The ancients called it “acedia”; for the Church it is a capital sin: “today this evil of the soul” is very reminiscent of the descriptions of depression: a progressive letting go, feeling crushed by an impending desire for death and indeed acedia “is a bit like dying in advance”. Pope Francis continues his catechesis dedicated to capital sins and this morning he returns to a topic that has often surfaced during these ten years of his pontificate: the slow collapse of many Christians towards indifference to everything, detachment, disinterest in what surrounds them to the point of even diminishing their own faith. A sort of “depression, both from a psychological and philosophical point of view. In fact, for those who are caught up in acedia - he explained - life loses its meaning, prayer becomes boring, every battle seems pointless. Even if in our youth we have nurtured passions, now they seem illogical, dreams that have not made us happy. So we let ourselves go and distraction, not thinking, appear as the only ways out: we would like to be stunned, to have a completely empty mind. It's a bit like dying in advance. And it is a dangerous temptation”.
The desire for death in these contexts becomes pressing and those who fall victim to it end up getting sick, feeling disgust for life itself. “A person begins to regret the passing of time, and the youth that is irreparably behind. Acedia is defined as the 'demon of noon': it catches us in the middle of the day, when fatigue is at its peak and the hours ahead of us seem monotonous, impossible to live” preaches the Pope in front of thousands of faithful in the Paul VI Hall.
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Francis proposes as a remedy what he calls 'the patience of faith' which consists in having 'the courage to remain and to welcome in my 'here and now', in my situation as it is, the presence of God (...) How many people, prey to acedia, moved by a faceless restlessness, have foolishly abandoned the path of good they had undertaken!' A path of meditation and spirituality.
Already other times Pope Francis had insisted on faith and spirituality as an antidote to depression, to anxiety crises, to dangerous self-devaluation, to low self-esteem. Almost a therapeutic path. Bergoglio has always been attentive to psychology and introspection or how to meet the dark evils of people. He himself, he told at the beginning of his pontificate, many years ago when he was a young priest, for a certain period of time, had to resort to some sessions with a Freudian psychoanalyst, of Jewish religion, who helped him out of a complicated period.
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