Blessed Sacrament Church

Deacon Michael Knuth is well known across the diocese for his ministry in the Brainerd deanery, his work as a spiritual director, his many years of past service in vocations and more.

What you may not know about is his literary side.

But readers of the venerable “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book series now know his name — one of his stories is among the 101 accepted into its new volume “Random Acts of Kindness,” which was released Feb. 7.

Deacon Knuth, who serves St. Francis in Brainerd, All Saints in Baxter, St. Edward in Longville, St. Paul in Remer, and St. Thomas of the Pines in Pine Beach, said he’s actually been writing since back in the 1980s, inspired by Catholic novelist and philologist J.R.R. Tolkein’s great novels “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.”

He began writing high fantasy as a kind of hobby and also writing a story to the Christ Child every Christmas “as a gift to the Christ Child and the family.”

“So that’s kind of what got me going,” he said.

But in the fall of 2015, a friend of the family who is a published writer asked him to share his work. They had been praying, and his name came to mind. With her guidance, Deacon Knuth began to see it less as a hobby and more as a charism — something God had given him to use for the good of others.

So he began honing his craft, reading books about the craft of writing and attending workshops and also working with his mentor.

“What took it out of the hobby state is I really started submitting my writing to my mentor for her input,” he said.

He said he is used to writing in a theological perspective, but now he is learning to step out of that to a certain degree and take a truth of God and weave a story about it. He says now, instead of writing for his own pleasure, he is having a message and seeking to glorify God.

He recently took second place in the fiction category of a Brainerd Writer’s Alliance contest and began submitting his work, including two to Chicken Soup for the Soul. But getting a coveted acceptance from such a major national publisher was still a stunner.

“It took me two days to get over the shock,” he said. “… I still am kind of shocked that it made it in.”

Deacon Knuth said there were about 5,000 entries, and only 101 stories chosen.

Although Deacon Knuth’s primary interest in writing is fiction, the Chicken Soup for the Soul stories have to be true. So he took his fiction writing techniques and applied them to a story from his own life. Back in the 1980s or 1990s, he was working at a gas station during a snowstorm, and a man getting off the bus came in and asked where to find the Catholic church.

He ends up helping the man in an uncomfortable way, only to find out that years later, his kindnesses were remembered and played an important role in the man’s life.

“I think it’s the kind of story, one, it really exposes who I am …,” he said, “but it also exposes that truth that if we really trust God, God will provide.”

Deacon Knuth said writing runs in his family — both his grandmother and his mother were writers. “Somehow it kind of seemed to be in my blood.” And it’s a lot of work, he said.

But it’s something he plans to pursue. He is looking for avenues for his fiction and has four high fantasy novels in editing shape. He’s also looking at doing historical fiction.

The goal is to affect people inwardly and reflect a moment of grace.

While he wants to pursue the writing life, Deacon Knuth says he doesn’t want it to consume the rest of his life. So he tries to get in an hour or writing each day except Sunday.

“You’ve gotta write every day,” he said.

It’s even connecting with his ministry: “It’s helped me to help clarify thought in a very simple way, which will affect my homilies and my teaching. But also my homilies and teaching will have an influence on what I write.”

He says he tries not to draw attention to himself with it, and in fact he said his wife, Lori, is his biggest promoter and critic.

“Chicken Soup for the Soul: Random Acts of Kindness” retails for $14.95. The series has been around for 23 years with more than 250 titles and has sold more than 100 million books in the United States and Canada.

— By Kyle Eller / The Northern Cross

There are some interesting and important events going on in the diocese this weekend and next.

Tonight, at 6 p.m. at Holy Family Church in Cloquet, Curtis P. Chambers, former chair for the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa, will share his snowshoe adventures of following in the footprints of Bishop Baraga through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, as well as his thoughts on Bishop Baraga and Saint Kateri Tekakwitha. Holy Family Church is located at Reservation Road, Cloquet. All are invited.

Tomorrow, at Marshall School in Duluth, Trent Horn will be the main speaker at the annual Catholic Men’s Conference. Things kick off at 9 a.m., and although registration is closed, walk-ins are welcome.

Similarly, next Saturday at Marshall School is the annual Catholic Women’s conference, which also starts at 9 a.m. The main presenter there is Jennifer Fulwiler, a convert from atheism to Catholicism who is a best-selling author and host of the “The Jennifer Fulwiler Show” on SiriusXM.

Please consider participating in these faith-building opportunities, and continue to spread the word.

How will we approach Jesus this Lent?

