Category Archives: Me

Thoughts on my 21st Soberversary and St. Rita of Cascia’s day

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Today is my 21st Soberversary! On this date in 2002 I had my last drink. Last year I wrote some deep and profound things on this day, given that then it was my 20th.

I have nothing to add to them.

Today is also the Feast day of St. Rita of Cascia, who I think picked me to be her client, talked to me once, and can be a great aid to those of us in recovery, and those who are lost.

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!!)

33 day Consecration to Mary can begin this Friday!

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You can tell I’ve been reading St. Louis de Montfort.

I discovered that the Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary still exists, and still is managed by the Dominicans just like back in the days of St. Dominic and Bl. Alan de la Roche! (Should I have known that?) This association was mentioned quite often in a book by St. Louis de Monfort I read this past week. (I’ll tell you which one at the end. Which “ones” actually.)

Because of this I may start another 33 day Montfortian consecration thingy this Friday April 28th. It’s de Montfort’s feast day. It’ll end just in time for May 31st which is the Feast of the Visitation on the new calendar 1970 calendar; it’s the Feast of the Queenship of Mary on the old 1962 calendar.

My wife and I already did it once before, leading up to our wedding day. We may do it again, together, as a renewal. 

Gabi of the GabiAfterHours YouTube Channel is also doing it beginning this Friday (just found that out.)

You can look into his effort here: Gabi After Hours Community posting on 33 day consecration to Mary.

I bring Gabi up because he’s uploaded several very important videos over the past few months or so.  He posted this one quite recently on several books that are must reads:

This one: 

…and this one:

…started me on saying the entire Rosary daily. Gabi got the idea from one of the de Montfort books he recommends in the first video above. Those are the one’s that I’ve read this week (numbers 1 and 2 on Gabi’s list.) “The Secret of Mary” and “The Secret of the Rosary.” They’re wonderful, inspiring reads. De Montfort writes in a style similar to that of St. Alphonse Liguori. (His “The Glories of Mary” is number 4 on Gabi’s list.)

This is a new one:

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!!)

Another story posted to Medium!

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And….. here’s another little ditty I posted to Medium today:

Tales Towards the Eternal Realm

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!!)

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And so I published something on Medium today!

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Medium is a publishing platform where anyone with writing aspirations can sign up, write stuff and publish it where no one or maybe lots of someones will read it. You can also earn money. The trick to the latter is that you have to join their partnership program and for that, you need at least 100 followers. There’s a lot to it, and some of the lotness means you have to shell out money, but following someone is free. 

This is what I published to Medium today: Two Theories on How the World Ends

If you would be so kind as to click on the ‘follow’ link at the article, that would make me really happy. What am I going to be writing there? General oddments, some Catholic, a lot not. Nothing injurious to your Faith, of course 😉 

Much of what I will publish there I’ve written elsewhere (like on Paul Sofranko Space).But any ‘old material’ will be edited and updated to meet the needs of a wider audience. I do have ideas for completely new stuff, so it won’t be just rehashed old stuff.

I will be uploading and publishing some old Paul Sofranko Space stuff over the next few days.

On another note: I’m still working out the details of the overhaul to SoberCatholic that I wrote about earlier. Change is hard and although it will be good, I usually struggle with carrying it through. All the basics have been done: the new Pages are written and ready to go, all I have to do is… do it. 

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!!)

Be shepherds like the Lord

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The Second Reading from the Office of Readings of the Liturgy of the Hours for today is from a homily by Saint Asterius of Amasea, bishop

Emphasis is mine.

You were made in the image of God. If then you wish to resemble him, follow his example. Since the very name you bear as Christians is a profession of love for men, imitate the love of Christ.

Reflect for a moment on the wealth of his kindness. Before he came as a man to be among men, he sent John the Baptist to preach repentance and lead men to practise it. John himself was preceded by the prophets, who were to teach the people to repent, to return to God and to amend their lives. Then Christ came himself, and with his own lips cried out: Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. How did he receive those who listened to his call? He readily forgave them their sins; he freed them instantly from all that troubled them. The Word made them holy; the Spirit set his seal on them. The old Adam was buried in the waters of baptism; the new man was reborn to the vigour of grace.

