Category Archives: Church

Five Smooth Stones

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An excerpt from the First Reading from today’s Mass:

1 Samuel 17:40

Then, staff in hand, David selected five smooth stones from the wadi and put them in the pocket of his shepherd’s bag.

In his homily, the priest at a parish I attend had said that the reference to a particular number of stones was significant. Why five? Many have postulated that the 5 smooth stones are foreshadowing the 5 wounds of Christ on the Cross. (Each hand, each foot and the spear which pierced Him). Just as Jesus defeated Satan and sin on the Cross through His wounds suffered, David whacked the Israelite enemy with 5 stones. David is a precursor to Jesus, a King from whose line the Messiah will come.

The priest further went on to say that each of us can have “5 smooth stones” that we can use to defeat our enemies, or just the forces of the World that seek to keep us prisoners to it. Or, in our case, slaves of addiction.

What are your 5 smooth stones? The priest said his was the Bible, the Catechism, Mass and the Eucharist, personal prayer and his family. I would say the first four are also mine, but would substitute my fiancee for family (got family issues) .

So, what’s in your shepherd’s bag?

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

The well do not need a physician

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The Gospel reading from today’s Mass (Saturday daily, not Sunday Vigil) has a particular relevance for us alcoholics:

Mark 2:13-17;

Jesus went out along the sea.
All the crowd came to him and he taught them.
As he passed by, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus,
sitting at the customs post.
Jesus said to him, “Follow me.”
And he got up and followed Jesus.
While he was at table in his house,
many tax collectors and sinners sat with Jesus and his disciples;
for there were many who followed him.
Some scribes who were Pharisees saw that Jesus was eating with sinners
and tax collectors and said to his disciples,
“Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus heard this and said to them,
“Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

This is why Christianity, and in particular Catholic Christianity with her sacraments, is an excellent spiritual path for people recovering from an addiction. Jesus doesn’t care who you are, what your background is or anything else that the “world’ deems important. People that the world shuns and deems inferior, He runs to and picks up and heals. Jesus came for all humanity, but in particular for the broken and the wounded. In the Gospel accounts He was frequently associating with the outcasts of society. He was always taken to task for it, as is the case in today’s reading.

We alcoholics and addicts are broken and wounded, regardless of the length of sobriety. We will always remain a little bent and cracked, but Jesus and His Church are always there to pick us up.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Alcoholism and Temperance (the Virtue)

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The Catechism of the Catholic Church (“CCC”) has this to say in the subject of alcoholism:

Paragraph 2290;

The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine. Those incur grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others’ safety on the road, at sea, or in the air.

The virtue of temperance is explained here:

Paragraph 1805:
Four virtues play a pivotal role and accordingly are called “cardinal”; all the others are grouped around them. They are: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. “If anyone loves righteousness, [Wisdom’s] labors are virtues; for she teaches temperance and prudence, justice, and courage.” These virtues are praised under other names in many passages of Scripture.

Paragraph 1809:

Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. It ensures the will’s mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honorable. The temperate person directs the sensitive appetites toward what is good and maintains a healthy discretion: “Do not follow your inclination and strength, walking according to the desires of your heart.” Temperance is often praised in the Old Testament: “Do not follow your base desires, but restrain your appetites.” In the New Testament it is called “moderation” or “sobriety.” We ought “to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world.”

To live well is nothing other than to love God with all one’s heart, with all one’s soul and with all one’s efforts; from this it comes about that love is kept whole and uncorrupted (through temperance). No misfortune can disturb it (and this is fortitude). It obeys only [God] (and this is justice), and is careful in discerning things, so as not to be surprised by deceit or trickery (and this is prudence).

One can see by studying Paragraph 1809 that the addiction of alcoholism makes it impossible to have a moderate attraction or use of certain pleasures. In some Catholic writings, particularly older ones, the phrase “inordinate attraction” is quite often used to describe something we would now use the word “addiction” for. Through temperance, our love for God is kept “whole and uncorrupted”, therefore, with the ability to develop the virtue (if that’s the correct phraseology, what I mean is to practice or make use of it) our love for God is  absent.  This may be the “hole in the soul” that I and plenty of other addicts and alcoholics have experienced while drinking or using. 
This “hole” was only able to be filled with drinking and drugging. Obviously, the addiction just worsened the inability to employ temperance and the other virtues. Those other virtues as mention in the CCC text: prudence, or wisdom; justice or maybe a sense of fairness and moral certitude and direction; and fortitude, or strength. One can easily see these lacking in a well-developed untreated alcoholic. Finally things come crashing down and we are left with nothing. The “hole in the soul”, which was filled with a false spiritual feeling, is ever larger and threatened to consume us entirely. The betrayal of what we thought was saving us was complete. We hit bottom.
And so we arrive at some place. And we reach for either death or hope. If you’re reading this you either are or have grasped onto hope. Jesus is our only hope, without Him there is nothing.
I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

First Sunday of Advent

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From the Second Reading from today’s Mass for the First Sunday of Advent:

Romans 13:11-14;

Brothers and sisters:You know the time; it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep.For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed; the night is advanced, the day is at hand. Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and lust, not in rivalry and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ,and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.

Today the Church begins a new liturgical year with the start of Advent. Why is this particularly useful for us sober alcoholics? Because Advent is the time during which we prepare ourselves for the coming of Jesus. Advent means that Christmas (or Jesus’s Birth) is near. If you had been attending Mass or studying the Sunday and Daily Mass Readings during November you would have noticed that the Church was focusing on death and the end of the world (or the Second Coming of Jesus). Fitting, as November is dedicated to the blessed dead. The Church was reminding us of our own mortality and also that of the world’s. Immediately following that month, we are happily reminded of Jesus’ First Coming, His birth as a mortal human. So for two months or thereabouts, the Church is trying to get us to prepare for the arrival of Jesus in our lives. Why?

From today’s Gospel Jesus says:

Matthew 24:42-44;

Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.

Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into.

So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.

Are we prepared in our internal spiritual lives and in our external moral lives? Are we ready for Him to come? When He arrives, either in our commemoration of His Birth or sometime in the future when the world ends, would He find in us people of strong moral character, of strong faith in Him and in His Church? Or will He find us caught up in the distractions of the world, in our own selfishness and sinful ways? Will He find us as Christians, true followers of Him?

Start preparing for the arrival of Jesus. Advent has a penitential character like Lent, although not a sorrowful style as we are awaiting His birth, a joyous event. God deigned to become one like us (in all ways but sin), and as a humble, innocent little baby. He didn’t have to. The least we can do is examine and inspect our lives and humble ourselve to admit our imperfections and sinfulness and struggle to overcome them. We amend our lives. We repent and confess our sins and struggle to not repeat them.

Start using this Advent and work on those areas of your life that need improving. No one should be content with the state of their moral and spiritual lives. We can all maintain and improve our spiritual progress.

Keep your eyes on the prize: Jesus is coming! Are you ready?

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Dying and Persevering

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From the Second Letter of St. Paul to Timothy:

2 Timothy 2: 11-12;

If we have died with him we shall also live with him;
if we persevere we shall also reign with him.

By dying with Christ means, I think, to die to the world of sin, to reject the world’s morals and values, to become more like Jesus in following the will of God, as much as humanly possible. We accept all suffering as part of our working out our salvation, and if we persevere to the end of our lives, we will be rewarded eternally by living with Him and our loved ones in Heaven.

Twelve Step movements like AA usually regard do-it-yourself sobriety as an “easier, softer way”. This means that unless you undertake a program of recovery, usually 12-Step, it means that you are unwilling to do the necessary sacrifices and struggles to become and remain sober. You are unwilling to “do whatever it takes”. Clearly, Christianity is a tougher road to travel, and Catholic Christianity perhaps the toughest. It demands much from its adherents. But the rewards are eternal. The rewards of Twelve Step spirituality are merely sobriety. Relative to Christian spirituality, using solely the 12 Steps, and the comfortable design-it-yourself Higher Power is the easier, softer way.

It is a shame that Twelve Step spirituality has taken so many Catholics away from the Church. The vague “Higher Power” concept of God, which was originally meant to allow Catholics and devout practitioners of other faiths the freedom to pursue their religion, (without seemingly being forced to adopt religious beliefs contrary to their own) has devolved into a “doesn’t matter what you believe in, as long as you believe in something” type of spirituality. One denomination or religion is NOT as good as any other. They all differ in regards to the Truth.

Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6). He is the same: yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). So is His Church, the Catholic Church.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Division

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You are embarking upon a new way of life. You are sober and have left the bars or solitary drinking behind you, and are also living (or learning to live) a Catholic life.

