Category Archives: Meanderings

Mother's Day

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My Mom died just over 3 1/2 years ago (November 7, 2005). It’s been one heckuva ride since, from desires for death (suicidal or just praying for God to take me) through economic and financial instability to relocating to a new area for a cute lady and a new job, to marrying that cute lady and finding a better job.

Through it all has been my Faith. It has been the one constant and has kept me together.

I’d like to think that my Mom is among those watching over me. (Dad and a sister, too.)

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

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!!)

Incarnation, Transubstantiation and Faith

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Today’s blogpost, Bread from Heaven, reminded me of an earlier one I had written covering the same Gospel passage:

“Does this Shock You?”

The great stumbling block to the disbelieving Jews in the passage, along with skeptics of Catholic teaching on the Eucharist today, is that how can the Eucharist be really Jesus, and not merely a symbol.

It seems to me that if you have a hard time believing that the Eucharist is really and truly the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in the simple form of bread and wine, then you should have an equally hard time believing that God in His immaterial transcendence would become man. If you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and is also God, then you have accepted the idea that God would manifest (or incarnate) Himself in human form. If that can be accepted, then why stop there and not accept that this same God can carry it a bit further and continue to manifest Himself in another form, such as bread and wine? What is the stumbling block? Why is this so hard and unacceptable?

One needn’t fully understand all that. As mere humans with our limited intelligence we cannot fully understand a divine mystery. One can just accept it on Faith and believe.

Truth isn’t easy. God’s Truth only more so. To accept the Truth may cause too much discomfort. Jesus came to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. He’s been doing that for 2,000 years.

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 Parent's Wedding Anniversary

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My parent’s were married on April 15th. The year 1937 to be exact. They were married 58 years when my father passed away in 1995.

I do believe that they are in heaven and have interceded for me on a number of occasions. No proof, just a feeling.

I also believe that relationships do not die with death. This is also Catholic teaching, rooted in Sacred Scripture. We are members of the “Communion of Saints”, that “great cloud of witnesses” that St. Paul wrote about in Hebrews 12.

Relationships are transformed by death into something else. Perhaps a different type of love that we can only dimly feel, but nurtures us anyway in some fashion that we don’t entirely understand. Jesus taught us this when He died on the Cross. He died, yet remains with us in the Blessed Sacrament.

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 for Christ

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John Garcia, a member of Catholics in Recovery, has a great website entitled: Sober for Christ.

It is a very well done and inspirational tool for all of us sober catholic alcoholics (and addicts) to use.

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!!)

Brought us to life with Christ

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The Second Reading for the Mass for the Fourth Sunday of Lent drives home again a repeating theme for Lent, that God is merciful to all who turn to Him in repentance over their sins:

Eph 2:4-10: “Brothers and sisters:
God, who is rich in mercy,
because of the great love he had for us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions,
brought us to life with Christ — by grace you have been saved —,
raised us up with him,
and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,
that in the ages to come
He might show the immeasurable riches of his grace
in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith,
and this is not from you; it is the gift of God;
it is not from works, so no one may boast.
For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works
that God has prepared in advance,
that we should live in them.”

(Via USCCB.)

Just a note for anyone who thinks that the comments about “by grace we are saved” and that it excludes good works: it merely means that God’s grace saves us in the end, and that we cannot merit Heaven by our own works. In other words, we cannot “buy” our way into Heaven by doing good things. However, good works are evidence of our Faith, and is our response to God’s grace working in us. Good works are the “fruits” of our Faith.

Just a thought.

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!!)

Nun helps Bolivia's street kids build future from past of addiction

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Nice, uplifting story about hope in a Catholic News Service story: “Nun helps Bolivia’s street kids build future from past of addiction”

(Via CNS.)

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!!)

Calix Society of Tampa needs help

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I received an email from Bryan P. of the Calix Society of Tampa Bay. Bryan tells me that he founded the chapter about one year ago and membership is struggling to grow. If you live in the Tampa, Florida area and are interested in joining, contact info is available in the chapter’s website: Calix Society of Tampa. If you are a Calix Society member elsewhere, and can offer tips or suggestions on promoting a chapter, email Bryan.

If any readers of this blog also have their own blogs (AHEM: you know who you are!), and would like to promote Bryan’s efforts, go ahead and link away!