What was the result? Those who had been God’s enemies became his friends, those estranged from him became his sons, those who did not know him came to worship and love him.

Let us then be shepherds like the Lord. We must meditate on the Gospel, and as we see in this mirror the example of zeal and loving kindness, we should become thoroughly schooled in these virtues.

For there, obscurely, in the form of a parable, we see a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. When one of them was separated from the flock and lost its way, that shepherd did not remain with the sheep who kept together at pasture. No, he went off to look for the stray. He crossed many valleys and thickets, he climbed great and towering mountains, he spent much time and labour in wandering through solitary places until at last he found his sheep.

When he found it, he did not chastise it; he did not use rough blows to drive it back, but gently placed it on his own shoulders and carried it back to the flock. He took greater joy in this one sheep, lost and found, than in all the others.

Let us look more closely at the hidden meaning of this parable. The sheep is more than a sheep, the shepherd more than a shepherd. They are examples enshrining holy truths. They teach us that we should not look on men as lost or beyond hope; we should not abandon them when they are in danger or be slow to come to their help. When they turn away from the right path and wander, we must lead them back, and rejoice at their return, welcoming them back into the company of those who lead good and holy lives.

At the risk of sounding arrogant and boastful, the words I emphasized in bold and underline form the mission of this blog, Sober Catholic. 

Too often in the past I’ve seen Catholics stray from the Faith due to exposure to secular or non-denominational recovery movements. Nothing wrong with Catholics attending these, to a point. But the risk is often too great if the faith is weak.

Hence, SoberCatholic.com, my humble, faltering attempt to show Catholics what the Faith can offer them to maintain their sobriety. Like a shepherd of sorts going after a lost sheep, I’m trying to go after the lost sheep of the House of St. Peter. 

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!!)

Through Nothing to the Infinite: How an Atheist Lead me to God

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An atheist leads me towards belief in God during a tumultuous time in my life through his use of vivid storytelling within a deeply imaginative universe.

It begs the question of, “How can a non-believer help someone to believe?” 

Saints and spiritual writers often say that God can bring good out of evil. Evil is not just found in such actions as abortion, genocide, or slavery, but when any personal will opposes the Divine, however minor the act is. Atheism is that kind, ranging from mere unthinking disbelief to the more militant. God wills us to know and love him; atheists reject that will. I am not sure where in that range J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of the 1990s sci-fi TV show, “Babylon 5,” falls. He had a Catholic background but strayed from belief somewhere along the way. One episode of his “Babylon 5” drilled me to the floor with its consideration of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. “Passing Through Gethsemane” (S3E4) made me look at Christ’s Agony in the Garden from a perspective that treated it not as some pious event memorialized in the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, but a reality to enter into so as to ponder how your actions might manifest themselves.

Straczynski is an atheist, yet he treated religious belief with a respect at variance with today’s atheists. He regarded religion as being part of the human condition serving as an excellent vehicle to explore it.

In “Passing Through Gethsemane,” a guest character, Brother Edward, (played by Brad Dourif,) is a monk dwelling on Babylon 5 with other members of his order. He has a past, which I won’t reveal for fear of spoiling the show. (Although the episode aired in 1995, streaming services enable new fans to discover the series regularly. If you already know Babylon 5, then you know about this episode.) In it, he is asked by Ambassador Delenn (played by Mira Furlan,) “What is the defining moment of your belief….the emotional core…?” Edward replies with the background on Gethsemane, and specifically that Jesus knew what was going to happen to him. In a moment of weakness, he prayed for the cup to pass from him, so he would be spared the pain of what was to come, including death. But of course, he wouldn’t be spared and he’d be arrested. Edward continues with an emphasis that Jesus didn’t have to be there when the soldiers arrived to arrest him, that he could have left and postponed the inevitable for a few hours or even days. But Jesus knew what would happen and stayed anyway. Brother Edward concludes that he honestly doesn’t know if he would have had the courage to stay.

BroEdward01

Brother Edward.

Courtesy: Babylon Project Fandom Wiki

When I first saw that episode, that latter part blew my mind. “Seriously,” I thought, “does anyone actually look at a Biblical event and personally connect it to their life? As in, what they might do if they were there and then build their faith life from that? Everyone thinks that if they were back in Jesus’ days they’d of course follow him unhesitatingly and would never be in the crowd screaming ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ But, to seriously meditate upon a specific event, dwell on it, and make it the ‘defining moment’ and the ‘emotional core’ of their faith life?”