In describing their own relationship with Jesus, many of our Confirmation candidates refer to him as their friend. Perhaps the verse from Saint John’s Gospel comes to mind, “I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father” (John 15:15).

Bishop Paul Sirba Fiat Voluntas Tua

Almost to a candidate, our young people desire to have a deep relationship with Jesus — they struggle with how to do so. We learn deep lessons about true friendship and false friendship in the Scriptures. Meditating on the lives of the true friends of Jesus and the false ones will help us grow in our own relationship with our Lord.

The disciples of Jesus approached him with confidence. They also did so with a sense of his transcendence. Like our best friends, they were with him when he was hungry (John 4:31), when he was thirsty and tired (John 4:7), when he was asleep (Matthew 8:24), crying (Luke 19:41), broken with sorrow and looking for comfort (Matthew 26:38), and at home with children (Matthew 19:13). Jesus is our friend, but in a way far beyond any human friend, because he is God. Jesus has experienced everything we experience, yet without sin. Jesus is always faithful to his friends.

Some months ago, Pope Francis offered a homily that touched on “open obstacles” and “hidden obstacles” to friendship with Jesus. The theme of the homily was about conversion, but the principles apply here as well. In our relationship with Jesus, we may be resisting his friendship because we are convinced we are doing his will and we are not. Saul, St. Paul before his conversion, was actually persecuting Jesus before he was converted to Jesus.

“Hidden obstacles” are the ways each of us have of resisting God’s grace. They are many and personal. The Holy Father describes three types: empty words, words that justify and accusatory words. “Empty words” are summarized by the passage, “not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven” and the parable of the two sons sent by their father to work in the vineyard. One son says “yes” but then doesn’t go. How often do we say “yes” to Jesus but not follow through?

“Words that justify” are those words spoken to our friends or interiorly to ourselves that we used to justify our behaviors. We rationalize, minimize and justify ourselves so we have no cause to change. We are good enough.

“Accusatory words” take the focus off self and point the finger at someone else. The scribes and Pharisees were experts at this. When we point out the sins of others in our words, our conversations over breaks, or in our hearts, we resist the grace of conversion our friend Jesus offers us. We are called to hold our tongues and repent ourselves.

Lent is the season to refocus our hearts, to deepen our love for our Lord and his people. Jesus offers us the deepest and most meaningful friendship possible. Let us ask Jesus this Lent to re-make us into the best friends possible, through his cross and resurrection.

Bishop Paul D. Sirba is the ninth bishop of Duluth.

The annual diocesan conferences for men and women are both coming up in March, and early registration periods are coming to a close, so if you’ve been putting it off, today is as good a day as any to get registered.

First out of the gate is the Men’s Conference, featuring speaker Trent Horn, which is set for March 4 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Marshall School in Duluth. Horn is a convert to the Catholic faith with a degree in theology from Franciscan University. He is currently pursuing a graduate degree in philosophy from Holy Apostles College and is a regular guest on the radio program Catholic Answers Live, a lecturer and author of two books.

The Women’s Conference is the next week, March 11, also at Marshall School. The featured speaker is Jennifer Fulwiler, a mother of six young children and a convert from atheism to Catholicism, who is a best-selling author and host of the “The Jennifer Fulwiler Show” on SiriusXM. The conference will also have another presenter, Angela Neumann, speaking on charisms.

Both conferences will have Mass with Bishop Paul Sirba. Registration information for the men’s conference is found here. Registration for the women’s conference is found here. You can also call (218) 724-9111.

Thirty-plus years ago my husband and I made the decision to plant our roots in northern Minnesota. We knew that came with some benefits, but this decision also came with some challenges. My husband was mostly raised in the Green Bay area, and I grew up outside Chicago. At that time, the closest family member was eight hours away with a difficult drive at best. Thankfully the highways have improved since then.

The disadvantages of living so far away from our extended family meant that a great effort was needed to maintain our family ties and connect our children with their relatives. It was tough, at times, to hear about the parties or special events that other family members attended nearby, while distance prevented us from participating. Nieces and nephews were born, and it would sometimes be months and too often years before we met them in person.

Betsy Kneepkens Faith and Family

Our parents’ aging was made most apparent to us because we had the least amount of contact with them. Invitations to family events dwindled, and updates on sibling’s children become less and less frequent. Extraordinary events like weddings and funerals now appear to be the reasons we connect, and those now seem infrequent, as well.