Bryan’s website contains a wealth of information on Calix. There are also Calix links in this blog’s sidebar. I shall add Bryan’s site in a bit.

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!!)

A general apology of sorts

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I feel the need to offer an apology for the lack of posting recently. My wife just told me that I apologize for “not blogging” too much. That’s possible. But perhaps my conscience is bothering me. Or maybe I’m just a melancholic moody alcoholic in recovery and those moods get the best of me. But, I have been very guilty over the past year or so of promising daily posting and coming up with various plans to get myself to do just that. I have not followed through by virtue of the fact that I have never posted daily apart from novenas or a special series on things.

A part of me says that I shouldn’t feel lousy about myself as I have been through a series of major life-changing events this past year, every one of which is usually at or near the top of lists that state: “Doing any one of these things runs the risks of relapse.” (Relocation, job-changing and marriage, all in one year!) But still, I was raised with the notion that if you say you’re going to do something, follow through and do it. The fact that I didn’t relapse and was never seriously tempted to do so is a testimony to my Faith and sobriety. Not a testimony to me, but to the tools at my disposal.

Nevertheless, my intentions have exceeded my ability to deliver. I suppose my eyeballs got too big at blogging possibilities and my grasp reached for too much and I should have toned down expectations and just delivered what I could when I was able.

At any rate, please take this apology as a sincere attempt to work through stuff and get back on a track of sorts. The situation announced in my “blog update-personal news” post is holding true. The office is getting organized.

Blogging, as I always state, will continue. Stopping is never an option.

Thanks for your patience.

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!!)

FYI: blog update-personal news

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This is just an FYI posting that may hopefully explain the frequency of blog postings from here on out.

There is going to be a shift in my priorities when I get behind the keyboard of my Mac and bang out words. Blogging is going to be secondary to my attempt to resurrect a fiction writing career.

I have always loved writing. Ever since I was a little human I enjoyed it and have wanted to write fiction for a living. I have never been successful and probably own the world’s largest collection of excuses for not succeeding (with misplaced priorities probably first on the list with alcoholism a very close second) but that is no excuse for giving up or not continuing to try.

I have exhumed from some boxes all the literary trash of 3 decades of attempts and shall start to piece together some semblance of organization and will proceed from there with whatever story nuggets that suggest themselves as viable ideas. I actually have a clue as to what I shall start with, a novel I started after I sobered up in 2002. (Don’t ask about the plot.) Even then I thought that writing was one of the things I was going to “recover” in my sobriety. But I still want to review the whole melange of detritus.

What does this mean for my three blogs? Nothing as I doubt that anyone would actually notice anything different in posting frequency. Sober Catholic will still average 15-20 posts a month like it already does, Trudging Paulcoholic’s Road will hopefully get to 15-20 posts a month and The Four Last Things will continue to be sporadic. The only difference is that I will no longer promise stuff like I occasionally do about getting to posting on a daily basis. I will probably blog on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, which are my days off, and Sunday mornings (I now go to the Saturday Vigil Mass.) I will focus on fiction on a daily basis, either actual writing or research.

Rest assured, all three blogs will continue, as will the Catholics in Recovery social network. Blogging has actually been quite responsible for whetting my appetite for writing. Life is settling out for me from a happily tumultuous year (relocation, new job and then another one when I quit that one, a new wife that I’m keeping) and I’m thinking that I should get serious about some central dream that I’ve held for as long as I can remember.

Perhaps I’m “seasoned” enough and have “lived enough” so that fiction writing is possible. I don’t know. At any rate, that’s where I am now and plan on doing.

Continue to read the blogs, they’ll still continue on. Join Catholics in Recovery, we can use you there if you’re not already a member!

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!!)

Catholicism at and beyond the grave

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I have another blog entitled: The Four Last Things. Its focus is on the “four last things” that are not avoidable by anyone: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell.

I established it in January 2008 because I have an interest in death and dying. Various posts on the blog explain about that. Anyway, I am posting this to announce that this is November, a month devoted to the dead (saints in Heaven and the Suffering Souls in Purgatory), and as a result that is a “big deal” at The Four Last Things.

If you are interested in things beyond what you normally expect at a Catholic blog, even a niche one like mine, you may want to periodically check in at my “death blog.”

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!!)