Perhaps a digression into what my ‘emotional core’ was like at the time. I was ‘raised Catholic’ but left the Faith nearly ten years earlier. My prayers about some complicated desperate situations weren’t answered. I also coincidentally fell prey to some atheistic and libertarian science fiction novels that convinced me organized religion was a sham and a means of exercising mass control over the populace. So I left, and life immediately got better. So much for religion. (But I never became an atheist. I did flirt with libertarianism, though.) Flash forward to how I was when “Passing Through Gethsemane” aired and you’ll read a different story. Life had gotten progressively worse. I had relocated from across the country to escape some more complicated desperate situations (these had the habit of following me) and my ‘emotional core’ meant that drinking was defining my moments. Capt. Morgan and Jose Cuervo were my saviors; here I am being mind-struck by some monk wondering if he would have had the courage to stay in Gethsemane and await the soldiers to take him to his execution. Me, who defined courage by how skillfully I can smuggle bottles into the house.

You’re probably thinking that this TV episode changed my life right then and I found a priest, went to confession, and resumed participating in the life of the Church. No. Reversion was still a few years off. But seeds were planted that started growing, eventually bearing fruit later on.

The crux of this is that faith powers a spiritual life. What I learned from that episode, ironically written by an atheist, is that for faith to have meaning it has to grip you by the scruff of your neck, shake you up and down, and demand that it be lived and taken seriously. The kind of faith that inspires people to willingly sacrifice their lives, not the faux faith that attends Mass whenever they feel like it, or sets it aside when it proves inconvenient to their political or business choices. The latter kind is mental pablum designed to make you excuse your sins and feel good about yourself.

That was in marked contrast to the faith that I had. In the years before I left the Church, my Catholicism was broad but not deep. It couldn’t have done what Brother Edward did; intimately apply some event to my own life to create an emotional core that defined it. 

A faith that defines your emotional core such as what drove Brother Edward to contemplate his place in Gethsemane fosters the willingness to firmly plant your feet and say, “This is what I am about, regardless of the passing fancies of society or what the neighbor’s think. This is me, my self-defined ‘I AM.’” It confronts the crucial significance of belief and its consequences. This is the willingness to face down death; literal death or just those things which challenge you or can kill your soul. But perhaps more importantly, that drawing from this power and courage means you have the willingness to be a transformative force in the society around you in a manner best suited to your unique talents. 

That may have been what Brother Edward was wondering. Not only the literal, “If I was in Gethsemane, would I have…,” but in drawing from that would he have had the courage to face everything challenging him, both personal and external.

These are challenges everyone faces, and an atheist started me on the way.

NOTE: This post was intended for publication ‘professionally,’ as in for pay, but it kept getting rejected. I just posted it to my other blog, renamed Paul Sofranko Space. I thought that since it concerns conversion and spiritual growth, it should go here, too.

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 Efficacious Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and how I use it

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This has been edited; notes on that are at the bottom. Amongst the many devotees of St. Padre Pio, the “Efficacious Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus” is a very popular prayer. Adherents are invited to recite it daily; during Pio’s life, it was to unite their prayers to him. Now that he’s in Heaven it is STILL to unite our prayers to him. We are not separated from the Church Triumphant. Those of us in the Church Militant are united with them in prayer. They are the ‘Great Cloud of Witnesses’ of whom St. Paul wrote about. 

This novena prayer was recited every day by Padre Pio for all those who asked for prayers.

The faithful are invited to recite it daily, so as to be spiritually united with the prayer of Padre Pio.

I say this prayer every day. I’ve known about it for years, but only developed the daily habit as a result on a monthly St. Padre Pio Healing Mass I used to attend. 

The prayer itself is in bold typeface, intentions in italics and my comments in regular typeface. These are typically my intentions and why I picked them. I am posting it on this Sacred Heart Friday so as to introduce it to you and perhaps how I pray it might help you in figuring out the intentions. For some reason during the early years of my saying this I struggled with what intentions to pray for. I ‘solved’ that by studying the actual words of the prayer and getting inspiration from them. 

