“Sloth of Disobedience” (Day 1 of the Holy Rile)
"Listen, O my son, to the precepts of thy master, and incline the ear of thy heart, and cheerfully receive and faithfully execute the admonitions of thy loving Father, that by the toil of obedience thou mayest return to Him from whom by the sloth of disobedience thou hast gone away.""Sloth of disobedience" is a phrase so unique to St. Benedict that anyone using it invariably has the old abbot in mind. Few historical figures have coined such an exact phrase to transact a perrenial concept—one that binds our civilization's continuity by naming obedience as the very possibility of tradition itself!