Some people aren’t going to like that.

A lot of people have this New Age-ish 1960’s or 1970’s touchy-feely view of Jesus as just this swell long-haired freaky hippie dude who just wants people to get along and be nice.

Not quite.

From the Gospel of the Mass on the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C):

Luke 12:49-53

Jesus said to his disciples:
“I have come to set the earth on fire,
and how I wish it were already blazing!
There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,
and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!
Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?
No, I tell you, but rather division.
From now on a household of five will be divided,
three against two and two against three;
a father will be divided against his son
and a son against his father,
a mother against her daughter
and a daughter against her mother,
a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

Like I said, not quite the peace-and-love flower handing out “Can’t we all just get along”, acoustic guitar strumming, (OK, Paulcoholic, we get the idea.) guy of pop culture derivation.

Jesus was a radical who knew that commitment to His teachings and living them out would be a sacrifice. Not everyone would go along with your conversion or reversion to the Catholic Christian life. Any convert or revert will attest to the fact that acceptance of Catholic Christian living will be met with less-than-enthusiastic embracing by other members of their family, friends and acquaintances.

Some people will reject you for your new way of life. As is heard quite often in the meeting rooms of 12-Step groups, sometimes people may need to be left behind if they are a hindrance or obstacle to your survival.

Even if they accept your sobriety, they may draw the line at your Catholicism. So you may feel compelled to quit you new-found Catholic Faith and instead pick a less radical way. Just keep to 12-Step meetings or a less demanding Christian denomination.

OK, fine, do that. But the risk to your soul is not worth the gamble of picking the easier, softer way of 12-Step meetings or a different denomination. Only the Catholic Church contains the fullness of the Gospel and Apostolic teachings from Sacred Scripture. Pick pretty much any post in the “Church” label in the sidebar and there will be something written about that.

Do not expect the easy path. It will be difficult and you will lose people. But consider the probability that the people who oppose your new way of living are looking out for their own self-interest. They may resent your change simply because it reminds them they may have to, as well. Or you commitment to a radical new way of living is incomprehensible to them.

Be that as it may, pray for them, and if needed, let them go.

For an explanation as to why you’re reading this on a post date of “Thursday” instead of the expected “Sunday”, read this post .

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Church

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Why is the Catholic Church called “Catholic”? Catholic comes from the Greek word meaning universal. It contains the universality of the Gospel and Apostolic truths, and is applicable to all people in all times and for all things. Today’s Second Reading from the Office of Readings of the Liturgy of the Hours is explains it thusly:

From the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Lecture 18, paragraph 23, link found here: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310118.htm

It is called Catholic then because it <!–140 –>extends over all the world, from one end of the earth to the other; and because it teaches universally and completely one and all the doctrines which ought to come to men’s knowledge, concerning things both visible and invisible, heavenly and earthly<!–31-2301–>; and because it brings into subjection to godliness the whole race of mankind, governors and governed, learned and unlearned; and because it universally treats and heals the whole class of sins, which are committed by soul or body, and possesses in itself every form of virtue which is named, both in deeds and words, and in every kind of spiritual gifts.

That is why it is catholic, and why all human recovery programs should be secondary, to this, you primary weapon.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

My Way or His Way

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In my spiritual development (or “spiritual progress” as they like to say in AA) I have found that there is a very useful method by which one can come to terms with Church teaching and also discerning the meaning of the Bible. That method is to shift one’s perspective.

In what way?

To view things not from a human perspective, but from God’s.

Although that is difficult for a limited human to do (and we all are limited) it is possible.

Too often when we try and grasp Church teaching or try to interpret or understand the Bible we do it from the approach of our own selfish human ego. This will never work. The Bible and Church teachings are, in general, opposed to the human ego’s natural desire to want for itself and to satisfy its own cravings.

One short way of discerning God’s will that is applicable to this is the order of importance in who an individual serves or is concerned with. You are seeking God’s will if you:

  1. Put God first;
  2. Put other people second;
  3. Put yourself third.

(For married people I would assume that Number 2 can be broken down into 2a: Spouse; 2b: Children; 2c: other family members; 2d: other people.)

Taking this to the task of understanding Church teaching and developing a proper sense of Bible interpretation more in line with the Church’s authoritative interpretation we can ask:

  1. How does this passage or teaching best help us serve God?
  2. How does this passage or teaching best help us serve others?
  3. How does this passage or teaching best help us get us closer to God and building His kingdom? (For in doing so we develop spiritually.)