I. O my Jesus, you have said: “Truly I say to you, ask and it will be given you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you.” Behold I knock, I seek and ask for the grace of [insert your intention.]  

Our Father…Hail Mary…Glory be to the Father…Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.

My intentions are typically for “the grace of salvation for myself, my family, friends, loved ones, other people I have known or would like to have known, and people I will know.” My reasons are that since the prayer is about ‘knocking’ and ‘it will be open to you,’ I pray for salvation. I will be knocking on Heaven’s door someday and I want that opened to let me in! It is the one intention that God always answers. He wants us home with Him. If we want salvation, we will get it. It isn’t just ‘given,’ like we can go off and do whatever we want and then we’ll be saved. No, we get the ‘grace of salvation,’ those free helps from God, be they inspirations, or signal graces, or encouragements and consolations or some such indications as to His Will in our lives. We have to cooperate. On our deathbed these graces will hopefully overwhelm us as we battle Satan’s last attempts to snatch us from Heaven’s grasp. Which leads us to…

II. O my Jesus, you have said: “Truly I say to you, if you ask any thing of the Father in my name, He will give it to you.” Behold, in your name, I ask the Father for the grace of [insert your intention.] 

Our Father…Hail Mary…Glory be to the Father…Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.

I ask for “the grace of final perseverance, for myself, my family, friends, loved ones, other people I have known or would like to have known, and people I will know.’’ Satan knows his last chance to get you is when you’re at your final hour. He spares no effort. It doesn’t really matter if you’re someone famous and important or just a nobody. Every soul that he can keep from Heaven’s glory is a victory for him. My reasons for this intention is that since it invokes calling on ‘the Name’ of Jesus, you are calling upon the authority of Jesus to keep the demons from harassing you at death. Whenever we pray ‘in Jesus’ Name,’ we are submitting the prayer to the authority of Jesus. If it is His will, it will happen. If it isn’t, then it won’t.

III. O my Jesus, you have said: “Truly I say to you, heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away.” Encouraged by your infallible words I now ask for the grace of [insert your intention.] 

Our Father…Hail Mary…Glory be to the Father…Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.

In this part I pray for ‘the grace to die in the arms of Holy Mother Church, with the Sacraments.’ I desire the Anointing of the Sick (‘Last Rites’) and Viaticum. To be able to confess my sins to a priest and receive Holy Communion (‘Bread for the Journey.’) Since the invocation is about ‘words’ and words re used in administering the sacraments, that was my clue for this one. 

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, for whom it is impossible not to have compassion on the afflicted, have pity on us miserable sinners and grant us the grace which we ask of you, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, your tender mother and ours.

Say the Hail, Holy Queen and add: St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus, pray for us.

 So that’s it. That’s the Efficacious Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by St. Padre Pio and how I say it. You can use my intentions once in a while or  just offer up your own. I just ‘had to get this out there’ and explain how I use it. 

EDITED: I have edited this on July 29, 2024 to update the intentions. I made some additional wording for the first two: “for myself, my family, friends, loved ones, other people I have known or would like to have known, and people I will know.” Instead of just myself, I include all of these others. The “family, friends, loved ones” are obvious. But I chose to include “other people I have known,” which takes in just very casual relationships from whatever situations we found ourselves in (work, apartment building, public commutes) as well as enemies. The “would like to have known” refers to people that I briefly came into contact with, but for a variety of reasons, any potential relationship was interrupted. Many of these individuals still inhabit a portion of my mind, however briefly we crossed paths. The “people I will know” is also obvious, but there’s a chance I may still be around for another few years or even decades, and there are still people ahead of me on life’s path. There’s no reason why I should wait until we meet before I begin to pray for them. 

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!!)

Sober Catholic Books UPDATE!

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Recently my wife got me an early birthday present, Publisher Rocket by Dave Chesson of Kindlepreneur. It’s a book marketing and research tool that comes highly recommended by pages and pages of Google and DuckDuckGo search results. I’ve only had it a couple of days and I am thinking I should have gotten it years ago. It helps you find a lot of things to aid your self-published books gain traction on Amazon along with a whole bunch of other useful tools for self-publishing. The Kindlepreneur site itself is a goldmine of things every self-publisher needs to know.

