Specializing in Sleep & Reflections on Slumber (Part II)

Peace, Trust, Death & Heaven, Rest & Vigilance, Mortification, Avoiding Near Occasions, and Balance

Dec 27, 2024

Part I on this topic was mostly dedicated to reflections on the Old Testament, but God has more to say about sleep through the New Testament in the mystery of the Incarnation – God becoming man.

First and foremost, Jesus slept. This simple phrase is worth pondering. God Himself, in the Person of Jesus Christ, allowed His body to rest. Throughout most of His life, He submitted to the biological rhythm of falling asleep and waking up just like us. He allowed Himself to feel the “sleep pressure” that comes from a long waking window during which the hormone adenosine accumulated until His body was finally tired enough to enter into sleep.

There are several instances of Jesus sleeping which are especially worthy of reflection: in the manger, in the storm, and on the cross.

PEACE

The song “Away in a Manger” comes to mind when pondering how “the little Lord Jesus lay down His sweet head.” God sanctified human sleep in the womb of the Virgin Mary, in the arms of His parents, and even in the manger — a feeding trough for animals. If you ask anyone who has witnessed an infant falling asleep, they should be able to attest to the sweetness of seeing a sleeping child. The innocence. The sublimity. The sense of peace and gentle beauty. There is also a vulnerability which stirs a parent or any loving adult to want to protect this sleeping child.

If God slept, we can “rest assured” that He wants us to sleep, too. Do you accept the gift of sleep that God has given you or do you lament how you were made? Do you allow yourself to experience this peace in falling asleep?

TRUST

During a storm on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus was sleeping on the boat while his disciples were frantically working to keep the boat from being overtaken by the waves. Have you ever been upset by someone who seems to have “checked out” or been “asleep on the job?” That feeling would probably have been tenfold as the disciples struggled for their lives while their leader was actually asleep. In a true paradox, the time during which a person should presumably be alert and quick to make decisions, Jesus did the opposite – He slept in the storm.

Sleep is representative of trust in this example from Jesus. You are arguably never more vulnerable and in the care of others than when you are asleep. Even some Christians pray the “Guardian Angel” prayer at night so that the angel assigned to that person1 will keep him or her safe:

Angel of God,
My Guardian dear,
To whom God’s love
Commits me here
Ever this night (day)
Be at my side
To light and to guard
To rule and to guide
Amen.

Jesus placed Himself in the hands of His Father. Each wave hitting the side of the boat must have been like being rocked to sleep. A cradle on the sea being swayed by a loving Father. There are aspects of this event that remain a mystery (i.e., just how aware was Jesus of what would happen precisely in that moment?). It is reasonable to suggest that Jesus was at least not aware while He was sleeping, but there must have been a deep bodily and psychological trust at the onset of sleep to allow Him to slumber soundly, even when there was so much commotion around Him. The experience of anxiety before the onset of sleep has a deleterious effect on sleep, usually contributing to waking in the middle of the night and not falling back asleep. As trust and inner peace increase, anxiety (lack of trust) and inner turmoil decrease.

DEATH & HEAVEN

In the ancient homily on Holy Saturday prayed during the Liturgy of the Hours, the unknown author writes a meditation on Christ visiting Adam, Eve, and all the righteous after His death on the cross.

Here are a few excerpts that emphasize sleep as it relates to death:

What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.
The Lord goes to them holding his victorious weapon, his cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: ‘My Lord be with you all.’ And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit.’ And grasping his hand he raises him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.
‘I command you: Awake, sleeper, I have not made you to be held a prisoner in the underworld. Arise from the dead; I am the life of the dead.
‘I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side, for you, who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side healed the pain of your side; my sleep will release you from your sleep in Hades; my sword has checked the sword which was turned against you.

Although this encounter is not explicitly in Scripture, it is a worthy meditation and faithfully uses Biblical language to describe death as a type of sleep. Sleep itself is used as an allusion to death by Jesus when He says: “Lazarus is asleep” (Jn 11:11-14) when he had died, and when Jairus’ daughter had died, Jesus had said “she is not dead but sleeping” (Lk 8:52-54) referring to the sleep of Adam and Eve which would one day end with the great awakening of Christ. In a way, we are reminded nightly by our falling and rising that our bodies will one day “fall asleep” and not “reawaken” until the end of time with the resurrection of the body.