Every February since I began writing for The Northern Cross, I have dedicated my column to Catholic education, and this year is a special tribute. In 1994, my first son stepped into the halls of Holy Rosary School, and we have had at least one child and as many as four at a time in attendance since then. This June, my youngest will be graduating from Holy Rosary School, and she is our last.

I knew this would come someday, and it feels more bitter than sweet: bitter in the sense that I feel a fair amount of grieving about this transition for our family and sweet because of the many blessings our family can attribute to our time at Holy Rosary.

As I reflect back on what our family will be missing with the absence of this daily connection with our Holy Rosary School, I am struck by what is bothering me. Although I know that my children will no longer be at a school that is in walking distance and that we will not have the benefit of always knowing the parents our children spend time with, I am reconciling with these issues. And although the days of having the overall expectation for Christ-like behavior in the classroom have ended, and the comfort of knowing the care my children received during learning was born out of Christ-like love instead of a group of state standards, I am working to get over this unexpected additional loss.

More directly and honestly, I am grieving the ease with which I have been able to grow my personal faith as a member of the Holy Rosary school community. When choosing to send our children to Holy Rosary, I looked at the school environment as a way to supplement the Catholic formation we were providing our children at home. As I look back, I realized that I grew as much if not more than my kids did through this relationship.

As a parent with a child at Holy Rosary, the expectation and my experience is that you walk with your child through the formation, not separate from them. I didn’t realize this when we initially enrolled our oldest son. I now know that the assumption is that the whole family becomes a partner in faith formation. The school is not an institution obligated to the child only.

I will miss those times when I dropped off a forgotten lunch and was able to join the entire school for morning prayer. I will yearn for the lessons learned when I waited to pick up one of my kids and in that time enjoyed the walls that bustled with children’s artwork and writings about saints, popes and truths of our faith. I am already grieving for those student retreats that I will no longer be able to chaperon or those May crownings that may get missed.

I can only surmise what All Saints Day will be like without seeing those beautiful second-graders dressed as their patron saints. I will need to work hard to keep up those regular activities that brought issues of social justice and profound theological discovery into our home.

As I grieve this transition, I think of the decision and the consequences of moving away from family and juxtapose that with the ending of our time at Holy Rosary. The school community has made it easy for me to develop my faith. The culture was right there, and a constant presence in my life.

I may be away from a daily systematic integration of my faith through the Holy Rosary environment, but I know from moving away from my family, that difference of keeping in a relationship has everything thing to do with my willingness to make an effort. All those wonderful pieces of formation still exist in the ministry of Catholic education within the church, just blocks away.

I will need to make the decision to remain involved, if not directly, then indirectly, and to be just as supportive of their work for the generations to come — perhaps even generations like my grandchildren.

Betsy Kneepkens is director of marriage and family life for the Diocese of Duluth and a mother of six.

This year, the bishops of Minnesota are hosting an exciting event in St. Paul on March 9 called Catholics at the Capitol. With critical issues such as the legalization of assisted suicide and persistent family poverty at stake, Catholics concerned with life and human dignity cannot afford to miss it.

What’s it all about?

Catholics at the Capitol is much more than a typical “Day on the Hill,” which provides advocacy opportunities but can lack opportunities for deeper formation. It is also more than a seminar or study day, which offers instruction but no clear way of translating it into action.

Jason Adkins Faith in the Public Arena

Catholics at the Capitol takes the best of both approaches, gathering Minnesota Catholics together to be informed and inspired about our church’s social teaching and then providing them with an immediate opportunity to live that out in a powerful and concrete way.

Through dynamic speakers, informative presentations and an opportunity to join with other Catholics to visit the Capitol and share with elected officials how Gospel values translate into public policy, Catholics at the Capitol attendees will walk away with more tools in their faithful citizenship toolbox.

For every Catholic who says that she does not communicate with legislators because she does not know what to say or do, Catholics at the Capitol is an opportunity to demystify legislative advocacy and experience it firsthand.

Why now?

Catholics at the Capitol was created first and foremost to protect life and human dignity.

There are many challenges currently facing our state: the push to legalize assisted suicide threatens the vulnerable, many kids lack true educational choices and opportunities, and too many families are trapped in a cycle of poverty. These are just a few of the many difficult policy decisions facing Minnesota. Catholics at the Capitol will give Minnesota Catholics an easy, yet effective way to weigh in on these matters.

But beyond simply influencing important legislative decisions, the bishops of Minnesota hope Catholics at the Capitol fosters a renewed commitment to missionary discipleship through faithful citizenship, where we work in service to those at the peripheries of society.

It’s an investment to help Minnesota Catholics obtain the tools and build the relationships to work for the common good in our corner of the vineyard.