I have just used it to discover over a dozen categories in which to place my two books (see the signature that is at the bottom of every post for links to them.) I ust submitted a request to have Amazon place them in those categories. Right now just for the ebooks, I’ll try and add the paperback versions later today. 

That all being said, I’ve been inspired to dust off several of my Sober Catholic Books-in-progress. Although the Stations and Rosary books came out a decade ago, I’ve never given up on the idea of writing more. Things got in the way, including some nasty character defects (complacency and laziness) but I would occasionally piddle with a few ideas. 

Well, I have started work on two, maybe three books. One is on the Ten Commandments and the other is on the Litany of the Sacred Heart. The possible third is a prayer book. Not sure about that one. I have no idea when they will be finished, but I am enthused about self-publishing again. If something were to happen to me and SoberCatholic.com goes offline, then the books should be around as long as Amazon and the other publishers are online. So there’s that motivation. 

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!!)

16th Bloggaversary of Sober Catholic: How I stayed sober for almost 21 years

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Today marks the 16th Bloggaversary of Sober Catholic. In honor of that, I’ve edited and cleaned up a messy note I wrote who-knows-when on “The Sober Catholic Way.” It is a summary of everything I’ve been doing since I became sober on May 22, 2002. Some I do better than others. 

This was originally a long, 2,000ish word post. There was the summary you see in the next paragraph followed by a longer version that fleshed out the details. But then I decided this morning during a feeling-sorry-for-myself pity party that the longer version is itself a summary of an even much longer version that’s been lurking in my head for 15 or so years. That being a book on the topic of “The Sober Catholic Way of Sobriety.” Or something like that. I shall begin working on that right away. I do not know when it will be finished.

The summary of the ‘Sober Catholic Method’ or ‘Way’ or ‘whatver’ is:

Wow, that’s a long list, Paulcoholic? Isn’t a Twelve-Step program simpler? Yeah, maybe. But doing the above has kept this sick puppy sober for over 20 years and I knew that AA couldn’t. Some people demand happiness in this life and they find it often by avoiding suffering all costs and more and more turn to things which can only be called ‘addictions.’ Whether it is the typical alcohol or drugs, or an inordinate attraction to the self, or to the Internet and social media, or  to fandoms (pop culture things like TV franchises, movies, comics or other entertainment stuff.) Someone may not be an alcoholic or a drug addict, but I betcha they’re ‘addicted’ to something. You need a lot of tools to crowd all that stuff out or at least keeping them in their proper perspective is an attribute of the Sober Catholic Method. Or Way. Or whatever… 😉 So this all could be a wholistic approach to dealing with life in general and addictions in particular.

There are probably books or devotions that should be on there, but this my list. Yours may be slightly different. Anyone who takes a look at the list will arrive at the conclusion that it is simply a decent Catholic lifestyle. We are all supposed to go to Mass, Confession, and live the Gospel life which is learned by studying the Bible, Catechism, lives of the Saints and their teachings along with a few particular devotions to assist us on our way – to help us ‘stay on the beam.’ So be it. What makes it a ‘Sober Catholic Way?’ Life hasn’t been perfect for me nor am I a serene, happy saint-to-be. Life sucks at times, and I am often cranky and melancholic. But God never promises happiness and peace in this life. Only in the life to come. This should help me get there.

If you’ve appreciated this blog as well as this post, you can PayPalMe a non-tax deductible donation (my real name is Paul Sofranko, like the destination link says.) I will greatly appreciate every donation. (I do have plans for the money; plans to buy software which will help out in the production and marketing of self-published books. I figure that if I can raise sufficient funds through the kindness of strangers, then I’ll feel responsible and actually start working on the planned books. More on that later. )

 Or, you can just buy a lot of my books I’ve already done:

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!!)

When is something a ‘signal grace’ and when is it just an odd occurrence?

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When is something a ‘signal grace’ and when is it just an odd occurrence?

“A ‘signal grace’ is a free gift from God (grace) that is extraordinary in nature and evident in some manner (signal). It may be a visible sign or deep interior feeling that a prayer has been answered or a direction you’ve been seeking has been given. Another name for signal grace is “God-incidence,” a play on “coincidence” as with God there are none, because God actually works in that mysterious intersection where seemingly unrelated events in space and time meet up.” I wrote that in this post on St. Rita of Cascia.

