LEISURE. - From Latin otium, in a generic sense it is abstention from work (for the Romans, abstention from public affairs or from the family, the only labors worthy of a free citizen). It is a lawful act if it stays within the limits of a necessary and useful rest. The more it extends over time and becomes a habit, the more it constitutes a more or less grave danger, insofar as it is favorable ground for the swarming of temptations and the arising of vices. Ecclus. indeed gives this warning: "Put him to work (the servant) so that he may not be idle, for much evil does unemployment do" (33:28: trans. A. Vaccari, La S. Bibbia, V, I Libri poetici, Florence 1950, p. 247). It becomes a vice and a sin when the work from which one abstains falls among the number of one's personal duties. The gravity is measured by the importance of the duties that are neglected.
A species of idleness can still be seen in that busybody industriousness which consists in going from one task to another without purpose or conviction, with a great and useless squandering of those energies given by God to man to attain his natural and supernatural end. To avoid the sad consequences of idleness, however, it is not right to fall into the opposite defect. That is, men must not devote themselves to temporal activities so totally and exclusively as to neglect the contemplation of supernatural ends and goods (Lk. 14:16 ff.). Work, together with rest and meditation, must be one of the means of sanctification and must not hinder it.
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Ercolani Francesco