LUKEWARMNESS. - A disposition of the soul that is neither cold nor hot (Rev. 3:15-16) and, while not being in a state of sin or spiritual death, lacks the fervor and dynamism of charity (v.).
One must not confuse lukewarmness with the aridity of prayer (v.: ORAZIONE, VII), which is the privation of taste or consolation, whether sensible or spiritual, in the practices of piety and in the exercise of the virtues (St. Bernard depicts the arid soul "sicut terra sine aqua"; Sermo 54 in Cant., 8: PL 183, 1044), with a sensation of boredom and heaviness, powerlessness to pray, invasion of interior darkness, a torpor paralyzing the impulse to action. Such aridity can be a mystical purification (v.), willed by God to strengthen the soul in the perfect possession of the virtues and render it fit for a higher life of prayer; St. John of the Cross (v.) classifies it as the "passive night of the senses" and characterizes it as an anxious and painful search for God with fear of not serving Him, but of turning back (Notte oscura dell'anima, l. I, c. 9, n. 2-3). But sometimes aridity has its origin in psycho-physical abnormality, or in illness, as St. Teresa observes.
Lukewarmness, on the other hand, is a culpable aridity, which depends on the will, as a consequence of responsible acts. It is a relaxation, a torpor in the things of the spirit, a kind of anemia or paralysis that gradually thins out the spiritual life, to the point of bringing it to the brink of death to Grace. Prayer is omitted or is languid, voluntarily distracted, bored. Sacrifice is almost completely discarded, one is afraid of mortification, one prefers a life without inconveniences, perhaps with some compromise of conscience, which is tranquilized by the persuasion that in the end nothing serious is being done. Indeed, lukewarmness is characterized by deliberate and frequently admitted venial sin. St. Bernard depicts the lukewarm as pusillanimous men, "quorum brevis et rara compunctio, animalis cogitatio, tepida conversatio; quorum obedientia sine devotione, sermo sine circumspectione, oratio sine cordis intentione, lectio sine aedificatione, quosque denique vix gehennae metus inhibet, vix frenat ratio, vix disciplina coërcet" (Sermo 6 in Ascen. Dom). The lukewarm person provokes "vomiting," God's reprobation, as the Lord says to the "angel" of Laodicea: "Because you are lukewarm and neither fervent nor cold, I am about to vomit you out of my mouth" (Rev. 3:16).
Sometimes lukewarmness follows a period of fervor, through a lack of constancy in the spiritual life. The soul lets itself be dominated by a progressive negligence. Complacent in its own mediocrity, the soul does not aim at perfection (v.). Dissipated and wholly externalized, it exposes itself imprudently to dangers, and resists only halfway the fire of temptation.
The remedies are those imposed on the "angel" of Laodicea (Rev. 3:18-19): an energetic, radical return to former fervor, beginning a life decisively directed, through efforts and renunciations, toward progress and spiritual perfection.
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Antonio Blasucci