There are times when we may confuse some random coincidence with ‘a free gift from God (grace) that is extraordinary in nature and evident in some manner.’

I suppose then the following is not a signal grace since I wasn’t hit with any extraordinary feeling like in the St. Rita post. 

At Mass this evening I saw a young lady get up for Holy Communion. Her hair was dyed all sorts of colors, like a rainbow. Why would that be a signal grace? She immediately reminded me of a character who appears in one unpublished short story I’ve written, and in a number of unfinished drafts. Her hair is tie-dyed many colors, like the lady in church. I connected this to possibly being a signal grace because once again, I am going through a bad period in my life wracked with self-doubt and esteem issues (I’ll be out of a job at the end of the month. Yes, in the middle of the holidays. My boss is a…. Oh, never mind.) I figured the appearance in real life (at Mass, no less) of a woman who bears a striking similarity to a fictional character I’ve created is some sort of gentle reminder from God that ‘all will be OK’ and I’ll get through this. Why He would pick a real-life rendition of one of my fictional characters is a mystery, but He has His reasons. Possibly because when I am working on my fiction, that is the only time when I feel ‘all right.’ 

Then again, I suppose that it could have been a signal grace, just of the low-wattage variety as there may be concerns surrounding an extraordinary feeling involving my spotting another woman! 

The fact that I am fond of this character (yes, writers can be fond of the fictional characters they create) and she’s appearing in a few stories of mine and I’ve populated her backstory with some autobiographical events in my life, may in God’s eyes indicate that she’d be ‘extraordinary’ enough to serve as a signal grace. 

Hmmm. I am going to have to think about this.

Incidentally, the character in question’s name is “Russia.” Nothing whatsoever to do with current events; I conceived the character in 2014 and she’s been moving about my subconscious ever since. In her backstory, she was named ‘Russia’ by Ginger, her mother. You see, Ginger got pregnant in 1968 by some guy and she was returning home to get an illegal abortion. She was in a Greyhound Bus Depot in St. Louis and was waiting for her bus for the trip home. While waiting, she spotted a discarded book on Fatima on the seat next to her. Now, Ginger was irreligious and a Communist. You’d think I’d have said ‘atheist,’ but that would be too complicated for Ginger. She just had no opinion on God’s existence and any atheism was a disbelief of convenience intended to satisfy her Marxist friends. She was a Communist simply because guys with fists upraised in righteous anger were sexy to her and their rhetoric was fascinating, when she grasped it. The funny thing is, the guy who knocked her up wasn’t a Communist. On the borderlands, but not on the inside. Another funny thing about him is that while he obviously is an antagonist in the story, (appearing only in a flashback) he’s a protagonist in many later unfinished drafts of stories. Anyway, getting this odd post back on track, while perusing the book on Fatima, she was amused that the Fatima seers mistook ‘Russia’ as a name for a woman. They were so ignorant that they never heard of the country. Later, she decides to name the unborn child ‘Russia’ as a sort of concession to her new-found faith (the whole experience gets her started on converting to Catholicism) and an odd tribute to her Marxist past. (In case this story ever does get published, I didn’t spoil the ending; I think it is obvious to anyone reading the story that she’ll decide against having the abortion. The fun of the story is the path she took to get there.)

I submitted the story to the one Catholic outlet that I know exists for fiction.  They rejected it. I didn’t bother submitting it elsewhere; it’s too Catholic for any other fiction publisher. It may get self-published in some manner.

I’m currently taking forever in writing a novel in which Russia appears. She’s now 26 (the novel is set in 1995). She had dropped out of high school at 16 and has mostly lived an itinerant life; dwelling with her Mom’s ex-hippy friends or renting rooms in houses and doing odd jobs. She appears in my story on the run from a disastrous family situation (Ginger is dying and Russia’s bitchy older sister is making her life a living hell over things.) She winds up staying in the eccentric little beach town getting a job as a folk singer in a lakefront dive and shortly thereafter an intriguing job in a thrift shop. It gets complicated after that. 

Russia, her mother Ginger, the guy who impregnated Ginger, other characters I haven’t mentioned and the places they live are all a part of a series of novels and shorter works attempting to work out the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy. Each story has something to do with one or more of them. I really need to dedicate more time to these. 

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