Why me?

You are called to love your neighbor. And, as Pope Francis reminds us, politics is one of the highest forms of charity, because it serves the common good.

In fact, responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation.

As the U.S. bishops state in “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” “[T]he obligation to participate in political life is rooted in our baptismal commitment to follow Jesus Christ and to bear Christian witness in all we do.” According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “It is necessary that all participate, each according to his position and role, in promoting the common good. This obligation is inherent in the dignity of the human person …. As far as possible citizens should take an active part in public life” (nos. 1913-1915).

Does all this really make a difference?

Your legislators are elected to serve you, their constituents. It’s their job to find out what your concerns are and do their best to represent you in St. Paul. But you can help by approaching them and identifying challenges and solutions that work to the benefit of all Minnesotans.

Whether or not you’ve spoken to your legislators before, they’ll be happy to meet you and hear your concerns. Meeting your lawmakers in person at Catholics at the Capitol is a great way to start a relationship with them, so that the next time you get in touch (for instance, in the middle of the legislative session with a critical vote on a key issue coming up), a connection has already been established.

What’s more, Catholics at the Capitol will offer programming that will inform you about the key issues and equip you to influence your lawmakers. We’ll make sure you have an enjoyable and impactful visit to the Capitol! And be not afraid — unless you are a district leader or feel passionate to speak about one of our advocacy issues, you need not speak during meetings. Your presence alone speaks volumes.

This is our moment. Let’s go!

Jason Adkins is executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference.

Lately it seems like “another day, another protest.” People certainly have a lot to say. And in many respects that is important, necessary and good. We serve the common good when we bear witness to the true, the good and the beautiful.

At the same time, it bears reflection that our own chosen words when we do so ought to be true, good and beautiful. Our public conversation is growing increasingly coarse. Politicians and their critics alike have brought into our living rooms, smart phones and social media feeds rhetoric — both in style and in content — that only a short time ago would have been unthinkable and disqualifying. Even at times in the church we see this tendency, this impulse to say things in the most divisive and inflammatory way, rather than in a way that allows room for conversion and mercy.

Scripture has some important things to say about these tendencies. Jesus himself says that we will answer for every idle word. St. James warns of the difficulty of taming the tongue, comparing its power to a small flame that can set a whole forest ablaze. “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing,” he says. “This need not be so, my brothers.”

It is also St. James who warns us that “the wrath of a man does not accomplish the righteousness of God” — important words in a world full of angry people trying to make everyone around them angry.

Perhaps summing it all up is this memorable passage from St. Paul, writing to the Ephesians: “No foul language should come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for needed edification, that it may impart grace to those who hear.”

Let’s be sure that our words will impart grace and build people up during this turbulent moment.

I’m beginning to see a pattern emerge.

Our church leaders continue to remind us that the work of evangelization begins with prayer. Sherry Weddell has taught us that intentional discipleship and the subsequent manifestation of charisms require a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Pope Francis recently encouraged a continuation of the Year of Mercy that is sustained by the prayerful reading of Scripture.

Liz Hoefferle Handing on the Faith

All of these exhortations remind us of the important connection between prayer and the active living of one’s faith. Developing and sustaining a life of prayer is necessary for us to grow in union with God. Through this “vital and personal relationship with the living and true God” our lives become transformed (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2558).

Approach to prayer

As we have probably experienced, there are many ways to pray. Through vocal prayer we speak to God, and in meditative prayer we reflect upon God’s love and listen for his promptings within our hearts. Memorized prayers teach us how to praise God and ask for the things we need, while spontaneous prayer allows us to petition, praise and thank God in our own words. There are times we pray alone, and there are opportunities to pray with others.

Although there are many and varied forms of prayer, there are some important characteristics that can help us in our approach, no matter how we pray. One thing to remember is that God is always close to us. He is always near, waiting for us to open our heart to him. In fact, he is the one prompting us with the desire to pray.

We need not be like the prophets of Baal, hopping around frantically and yelling loudly to get God’s attention. Our God is not like the false god Baal, whom the prophet Elijah suggested may be busy meditating, sleeping or away on a journey (cf. 1 Kings 18:27).

Our God is close. We only need to recognize his nearness and open our mind and heart to him. Prayer is our response to God’s great desire for us. “Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him” (CCC 2560).

Desire to change

Another important disposition to bring to prayer is the desire for our own change. We should be open to allow God to convert our hearts to grow more in union with him. We should approach God with a desire to carry out his will.