Another element of the ancient homily on Holy Saturday is that sleep is connected to new life after “death.” Going back to Genesis, when Adam falls asleep (“dies”), God draws forth Eve. When Jesus dies (“sleeps”), God draws forth the Church. In order for new life to arise, there must be a death or “slumber” of what has been. “Unless a grain of wheat shall fall to the ground and die, it remains a single grain with no life” (Jn 12:24). Sleep restores us daily, but the great sleep of death is our eternal restoration. Our end is rest in God so sleep in some ways foreshadows the Great Rest of Heaven.

REST & VIGILANCE

Though sleep is important, Christ and His followers speak to us emphatically on the importance of staying awake, watchful, and vigilant (see Mt 24:3-4, 42-44; Mk 13:32-37; Lk 12:35-40). Christ even modeled through the vigil He kept before His own sacrifice, much in the same way that the Israelites kept a vigil during the night of the Passover (Ex 12:42).

St. Peter warns us: “Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Pt 5:8). In fact, there is a whole season of the Church’s liturgical calendar dedicated to watchfulness and vigilance for the coming of Christ — Advent. Yet, the whole year we must be ready for the Second Coming. In fact, it is a major emphasis not only during Advent (the beginning of the Liturgical Year), but also toward the end of the Liturgical Year in the last few weeks of Ordinary Time.

I am guilty of falling asleep during prayer and I think there can be times that a spiritual director may advise someone to stay there at that time while working on life changes that will help the person stay awake. That being said, Jesus does ask us to stay awake. He asked his disciples, “so you could not keep watch with me for one hour? … The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” (see Mt 26:36-40). Later in the Acts of the Apostles, there seems to be an implicit warning against even falling asleep during sermons lest you fall out of a window (Acts 20:9-12).2 If you are struggling to stay awake, you are in good company with the Apostles, especially Peter, James, and John at Gethsemane. With God’s grace, with practical self-discipline beforehand (practicing healthy habits), and with accompaniment from spiritual companions and directors, you can be more alert for prayer.

Warning: God does not carte-blanche bless every all-nighter. Sometimes staying up late is due to vice. Why are you staying up late? Are you staying up late to work because there is actually that much work or is it because you should have scrolled on social media less during the day? Or is the amount of work you are doing inordinate (beyond what is sufficient or good for yourself and/or family)? In order to discern, it is helpful to think of an obvious example in which God most assuredly blesses an all-nighter, such as when out of necessity, a parent or caregiver is loving a child who is sick and requires care at frequent intervals.

Even when all-nighters or very little sleep is necessary, there is inevitably an effect on the following morning and day. Jesus says “stay alert” but you cannot stay alert if you are not getting proper rest.

MORTIFICATION & BODILY NEEDS VS. WANTS

There are Christian Saints who gave up sleep, such as St. Ignatius of Loyola, as a way to fast and to keep vigil and pray. As someone who is a parent of young children and as a Youth Apostle ministering to teens at night, I can relate to the lack of sleep for the sake of caring for children. However, giving up sleep seems to go against the grain of how God designed us and against all the points in this series about the importance of sleep.

At other times, Jesus sacrificed sleep in order to do the will of His Father (Lk 6:12). Did Jesus give up sleep out of self-hatred to his body? Never. Neither should we practice mortification out of self-hatred whether it be sacrificing sleep, food, or other bodily needs within reason. Mortification and fasting should only ever be in service to Christ our King for the greater glory and from a heart of charity – love for God, neighbor, and self. For example, St. Ignatius of Loyola stayed up all night either kneeling or standing before the Black Madonna where he offered his soldier’s sword to our Lady so that he might become a knight for Christ. St. Francis of Assisi, on the other hand, apologized to his own body (“Brother Ass”) near the end of his life for being too harsh on it.

