And again he advises: ‘When the spirit of acedia arises in you, do not quit the house or evade the struggle.’ St John Cassian similarly advises that one must fight against the spirit of acedia so that one is not ‘driven out from the bulwark of the monastery and depart in flight, even for a seemingly pious reason.’
“…and gets in the habit of finding its consolation in the face of this onslaught by visiting a brother, although it will be all the more painfully vulnerable not long after.”
Mental Disorders & Spiritual Healing: Teachings from the Early Christian East
Jean-Claude Larchet
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It is important that a person gripped by sadness not become withdrawn, which would favor the advance of this illness, but be open about his condition and disclose his thoughts to those more spiritually advanced and speak to them about it.
Mental Disorders & Spiritual Healing: Teachings from the Early Christian East
Jean-Claude Larchet -
On the contrary, association with others in this situation allows for a more rapid healing than does solitude, insofar as it constitutes for the individual a test in which he directly confronts the difficulties which are the source of his sadness, and so is more easily and rapidly cured.
Mental Disorders & Spiritual Healing: Teachings from the Early Christian East
Jean-Claude Larchet -
True, acedia especially affects those who strive to submit themselves to a regular spiritual discipline. For this reason they have limited their exterior activities and movements to what is strictly necessary, and seek the greatest possible silence and solitude.
Mental Disorders & Spiritual Healing: Teachings from the Early Christian East
Jean-Claude Larchet -
Acedia can also affect their activities and especially their work which no longer gives them any sense of satisfaction. This leads them to seek out other forms of employment which they think will be more interesting and make them happier…
Mental Disorders & Spiritual Healing: Teachings from the Early Christian East
Jean-Claude Larchet -
When alone, the person cannot remain in any one place; this passion forces him to leave and wander around, seeking another place to live. Sometimes such a person becomes a wanderer and a vagabond.
Mental Disorders & Spiritual Healing: Teachings from the Early Christian East
Jean-Claude Larchet -
Acedia involves a vague and general lack of satisfaction. The person, from the moment that he is under the rule of this passion has no taste for anything. He finds everything pointless and insipid, and no longer cares about anything.
Mental Disorders & Spiritual Healing: Teachings from the Early Christian East
Jean-Claude Larchet -
A profound sadness is more harmful to us than all the attacks of the evil spirit.
—St. John Chrysostom
Apart from the fact that sadness, if allowed to fester…greatly disturbs the relations of the individual with his neighbors.
Mental Disorders & Spiritual Healing: Teachings from the Early Christian East
Jean-Claude Larchet -
Again, let us note that sadness may not be provoked by the frustration of a particular desire having to do with a quite specific object; it may be tied to a more general dissatisfaction, an overall sense of frustration with one’s entire life, revealing that a person’s deep-seated desires (the true significance of which are not always clearly known) have not been fulfilled.
Mental Disorders & Spiritual Healing: Teachings from the Early Christian East
Jean-Claude Larchet -
St Macedonius the Anchorite, in order to heal a woman afflicted with bulimia (though eating thirty chickens a day, she could not by surfeit extinguish her appetite but hungered for still more’) came and offered prayers, and by placing his hand over water, tracing the sign of salvation [the Sign of the Cross], and telling her to drink, healed the disease. And so completely did he blunt the excess of her appetite that thereafter a small piece of chicken each day satisfied her need for food.
Mental Disorders & Spiritual Healing: Teachings from the Early Christian East
Jean-Claude Larchet