The Catechism describes this as approaching prayer with humility, which it calls “the foundation of prayer” (CCC 2559). Often misunderstood, humility is not a feeling of shame or a sense of worthlessness, but instead is a virtue “by which a Christian acknowledges that God is the author of all good” (CCC glossary). Humility helps us enter into prayer with a disposition to share in God’s goodness and with a desire to do his will.

Thus, prayer is not an exercise in trying to change God’s mind to conform to our desires but is an encounter with the one who is all good and who has the ability to transform us by his grace. This is true even in prayers of petition or intercession. When we seek God’s help for ourselves and others, we desire that his goodness and power be made manifest in different ways. The prayer of the faithful at Mass and the biblical psalms provide great examples.

As we grow in love for God, our desire for union with him also grows. St. Augustine notes that our desire for God is itself our prayer, even when it is not verbalized. This desire prompts us to seek his will.

When we rest in God’s presence and meditate upon his word, we come to know him more deeply. We also come to see more clearly into our own heart, inviting him into those areas that need to be transformed by his grace.

Personal relationship

When we recognize God’s nearness and open our heart to him in prayer, we begin to experience the reality of a personal relationship with him. We come to personally know that God is not some far-away force or disconnected from our lives but that he is a Father who loves us and has a plan for us. We come know his Son as our savior, who gave everything he had, including his own body and blood, to allow us to share in his life. And we come to know the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us in baptism and helps us respond to the Father’s love.

Through prayer, our heart becomes the place of our encounter with God. It is “our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully …. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation” (CCC 2563).

Our relationship with God, which develops through prayer, also increases our desire for sharing what we’ve received with others. We become aware that God seeks this intimate, personal relationship with every human being. Our motive for evangelization thus becomes the desire to help every person enter into such a relationship and experience the love, peace and joy found only in God and for which we were made.

Liz Hoefferle is director of religious education for the Diocese of Duluth.

Those who have been following my columns over the years have likely noticed my affection for the saints. Often in these columns I have explored anew the stories of some of the more popular saints that many of us as least know of by name.

The true love of my own personal spirituality, however, is not the saints; it is Christ’s presence in the Blessed Sacrament. It is the Eucharist that led me to the priesthood. Yet the saints and the Eucharist are almost always intertwined, because as far as I know every canonized saint in church history also had a deep love for Christ in the consecrated host.

Father Richard Kunst Apologetics

In the depths of winter we are a long way from August, when the feast day of a less familiar saint occurs that I would like to expose to our readers. Though not on the church’s liturgical calendar, Aug. 15 is the feast day of the largely unknown St. Tarsicius, a favorite of one of my brother priests in the diocese.

Tarsicius’ story is very ancient — a martyr whose death likely happened during one of the persecutions between the middle of the third century and the beginning of the fourth. His story was popularized by the writing of the fourth century Pope St. Damasus, who wrote a poem in his honor, comparing him to the first martyr, St. Stephen.

According to the story from St. Damasus, Tarsicius was charged with bringing the Eucharist to the sick and prisoners when he was confronted by a group of pagans on the famous Appian Way in Rome. The group of pagans, suspecting that Tarsicius might be a Christian, demanded to see what he was carrying in his pack.

According to Butler’s “Lives of the Saints,” he “thought it shameful to cast pearls before swine,” so they beat him with rocks and sticks until he was dead. According to Damasus, he preferred to die rather “than surrender the Sacred Body of Christ to the raging dogs.” When they turned his body over to finally see what he was carrying, all traces of the Eucharist were gone.

That is about all we know of this saint of the Blessed Sacrament. We know nothing more of his story or his personality. But we do know that there was a great devotion to him in the early church, which has faded with time.

There is some sense that he was a deacon, since distributing the Eucharist would have been one of the diaconal duties at the time. But later, he was portrayed as a much younger acolyte (an officially installed altar server), so he is often portrayed as being quite young. There is a great statue of him in the church of St. Lawrence Outside the Walls in Rome portraying him as such.

In the 19th century, the famed English churchman Cardinal Wiseman wrote a novel called “Fabiola” that portrays Tarsicius as a young “boy martyr of the Eucharist,” which led to the saint’s growth in popularity once again and made him the patron saint of altar servers and first communicants.

Tarsicius made the news again in recent years when Pope Benedict XVI spoke about him in his weekly catechesis in August 2010, when more than 50,000 altar servers throughout Europe were in attendance. Pope Benedict said, “St. Tarcisius’ testimony, as well as this beautiful tradition, teach us the profound love and great veneration that we should have for the Eucharist.”