Since fasting and forgoing sleep often co-occur, it is important to mention how they impact one another. The relationship between poor sleep and poor diet is bi-directional (Niger & Varon, 2024), as it is with sleep and exercise. How you eat affects your sleep, and vice versa. How you exercise affects your diet and sleep, and vice-versa. For this reason, I appreciate the Behavioral Health Index (BHI) as one of the assessments used in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) because the BHI has three critical measures at the end: sleep, exercise, and diet. The biobehavioral model is critical as part of the holistic treatment of the person. I think this area of concern could be better addressed by the field in general.

If we are mortifying ourselves to the degree that our behavioral patterns are affected, we should not be surprised. For those who do not already have a predisposition toward the good (virtue), the deterioration of physical health can only exacerbate a predisposition toward evil (vice). However, the deterioration of physical health can be an opportunity for redemptive suffering when it is accepted as such. Can a non-virtuous person experience suffering in such a way? Not unless God gives that person the grace to do so. On the other hand, a virtuous person who prudently forgoes the textbook-recommended amount of sleep in self-knowledge of how he or she will be affected can grow further in virtue. If you know that you will be getting a headache from lack of sleep, but have trained yourself to still act virtuously despite the pain (or have learned ways to manage it appropriately), then this can still be a meritorious sacrifice that does not put you in a near occasion of sin.

AVOIDING NEAR OCCASIONS OF SIN

“Sleep restores the tired limbs to labor, refreshes the weary mind, and banishes sorrow.”

– St. Ambrose

We pray in the Act of Contrition: “I firmly resolve with the help of your grace to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin.” For some of us, the near occasion of sin is being sleep-deprived.

When we are sleep-deprived, we can struggle exceedingly to be in a proper state of mind. We are more likely to be irritable, sensitive, and frankly a larger cross to the people around us. Can the Lord give supernatural strength to a person who has not had sufficient sleep? Of course. However, at what point is the will to forgo sleep a pride masquerading as asceticism and self-sacrifice? There are actual cases of Saints who slept less than the ideal amount. It was very late at night when Jesus asked Peter, James, and John to stay awake and pray with Him. Did Jesus not care about their bodily need for sleep? Of course not! Rather He wanted them to see the importance of prayer even over the tendency to respond immediately to our own fatigue. How many times has a singular yawn been enough of an excuse to be absent from prayer in a community house, or tucking ourselves into bed before saying thank you to Jesus for the blessings of the day?

St. John Bosco lauded healthy sleep habits to his fellow Salesians. In one of his addresses to the priests of the community, he gave them four pieces of advice on how to preserve purity and chastity. Two of those recommendations were to (1) go to bed at a reasonable hour and to (2) get out of bed promptly in the morning. He even tells them to not talk to one another after night prayers because “one word leads to another.” In regards to getting out of bed promptly, this is something I often advise as a healthy sleeping habit because the later that one goes to bed, the less sleep pressure you will have at your regular bedtime. This leads to a creeping shift in the waking window getting later and later until you are consistently waking at a time later than when is appropriate. As St. John Bosco explains in these recommendations, failure to practice healthy sleep habits can lead to sins of impurity and lust.

We must safeguard sleep, and we have Saints who pray for us to advance in holiness, including how we maintain healthy sleep habits. The Patron Saints of sleep are “Sleeping St. Joseph” (patron of peaceful and restful sleep) and St. Dymphna (specifically the patron of those struggling with sleep disorder). There is also a Saint who is known for suffering from insomnia and who may provide particularly empathetic prayers on your behalf – St. Peter Damian.

DREAMS & NAPS IN BOTH OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS

As mentioned in Part I, God has placed great importance on sleep via dreams in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, the Son of God is placed in the fatherly care of St. Joseph who had three different dreams from an angel offering encouragement and warnings to help Joseph care for and protect Jesus. Also, in the New Testament, Claudia (the wife of Pontius Pilate) speaks to her husband on behalf of Jesus based on dreams she had been having about Him. In this way, even Pilate was given an invitation by God to choose a different path, just as Judas could have made a different choice. God can and does work with our imaginative ability. In the movie, Inception, the main characters’ mission is to inspire a man to consider a different course of action by directly affecting his dream. It does not force the man’s hand, but it does present a compelling and captivating possibility. God allows our dreams to “rouse us.” Yet the anxieties of this world can also affect our dreams by darkening them – nightmares.

