Sloth or laziness is one of the capital sins. The root of sloth is often acedia which means “lack of care,” or, as the Catechism defines it: “a form of depression stemming from lax ascetical practice that leads to discouragement.”

Pope Francis said, “it is as though those who fall victim to it are crushed by a desire for death: they feel disgust at everything. Their relationship with God becomes boring to them, and even the holiest acts, those that used to warm their hearts in the past, now appear entirely useless to them. A person begins to regret the passing of time, and the youth that is irretrievably behind them.”

Pope Francis proposed “the patience of faith” as the most important remedy against acedia. He said, “although in the clutches of acedia, man’s desire is to be ‘elsewhere’, to escape from reality, one must instead have the courage to remain and to welcome God’s presence in the ‘here and now’, in my situation as it is.”

He called the fight against acedia a decisive battle that must be won.

“How many people, in the grip of acedia, stirred by a faceless restlessness, have stupidly abandoned the good life they had embarked upon!... [The saints] recommended, under the oppression of acedia, to maintain a smaller measure of commitment, to set goals more within reach, but at the same time to endure and persevere by leaning on Jesus, who never abandons us in temptation.”

St. Ignatius of Loyola said, “idleness begets a life of discontent. It develops self-love, which is the cause of all our miseries and renders us unworthy to receive the favours of divine love.”

St. Jane Frances de Chantal advised: “Perform faithfully what God requires of you each moment, and leave the thought of everything else to him. I assure you that to live in this way will bring you great peace.”

Father Adolphe Tanqueray defined sloth as “an inclination to idleness or at least to aimlessness, to apathy in action.”

He suggested three degrees of sloth. The first is a man taking up his task “reluctantly and indifferently” and completing it poorly. The second is a “sluggard” that does not refuse to work, but delays and postpones the task indefinitely. The third is a “truly lazy man” who “wants to do nothing that proves irksome and shows a distinct aversion to all real work, whether physical or mental.”

He also warned against spiritual sloth. “This consists in a species of dislike for things spiritual, which tends to make us negligent in the performance of our exercises of piety, causes us to shorten them, or to omit them altogether for vain excuses. This is the foster parent of lukewarmness.”

Regarding remedies against sloth, Father Tanqueray offered this suggestion: “to reclaim the slothful it is necessary first of all to form in them strong convictions concerning the necessity of work; to make them understand that both the rich and the poor come under this law, and that its infringement may involve eternal damnation... What one must constantly bear in mind is the end of life: we are here below in order to attain, through work and virtue, a place in heaven.”

Venerable Louis of Granada also had some ideas. “If this shameful vice [of sloth] attack you, banish it by the thoughts we are about to suggest. First call to mind the extraordinary labours which Our Lord endured for you... Remember, too, the weary labours of the apostles, who preached the Gospel to the whole world. Think of the sufferings endured by the martyrs, confessors, virgins, anchorites, and by all who are now reigning with Christ. It was by their teaching and their toil that the faith of Christ spread through the known world and that the Church has been perpetuated to the present day. Turn your eyes towards nature, and you will find nothing idle.”

If you don’t work hard to do so now, he warned, “a day will come when you will vainly seek these present opportunities.”