He went on to explain what happened to the Eucharist after Tarcisius died: “The Blessed Sacrament was not to be found on St. Tarcisius’ body, either in his hands or among his clothing …. The consecrated host, which the young martyr defended with his life, had become flesh of his flesh, thereby forming with his body one single, immaculate host as an offering to God.”

What Pope Benedict XVI said became of the Eucharist upon the death of the young saint is actually what happens to each of us after we receive Communion. Christ becomes flesh of our flesh when we consume him, and we become walking tabernacles. May the example of St. Tarcisius lead our young people, and indeed all people, to have a greater love for Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. And may his story become more widely known! St. Tarcisius pray for us!

Father Richard Kunst is pastor of St. John the Evangelist in Duluth and St. Joseph in Gnesen. Reach him at rbkunst@gmail.com.

I sometimes just wish that I could run away from the life that I am living. There is nothing terribly wrong with it, but I get this feeling that I should just leave this behind and try something new. Is this a sign that I should?

Thank you for writing with this great question. Before I offer something I hope is helpful, I want to note that you stated nothing is wrong with your current situation. I highlight that because there are some people who are certainly in the wrong situation. They may be living with someone who is not their spouse and their conscience is bothered by that. That is a good sign that things should change! A person might be in a situation where they are being victimized at home or at work. Those kinds of cases could involve a very different set of “next steps” that I will not be looking at here. Since you indicate that you are in a reasonable position, I will assume that those elements are not involved here.

Father Michael Schmitz Ask Father Mike

What you are describing is one of the seven deadly sins. That may be alarming, but let me clarify what a deadly sin is. A deadly sin is not always, in and of itself, grave matter. The deadly sins can also be those sins that lead a person into areas of deeper and darker sin. You might think of them as “gateway sins,” in the same sense as “gateway drugs”; on their own, they might not destroy one’s life, but they often lead to harder and harsher drug use.

The particular sin (or, more accurately, temptation) you described is called “acedia.” Most people know this temptation by another name, “sloth.” I prefer the first word, and I will say why in a moment.

In the early church, there were a number of men and women who went to live in the desert to seek the Lord in silence and solitude, penance and prayer. While these hermits were living and praying in the desert, they had the clarity to notice the various temptations that assailed them while they were pursuing Jesus with everything they had. From this experience, a list of “deadly sins” was compiled. The sins on this list are pride, wrath, envy, gluttony, greed, lust and acedia.

Now, if you were living out in the desert, you might not be confronted with every one of these temptations. For example, a person might be of the temperament to battle with greed but not with lust. Another person might wrestle with pride but be free from wrath. But the one temptation that these hermits said assailed everyone was acedia.

When we translate “acedia” to the term “sloth,” a couple of things happen. First, we think we know what the word “sloth” means. Second, what we think “sloth” means is not, in fact, what it means here. Most people associate sloth/acedia with laziness, but true acedia is far more sneaky than simple avoidance of work. In fact, those who are tremendously busy can often suffer from acedia. There are workaholics who are guilty of acedia.

Acedia is not the avoidance of work; it is the avoidance of the work that I am called to do at this moment.

The desert fathers called acedia “the noon-day devil.” They called it this for a very simple reason: it struck at noon-day. Imagine you were living in a sparse hut out in the desert. From 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. the sun would seem like it was suspended in the sky, unmoving and inescapable. The freshness of morning has already passed, and the cool and calm of evening had not yet arrived. All one could do was sit in one’s hut and pray (or weave baskets or whatever task to which the hermit had been committed). The profound feeling of discontent would begin beating on the door of the person’s mind, arguing that they ought to get up and do something else. It didn’t matter what: Sometimes it was the temptation to rejoin society and spread the Gospel or serve the poor, sometimes it was the temptation to visit another hermit for a spiritual conversation. Good things! Regardless of what the temptation was, it was the draw to “leave one’s hut” and do something else — anything else.

We have all been there. We have said “yes” to our state in life (married life, religious life, priesthood or consecrated single life) and then we get to that moment when we want to just “leave our hut” and do anything other than what we are called to do at that moment. This is not the time to flee! This is the time to enter into the moment and the mission even more deeply.

Is there a time to discern another way of life? Maybe (but not if we have made a permanent promise). But the time of temptation and desolation is not the time to make this move. The time to move is when we are moving towards, not when we are running away from, the call of God.

Father Michael Schmitz is director of youth and young adult ministry for the Diocese of Duluth and chaplain of the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth.