One More Day

Posted on February 8, 2009 by paulcoholic

This was originally written on February 29, 2008, which was a Leap Day. It was posted to a soon-to-be-discontinued blog of mine and is being transferred to this one like most of the other posts on it. I had kept it as a draft in my blog editor, postdated to February 29, 2012, but have since gotten tired of seeing it at the top of the drafts list and don’t much feel like seeing it there for the next three years. And so I am posting it now, which is rather appropriate considering the theme of healing in the Our Lady of Lourdes Novena I am writing now.

(“Today is February 29th. A Leap Day. An extra day added to the calendar to make up for a lack some sort of astronomical timekeeping synchronization.

It’s nice to have an extra day. An extra day to make up for a lack of… not having done something you should have or would have done when you had the time?

Think about those people in your life that once they’re gone, all opportunities to love or make amends for wrongs would disappear. Death takes away opportunities.

Don’t wait for death to take away someone that you might wish for “one more day” to do something you could have when they were alive.”)

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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!!)

Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes for Alcoholics: Day 4

Posted on February 6, 2009 by paulcoholic

Grief. Mourning the death of a loved one and dealing with how to fill the hole created in your life by the loss may be the biggest threat to an alcoholic’s sobriety.

The grand theological concepts of Faith such as an afterlife and a possible reunion with the beloved in Heaven only if you both have died in the grace of God might cause this to be an insurmountable situation for some. If just swept under the rug and avoided it becomes a landmine lying in the road of recovery we are trudging along.

Death. The landscape of your life has changed. The person is gone and is never coming back. One constant piece of advice offered in recovery is that you need to change how you react to things. This is fine for most events. Death is the one unavoidable and unalterable event. It happens to everyone. It will happen to you. How you react to it fundamentally defines your relationship with God and how strong your faith is.

If your religious and spiritual faith is strong and death is an accepted part of living, then you will cope with the loss in a manner that may ensure your sobriety’s survival. If you hadn’t encountered death yet, but have a healthy, viable and ongoing means of conversion (i.e. you’re into “spiritual progression”) you will have it rough as you adjust to this new thing, but you’ll survive. You may not want to, but you will. It is almost as if you are back at that “jumping off place”, that area in your drinking career when you’re at bottom and you know that drinking leads to death, and not-drinking may only bring a wish for death.

You learn that grief is not something to be avoided, but used. Grief is something you plow through, not work around.

As in other times, but perhaps more in this situation than in any other, the Blessed Mother is ready and able to help.

Pray:

Oh ever Immaculate Virgin, Mother of Mercy, Health of the Sick, Refuge of Sinners, Comfortess of the Afflicted, you know my wants, my troubles, my sufferings. Look upon me with mercy. When you appeared in the grotto of Lourdes, you made it a privileged sanctuary where you dispense your favors, and where many sufferers have obtained the cure of their infirmities, both spiritual and corporal. I come, therefore, with unbounded confidence to implore your maternal intercession. My loving Mother, obtain my request. I will try to imitate your virtues so that I may one day share your company and bless you in eternity. Amen

From: Prayers – Catholic Online: “Prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes”

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!!)

Death as a passage

Posted on January 31, 2009 by paulcoholic

What do you think of death? Is it something to be feared, avoided and denied? Like many people do you ignore it and hope it never bothers you?

I have had a relationship with death stretching back to my childhood. Not that I lost anyone close to me during that time, but I feared that I would. My Mom had celebrated her 47th birthday 11 days before I was born. Dad turned 50 a few months before. I thought nothing of that until I went to school at age 5. At school events (choir, plays, etc.) I noticed right away that the other kid’s parents seemed different. I discovered that they were younger. They were farther away from death than my parents were. Death… as in going away permanently. I didn’t much like that. I was convinced that at any time Mom and Dad were going to die. I developed the habit of checking their chests while they were napping to see if they were breathing. This continued long after I reached adulthood during vacations home and after I returned home to care for Mom.

My adult experience of death has been defined by my Mom’s dying in November 2005, and the subsequent griefwork (grief counseling, namely online discussion forums, in person counseling and grief support groups.) After the initial period which lasted well over a year, I developed the notion that death isn’t something to be feared. Sure, I would rather have my Mom and other loved ones still around, but as I moved past the pain and agony of the loss, I was able to see and understand the “Communion of Saints” doctrine of the Church as something of a comfort. This great “cloud of witnesses” that St. Paul writes about in Hebrews 12 may include our beloved dead, gone on before us. They form a part of the Church along with us. Those in Heaven being members of the Church Triumphant, while we still on Earth as a part of the Church Militant. Together with the Church Suffering (those souls in Purgatory) we all comprise the Mystical Body of Christ. We are all members of a community of believers, and as a community can still have a relational bond.

Through prayer and devotion to the deceased, we can still maintain our relationships with them. They are not completely gone. We obviously cannot interact with them as we once did, but it is uncharitable and cynical to regard them as forgotten or “gone”. They are just beyond from where we are.

Therefore, death ceases to be a means by which our beloved are taken away and are gone. Death becomes a passage through which our beloved experience the joy of entering into the presence of God, the domain of eternity where He is.

Ultimately it is a passage that we need to think about and meditate upon. Unlike most times where we focus upon the destination rather than the road, this passage is significant unto itself. Everyone will experience it. Regardless of what you believe happens after death, it is universal. Happens to everyone. This means you. Whether the passage of death leads one to Heaven or Hell depends upon the choices we make while alive. Therefore death as a passage forces this consideration of our daily living. How do we live? How are you “trudging the Road of Happy Destiny?” Catholic teaching puts that AA slogan in a new light.

If your attention is focused upon Heaven, and you consciously yearn for that place which is our true home, the death is to be welcomed and not feared. Perhaps not desired, but certainly not looked upon with dread.

It is our way home.

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!!)

Deadly Sin

Posted on January 29, 2009 by paulcoholic

There is a death beyond which you cannot imagine. There is a thing which can kill you forever and from which there is no relief.

That thing is mortal sin.

Mortal sin is that sin in which you cut yourself off from God completely, from which there is no eternal life if you die with it on your soul. You condemn yourself to Hell for all eternity.

1 John 5:16-17;

If anyone sees his brother sinning, if the sin is not deadly, he should pray to God and he will give him life.

This is only for those whose sin is not deadly. There is such a thing as deadly sin, about which I do not say that you should pray.

All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not deadly.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church discusses mortal sin at length in the following paragraphs:

1855
Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him.

Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it.

1856
Mortal sin, by attacking the vital principle within us—that is, charity—necessitates a new initiative of God’s mercy and a conversion of heart which is normally accomplished within the setting of the sacrament of reconciliation:

When the will sets itself upon something that is of its nature incompatible with the charity that orients man toward his ultimate end, then the sin is mortal by its very object . . . whether it contradicts the love of God, such as blasphemy or perjury, or the love of neighbor, such as homicide or adultery. . . . But when the sinner’s will is set upon something that of its nature involves a disorder, but is not opposed to the love of God and neighbor, such as thoughtless chatter or immoderate laughter and the like, such sins are venial.

1857
For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.”

1858
Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: “Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother.” The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.

1859
Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.

1860
Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense. But no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man. The promptings of feelings and passions can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense, as can external pressures or pathological disorders. Sin committed through malice, by deliberate choice of evil, is the gravest.

1861
Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back. However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God.

I write about this as there is the real possibility of mortal sins having been committed in our alcoholic past. Granted that there is a serious mitigating factor in that our will was compromised by our addiction, but still our moral reasoning may be in need of correction after sobering up. A strong examination of our alcoholic past in our moral inventory is likely to turn up some unsavory behaviors. Exposing them to another in 12 Step work isn’t enough. It does help clear the past and set us on a straighter moral path, but the stain of sin remains from these past actions.

These need to be taken care of in our return to the Sacrament of Confession. The chance need not be risked that our alcoholism or any other addiction can be used as an excuse to avoid Confession.

Supposition that we’ve suffered enough from them is not good enough, we need the sacramental graces from Confession and the absolution cleansing our soul to save us from damnation.

Our eternal life depends upon it.

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!!)

Today would have been Mom's birthday

Posted on January 20, 2009 by paulcoholic

Today, January 20th, would have been my Mom’s birthday. She would have been 93. She died a few years ago, just shy of her 90th. The fact that she led and lived a full life doesn’t minimize her death. (“Well, Paul, she did live a long time.”)

I miss her. I have the hope of seeing her, and other loved ones, again in Heaven.

I am trying to spiritually develop so that my yearnings for Heaven are proper, that is I desire to get to Heaven to be united with God and not just so that I am reunited with my lost loved ones and God just happens to be there, too. That takes God for granted and that Heaven is just a perpetual playground or wonderful endless happy family reunion with Christmas and Easter dinners and picnics all thrown together.

Yearn for the face of the beloved, and all else will fall into place, as well. Trust in God.

(Note: This was originally published on another blog that I am discontinuing. I backdated it as I actually posted it to Sober Catholic on 29 January 2009.)

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!!)