What Weighs the Soul Down

But we should notice the things by which, as the Lord points out, the soul is weighed down. He did not name adultery, or sexual immorality, or murder, or blasphemy, or robbery, which everyone knows to be deadly and damnable. He named overindulgence and drunkenness, and the cares or worries of this world. People of this world are so far from avoiding these, or thinking them damnable, that some who call themselves monks (I am ashamed to say it) actually tangle themselves up in these very occupations, as if they were harmless or useful. Taken literally, these three things do weigh the soul down when they are given way to; they separate it from God and drag it down to earthly things. Yet they are very easy to avoid, especially for us, who are separated by so great a distance from all dealings with this world and who never have anything to do with those visible cares and drunkenness and overindulgence. [a]

But there is another overindulgence that is no less dangerous, and a spiritual drunkenness that is harder to avoid, and a care and worry of this world that often traps us even after we have perfectly renounced all our goods, even when we abstain from wine and all feasting, and even when we are living in solitude. Of these the prophet says: “Wake up, you who are drunk, but not with wine.” And another says: “Be astonished and wonder and stagger; be drunk, but not with wine; be moved, but not with drunkenness.” The wine of this drunkenness, then, must be what the prophet calls “the fury of dragons.” And you may hear from what root that wine comes: “Their vine,” he says, “is from the vineyard of Sodom, and their branches from Gomorrah.” Would you also like to know the fruit of that vine and the seed of that branch? “Their grape is a grape of gall; theirs is a cluster of bitterness.” For unless we are cleansed completely from every fault and abstain from the overindulgence of all the passions, our heart will be weighed down, without any drunkenness from wine and without excess at any feast, by a drunkenness and overindulgence that is still more dangerous.

That worldly cares can sometimes fall on us, who take no part in the business of this world, is shown clearly by the rule of the elders. They have laid down that anything that goes beyond what is needed for daily food and the unavoidable needs of the flesh belongs to worldly cares and worries. For example: a job that brings in a penny would satisfy the needs of our body, and we try to stretch it out with longer toil and labor in order to earn two or three pennies. Two tunics would be covering enough for our use by night and by day, and we manage to become the owners of three or four. A hut with one or two rooms would be enough, and in the pride of worldly ambition and grandeur we build four or five rooms, splendidly decorated and larger than our needs required. In this way we show the passion of worldly desires whenever we can.