The Catholic Message Board

This was an eye opening catechesis for me as sloth has been my Achilles heal temptation.

Among all the capital sins there is one that is often overlooked, perhaps because of its name, which is often incomprehensible to many: I am talking about acedia. Therefore, in the list of vices, the term acedia is often substituted by another, much more commonly used: sloth, or laziness. In reality, laziness is an effect more than a cause. When a person is idle, indolent, apathetic, we say he is lazy. But as the wisdom of the ancient desert fathers teaches us, often the root of this laziness is acedia, which from its Greek origin literally means a “lack of care”.

It is a very dangerous temptation, which one must not joke about. It is as though those who fall victim to it are crushed by a desire for death: they feel disgust at everything; the relationship with God becomes boring to them; and even the holiest acts, those that in the past warmed their hearts, now appear entirely useless to them. A person begins to regret the passing of time, and the youth that is irretrievably behind them.

Read the rest here. https://press.vatican.va/content/salast ... 0214a.html

Sloth , to me, is the result of bad thinking.

Despair is a sin even if you are Judas so true sloth is just despair.
And I am guided by Edmund Burke's saying, which I've posted for students sometimes

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

Edmund Burke

IN that quote, pride comes in. I won't do that little, I will only do the great.