"The Noonday Devil" by Jean-Charles Nault, OSB. A Revised Review

The Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnamed Evil of Our TimesThe Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnamed Evil of Our Times by Jean-Charles Nault
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first time I read  this 205-page paperback, "The Noonday Devil: Acedia, The Unnamed Evil of Our Times" was back in August 2015. I have picked it up a second time, and was even more impressed with it than the first. This is an intriguing read on the subject, written primarily from within the context of monasticism, and for monastics. It includes an interesting historical trek through Benedict, Evagrius, John Cassian, Gregory the Great and Aquinas. And it takes on the dead-end concoction of William of Ockham, and his "liberty of indifference" (96).

Acedia, that "Noonday Devil" is a broad vice that shows itself in loss of heart and motivation, discouragement, despair, desertion from place, perpetual need for activity and change, and so forth. "Acedia is the temptation to withdraw from the narrowness of the present so as to take refuge in what is imaginary; it is the temptation to quit the battle so as to become a simple spectator of the controversy that is unfolding in the world" (135). It affects people in the middle of the day or in the middle of life (20). It attacks priests and pastors, married couples and singles. And the "chief remedy for acedia is found in the joy of the gift" (201), which is the joy of God himself, and is captured in the incarnation of Christ. Nault teases out the multifaceted ways acedia exhibits itself, and he sanely examines the practical, but also grace-filled, ways acedia is remediated.

"The Noonday Devil" is a very Roman Catholic book written by the Abbot of Saint-Wandrille. For this reason many, or most Protestants, Reformed or Evangelicals, may not take it up, but they should! If read with a discerning eye even the staunchest non-Catholic reader will find that acedia is a vice that needs to be dealt with. And they will rejoice in the counter-measures of the Gospel that surprisingly crop up in this work. It is a book worth reading. This Presbyterian Minister highly recommends it! (Modified and expanded, 18 March 2020 MWP)

You can obtain the book here: The Noonday Devil
View all my reviews

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?" (Rev. Ed.) by John Fea. A Review

Image
  John Fea is a professor of history at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, PA. A university founded in 1909 by the Brethren in Christ Church. He originally published "Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? A Historical Introduction" in 2011, and it was revised in 2016. This 328-page paperback is packed full with Colonial and American history, drawing from original sources to answer that question. It is a book written "for the historically minded and thoughtful reader who is looking for help in sorting" out this question, avoiding polemics (xix). Since we live in a sound-bite culture, Fea recognizes that it is difficult to have a sustained dialogue on this topic, but he makes a valiant effort toward having that sustained dialogue. The book reads fairly straightforward, and doesn't seem to get bogged down in the contentious mudpuddles or bogs. In the end, Fea seems to get his point across. To answer the reigning question if America was founded as a Christian...
Read more

Union with Christ - An Application

Image
  (This was my weekly letter to my congregation on Wednesday, 21 February 2024) This morning in my devotional reading, I was working through 1 Corinthians 8. Though I’ve read these words a huge number of times over the years, today one verse caused me to stop and take stock.  Paul wrote, “ Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ ” (1 Corinthians 8:12). What struck me is a couple of things. First, in God’s saving work, we are – by grace alone – united (hitched, bonded, ingrafted) to Christ so much so, that what happens to us happens to him, and what is his becomes ours (think of Galatians 2:20, for example). As Sinclair Ferguson put it, “through union with Christ all that is his by incarnation becomes ours through faith” (“The Christian Life,” 110). Let that percolate in your heart for a while. Your fear, anxiety, tears, and so forth, he feels. And his “ Peace, be still ” is yours. Second, the way we treat one an...
Read more

"Ah, Lord! We are Animated by Anger and Anxiety, Fear and Fury..."

Image
I hesitate to put this out there because of the combative environment we are in at present. But I think some souls will take courage from this, and some will also join with me as we get to the end of this little composition. I am struck by the words of God in Zechariah 8. As he rehearses the waywardness and faithlessness of his people in the past, he clearly declares that he " set every man against his neighbor " (8:10). That got me thinking long ago. I started putting the pieces together and realized that one of God's acts of judgment is division, setting a man against his neighbor. That's what happened when he divided his people into the northern tribes and southern tribes (see 1 Kings 11:26-40). Because of Solomon's turning aside, allowing his wives to turn his heart away from the God of his father, David, the Lord brings about a rift in God's people. And this pattern of divisive judgment runs throughout Scripture. On the other hand, truthful unity is the g...
Read more