Spiritual Sloth

Sloth is an occasional, but long-lasting sin for me. I'll be fine for quite a while and then I can go a whole week not feeling like doing anything that requires willpower. I sin, but don't care about it. I've tried to find patterns in it, but I can't.

That probably takes too much effort. :-)

I went to Confession the other night and finally laid bare my spiritual sloth. I think I took the priest by surprise. It was clearly a weird confession. He struggled to find a penance that was appropriate and usually he's very creative and on-target. He needn't have looked hard. The old school Act of Contrition had the right stuff.

O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love.

Emphasis mine. Hillsong United's song, Hosanna, has an appropriate bit, too.

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me

Break my heart for what breaks yours
Everything I am for Your kingdom's cause
As I walk from earth into eternity

"Break my heart for what breaks yours" is pretty potent stuff. While I can't find a source for the sloth*, maybe I can find a way to bring it up short by contemplating the hurt I cause.

But enough of that introspection. Here's a live version of Hosanna, which originally showed up Hillsong's first album, All of the Above. The album rocks surprisingly hard, given how Aftermath, its sequel, is kind of listless. Like most Hillsong tunes, this takes a while to get going. If you just want to see the payoff, scrub to about 2:45. Enjoy!

* - Finding a source for the sloth should be easy. "Well, KT, when a mommy sloth and daddy sloth love each other very much ..."