An excerpt from the First Reading from today’s Mass on the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time:

Isaiah 6:5-8
Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar.

He touched my mouth with it. “See,” he said, “now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” “Here I am,” I said; “send me!”

The Twelfth Step of AA reads: “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”

We were doomed, with unclean lips, unworthy due to our alcoholism (it seemed to us). Yet as a result of our conversion, our recovery from alcohol, our wickedness has been removed (so to speak) and our sin purged.

Now anew, “new wineskins” receiving the “new wine” of the Gospel, are we prepared to seek out and carry out this message of redemption? That no matter what our past, we are now qualified by those experiences to bring the message to those who still suffer? And are we knowledgeable enough about our Catholic Faith to use it in bringing forth the fullness of Gospel and Apostolic truth that is the Catholic Church?

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Christian recovery websites and blogs. Almost all are Evangelical or non-denominational. That is one reason I started Sober Catholic.

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