This is an act of humility. It deflates the ego, (EGO: Easing God Out) and allows the grace of God to enter and illuminate our soul.

Takes some time to develop the habit, but it works after a fashion.

Your way, or His way. How has your way been doing lately?

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you."

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The Gospel Reading from Today’s “Mass for Civil Needs: For Peace and Justice” (it being Independence Day in the United States):

John 14: 23-29,

Jesus answered and said to him, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.
Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me.
“I have told you this while I am with you.
The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name–he will teach you everything and remind you of all that (I) told you.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
You heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I will come back to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I.
And now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe.

Again, as with the other two readings for today, it’s about peace. It’s the peace that Jesus gives to us for following him, not the kind of peace that the world metes out to it’s followers, but a different kind. Christian concepts of a thing are markedly different from the world’s concepts of the same thing.

There is also a confidence bestowed: the confidence that the Holy Spirit will be with us to teach us and to remind us of what Jesus said while on Earth. This is done through the “Teaching Authority” of the Catholic Church. (You can look up the word “Magisterium” in any of the “For All Things Catholic..” reference links.) The Church, in the authority of the Pope, is preserved from teaching moral and doctrinal error by the protection of the Holy Spirit. The proof of this is in that for 2,000 years, the Catholic Church has never taught anything in contradiction to Sacred Scripture, and has never changed Her teachings to be fundamentally different from the Scriptural basis. Doctrines and Dogmas have evolved through a greater understanding of scripture and human behavior (The Holy Spirit’s guidance!) No mere human institution, whether secular or religious, can make this claim. Numerous people have purportedly “disproven” such claims, however such exposes have been from a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the teaching. Or abject misinformation.

Anyway, I digress. Love Jesus. Follow Him. You will be “In Christ” as He will dwell within you. And where He is, so will the Father be (and the Spirit, too!).

A peace that cannot be given by the world.

Human failures and weakness and pressures from the world may make that peace elusive at times, but it is always there for the asking.

Pray for peace.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Liberty to the Captives

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The basic idea behind “Sober Catholic” is that you can use the religion and spirituality of Catholic Christianity to preserve and maintain your sobriety. Catholicism may not be your only tool, but should be the primary one.

The Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament of the Bible contains many of the Hebrew prophecies concerning the Messiah (the anointed One of God), whom Christians regard as Jesus Christ.

The following excerpt from the First Reading of today’s Mass (which celebrated the Feast of St. Anthony of Padua) is from Isaiah :

Isaiah 61:1-2 The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly, to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, To announce a year of favor from the LORD and a day of vindication by our God, to comfort all who mourn…

This is Jesus. He had come, and is still present among us in the form of the Eucharist, and still guides us through His Church. Following Jesus and participating in the sacramental life of the Church (living out your baptismal promises and receiving Holy Communion and going to Confession) liberates you from the false and empty promises and lies of alcohol and the other seductions that the world pollutes you with. You were once a captive of alcohol. It seduced you into thinking that it was your best and only friend and only through drinking could you discover your true self.

After a fashion you discovered that this wasn’t the case. In the end you hit bottom and ended up sitting in front of a computer reading about how Catholicism can keep you sober. But like everything else about the Catholic Church, it merely points the way to Jesus. Committing to Him, as you’ve presumably have done (or are thinking of doing) liberates you from the need to subscribe to the world’s values and the world’s solutions. Jesus is “The Way, the Truth and the Life” and is the only true counter-cultural force that endures. By “counter-cultural” I mean that in being a Christian one operates in contradiction to the the preferred manner of the world. Your master reigns in Heaven, and is not subject to this world’s demands. And by following Him, neither are you.

Alcohol and its abuse is an aberration used by people who have an unfortunate misperception of the world. Feeling rejected or at odds with it, they turn to alcohol and suddenly feel accepted. Alcohol makes you feel as though you finally “fit in”. It’s a lie, of course. In the end you are nearly destroyed by the lie.

Follow Jesus. You were once captive, and now you are free. Study the Gospels and get radical about living. Study the Catholic Church’s teachings, and be lifted up. They are not designed to chain you by listing a series of “do’s and don’ts”. Taken with the proper perspective, they liberate you from the limitations of being merely human.

Faith endures. Truth liberates.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)