While we often identify sloth with mere laziness, this vice encompasses far more than that. If we consider it in its more ancient form, acedia, we gain a clearer picture of the ways it operates in our lives, see just how devastating its effects can be, and discover several spiritual remedies. This vice may be far more relevant to our own time than we expect.
Yes, acedia, or sloth, does include laziness. This is the form of the vice with which we are most familiar today. Wasting time scrolling on our phones, vegging out on the sofa in front of the television, neglecting our bodily health, our intellectual formation and our duties at work, all of these fall under acedia.