Naps can be helpful for addressing lack of sleep, and can even be part of a person’s regular sleep pattern as an adult in some cultures or certain ages. St. Thomas Aquinas3 recommends naps as one of the remedies for sadness, and so does God Himself in telling the prophet Elijah to take a nap as a way to relieve him of his anxiety. Even beyond a nap which can alleviate sadness and anxiety temporarily, we are invited into the peaceful rest of a life in Christ for a more lasting effect. Jesus tells us:

Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
For I am meek and humble of heart;
And you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.
– Mt 11:28-30

Jesus is our Peace. He is the relief from the anxieties of the world. St. Paul assures us to have confidence in this as he exhorts: “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:6-7).

STRIKING THE BALANCE

Sleep is an earthly good, but like all goods, it must be in moderation or can even be sacrificed for a greater good. Overall, God’s plan has included sleep and its benefits since Adam’s sleep, to Christ’s sleep, to your sleep tonight. Remember, it is an icon of the great sleep, not an idol. Over-sleeping is not virtuous or laudable. In fact, only forgoing sleep for the sake of prayer and service has ever been described in Saint stories as virtuous.

St. Ignatius of Loyola does the ultimate balancing act with regards to all these pros and cons of getting or sacrificing sleep. Below is an excerpt from his Spiritual Exercises (1524) which are instructions for a retreat director, but are also helpful to directly read as a retreatant. The excerpt is with regards to how to lead a retreatant in exercising penance on the retreat:

#84. The second kind of exterior penance concerns sleep. Here, too, it is not penance when we do away with the superfluous in what is pampering and soft. But it is penance when in our manner of sleeping we take something away from what is suitable. The more we do in this line, the better it is, provided we do not cause any harm to ourselves, and do not bring on any notable illness. But we should not deny ourselves a suitable amount of sleep, except to come to a happy mean [i.e., moderation] in case we had the habit of sleeping too much.
#87. The principal reason for performing exterior penance is to secure three effects: to make satisfaction for past sins; to overcome oneself, that is to make our sensual nature obey reason, and to bring all of our lower faculties into greater subjection to the higher; [and] to obtain some grace or gift that one earnestly desires. Thus it may be that one wants a deep sorrow for sin, or tears, either because of his sins or because of the pains and suffering of Christ our Lord; or he may want the solution of some doubt that is in his mind.
#89. When the [retreatant] has not found what he has been seeking, for example, tears, consolation, etc., it is often useful to make some change in the kind of penance, such as in food, in sleep, or in other ways of doing penance, so that we alternate, for two or three days doing penance, because we are too much concerned about our bodies and erroneously judge that human nature cannot bear it without notable illness. On the other hand, at times we may do too much penance, thinking that the body can stand it. Now since God our Lord knows our nature infinitely better, when we make changes of this kind, He often grants each one the grace to understand what is suitable for him.

Let us give thanks to God for such wisdom from St. Ignatius of Loyola. When in doubt about how much sleep to get, refer to both your doctor and your spiritual mentor, and bring it all to prayer.

Lastly, a short prayer I composed to Jesus asleep:

Jesus asleep in the manger, grant me peace.
Jesus asleep in the storm, grant me faith.
Jesus asleep on the cross, grant me new life.
Amen.

May God bless you for reading (or even skimming) this far.

Sincerely,

The Catholic Behavior Analyst

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Bio & Disclaimer:

Joseph (Joey) Clem is a Catholic licensed behavior analyst in Virginia. He is a husband, father, and lifetime full member in Youth Apostles. He works primarily with children diagnosed with Autism and volunteers in youth ministry. This article does not constitute professional advice or services. All opinions and commentary of the author are his own and are not endorsed by any governing bodies, licensing or certifying boards, companies, or any third-party.