It helps if we keep in mind that the Seven Deadly Sins oppose, either directly or indirectly, the Three Theological Virtues and the Four Cardinal Virtues. They seek to strip the virtues from us and replace the "holiness" of the virtues with the "hellishness" of the vices. The virtues, when firmly in place, protect us from the onslaught of the deadly sins. But we have to do our part.

In the battle against sloth, the key would be to pray for an increase in the virtues of hope and charity while practicing diligence in the things of God. Hope opposes despair, and since spiritual joy belongs to charity, these counteract the sadness in the presence of eternal or spiritual goods and God Himself.

What may be useful, is to understand that sloth directs its opposition against the top three of The Ten Commandments, the commandments that form the basic structure of a loving relationship with God. When these are broken, the entire edifice of a holy life tends to collapse in on itself, enabling other deadly sins entrance into the temple of our souls. So, in the case of this particular vice, your counterattack would be to firmly resolve to honor God by keeping these commandments and loving the Lord  "with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Mt 22:37).


The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men’s activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity.   (The Catechism of the Catholic Church)



(Other posts in this series: The Seven Deadly Sins in the Moral Decline of America and A Portrait of Sloth - Pt 1)

You Mean Sloth Aggravates Gluttony?!

Yes, sloth makes it harder to implement the remedies that need to be applied to tackle other sins.

This week I am working on the sin of gluttony. This doesn't mean that I've stopped battling against sloth or acedia - that one will likely be a lifelong process as it definitely seems to be the "king pin" when it comes to my spiritual life. As a matter of fact, acedia plays a big role in my inability to overcome certain sins, even more so than pride, though that too has a place in the bigger picture when it comes to sin. I have no idea whether these posts will even be helpful to others since everyone is unique but the possibility is there so I'll attempt to explain this connection:

Gluttony is by no means my worse fault but it is there to a degree. Maybe not so much in the area of my total food consumption as in my proclivity to addictions to certain foods (drinks too). My nemesis is ice cream. Diet Coke, too, when I don't put a hold on it. I could happily eat ice cream every single day...along with my Diet Coke. My ice cream eating is more than just a simple sweet tooth. By paying attention, I've noticed that I'm most inclined to open the freezer when I'm upset about something. I used to think that I just "liked" the taste, which I do, but it's more than that. I don't like when there is not a lick of ice cream in the house. I like to have it on hand "just in case".

"Just in case of what?" you may ask.

Exactly.

Here's where the problem with sloth has adverse effects on my ability to conquer the other deadly sins. (Though sloth and acedia have slightly different meanings I am going to use the term sloth rather than acedia because sloth is used more often today and seems to have mostly replaced the word acedia.) Sloth says, "I'll work on gluttony tomorrow. Today is not a good day as I have a headache/cold/backache (pick your ache of choice...they all work just fine I've noticed). Surely God wouldn't deny me a sweet treat when I'm feeling so ill. Besides, I'm offering up my sufferings today and certainly that's more than enough. I mean, good grief, the size of my cross is enormous already! Anyone can see that. (We could get into talking about pride here as well...but I don't want to make it too complicated). And I also have soooo many things to do today. It's just not a good day to fast. I'll do it tomorrow when there's less on my plate for the day..."

I could go on and on but I'm sure you get my drift. It's probably more honest to simply say, "I'm not going to fast today" and forget all the self justification that goes along with sloth. I'm really good at justifying myself. Sadly, this just makes matters worse in the long run, as you can see.

Sometimes my attempts at justifying myself become so humorous that I laugh and wink at God. It's not that I'm trying to insinuate by my laughter that it's not important to overcome bad habits...it's my feeble attempts at excusing my actions that crack me up. How obvious they are to God! Do I really think He doesn't see right through this?

The point is: I have difficulty applying the remedy, in this case fasting and practicing the opposing virtue of temperance, because of the problems with sloth. How can I not laugh at the inanity of my dilemma?  It's at times like these when I thank God for the sense of humor He has given me! How easy it would be to get upset about the tasks in front of me instead and throw my hands in the air. Except for one thing...giving up discounts grace and grace is more than capable of tackling the vices.

You can see at this point why I chose to tackle sloth first, in my case. If I tackled gluttony first it would be like trying to move water out of a bucket with a leaky cup. Obviously, the deadly sins take a lot longer than 7 weeks to overcome but writing about these sins is helping me to understand just how much of a part they have played in my life. Plus, I am learning a great deal about virtues to boot.

There is more to gluttony than just the over consumption of food and drink and I'll get to this in my next post. In this one, I wanted to show the interplay and the connection between certain sins such as gluttony and sloth. All the deadly sins are intertwined to a degree but don't let this make you feel overwhelmed because virtues are like this too and virtues are stronger because they come from God.