Category Archives: Musings

Truth vs. Opinion

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Admittedly some of the teachings of Catholic Christianity can sound bizarre, if not ridiculous. For example, the Trinity is about 3 Divine Persons in one God, yet not three gods, only One, but they’re all One Being, and yet still Three. You get a headache trying to figure it out.

Jesus is one of those Three, fully human (except in sin) and fully God, but not half of either. Not a demigod like Hercules. All God, yet all human.

Mary! Herself immaculately conceived, and also remaining a virgin after giving birth to Jesus. Just how is that possible? A virgin birth is a contradiction.

The Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is another. How can something that looks like a little white cookie be Jesus Christ, His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity? Just because the priest says a few words, exactly like Jesus did? Looks like a cookie…

The Resurrection of the dead is another. You die, and perhaps centuries or millennia later, you will come to life again?

All this is either true or the biggest con game invented. So much seemingly ridiculous illogical beliefs all gathered together in one philosophy should have died out centuries ago, collapsing under the weight of it own silliness.

But it didn’t. In fact, people have shed their blood for Christianity, convinced of its Truth.

Philosophies that are inherently illogical and irrational tend to die out. They may persist for centuries, but never attracting a large sustainable following for long, relative to other ideas.

But nearly a third of this planet is Christian. That’s about 2 billion people.

Are they all nuts?

No, because as incredulous as Christianity sounds, most of those 2 billion believe in the fundamental Truths of Christianity. There is an underlying conviction of the truthfulness of Christianity’s teachings.

This conviction is that God Himself is teaching us through Christianity things about Him and how to live in accord with His will.

This is where Christianity (along with its elder brother Judaism) differ from all other world religions. Judeo-Christianity is the only revealed religion, all others derive their teachings from wise, intelligent and charismatic people.

But, all the other world’s religions are fully understandable by humans. Their philosophy may be extensive and eloquent, but they never contain anything that’s virtually impossible to wrap one’s mind around like Christianity does.

This inability to be fully understood, the idea that seemingly irrational concepts can be true is, in my opinion, the Truth of Christianity.

In short, IF IT CAN BE UNDERSTOOD, IT IS FROM HUMANS; IF IT CANNOT, THEN IT IS FROM GOD.

What does that mean? A human-originated philosophy can be comprehended by humans. A philosophy coming from God will contain the essence of God’s nature and His ways that can never be completely understood by people. It is illogical and not very humble to presume that mere human intellect can probe the mysteries of the Divine and comprehend it. Our ability to comprehend is limited by our physical and temporal nature. We exist only for a limited period of time and our physical powers are not omnipotent. God is eternal and is not subject to the laws of science and reason that He created.

Science is like this. Science is the rational and logical study and exploration of nature, from the vastness of space to the minute levels of the subatomic world. God created the world and everything else, He laid down the laws of science to keep it in motion. Is science easy to understand? No. If you study science, then you study God, through His works. Science explores God through the physical realm; religion and spirituality explores God through the non-physical realm. If you find it difficult to comprehend science, why would you feel it easy to understand God and His ways?

How does this relate to sober alcoholics? Try the next time someone tell you that you don’t need God or organized religion. Just think of what you know about Jesus and ask, “What is a better way to achieve sobriety and salvation? A human idea that can come and go, shift and change with the passing fancies of human whims, or an idea revealed by God Himself, the eternal and perfect?”

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the learning of the learned I will set aside.”
Where is the wise one? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?
For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,
but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Edited 10:26 PM 12 June 2007

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!!)

Trinity

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Yesterday was Trinity Sunday. Better late than never in discussing the Trinity, so here goes.

The Church, rooted in Sacred Scripture, teaches that God is a Trinity of Persons. God the Father, the creator and sustainer of all things; God the Son (Jesus Christ), the incarnation of God, or His Word become flesh; and God the Holy Spirit, the perfect Love that exists between Father and Son that is so intense it forms a distinct Person. Paragraphs 234-256 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church discuss at length the Trinity; as always, see sidebar for link.

The Trinity does not mean that we Christians believe that there are three gods. God is Three Persons, in one God. How this is so cannot be explained nor understood by mere human intelligence, and yet it is a fundamental belief among Christians. Belief does not require understanding. You can believe in the existence of electricity without comprehending how it works. One needn’t stick a finger in a light socket to know that you’ll feel electricity’s existence.

God the Father created everything. Atheists may disbelieve in God, yet they cannot explain how everything came into being. Where did all the matter come from? Where did all the physical constants and mathematical variables and chemical formulae and so forth come from, how did they develop? From where and when did they start? How did they start, or come into existence? Some intelligent force or guiding spirit must have been the first cause at some point in existence to start the whole thing.

Evolution may explain many things, but is based on random chance and denies God’s involvement. Again, I return to the previous paragraph, where did it all come from to begin the evolutionary cycle or path?

Creationism does not explain things, unless you believe that God is a trickster bent on deceiving His people. Creationists believe that the Universe is about 6,000 years old and was created in 6 days, despite physical evidence to the contrary. If God created the Universe 6,000 years ago, yet planted evidence that it is billions of years old, what’s to say that the Universe isn’t really 30 seconds old, and any evidence to the contrary is false? Nothing in the Bible implies an age of 6,000 years, such a figure was derived at by believing that Biblical history is a continuous one, without breaks in its chain. God is Truth, He does not deceive. Creationism “dumbs down” God to a human level of understanding and maligns His magnificence.

Intelligent Design is also weak, as it implies God is merely a designer, an architect, and nothing more. Pope Benedict XVI recently postulated the idea of “theistic evolution”, which in simple terms accepts all that science states about the physical nature of the universe, yet declares that God is the author of it all. God designed the scientific laws and methematical and chemical formulae that govern the workings of the universe. Unlike primitive religions in which a deity causes things to happen, theistic evolution states that God gave the universe a type of free will (perhaps “autonomy” is a better term as free will implies intelligence or consciousness. But it is poetic.). It operates on its own, yet is dependent on the Creator, for without His continual sustenance, existence would cease. Just like we have our free will, or autonomy, but use our intelligence to freely align with God’s will or not to choose His will. The difference between us and nature.

God the Son is the physical manifestation of the Father into creation. The Father and the Son are one, and yet are distinct. Where one is, so is the other. The Son is the means by which the Word of the Father reaches us, and creation.

God the Holy Spirit is the perfect, intense love between Father and Son that serves as the means by which the Father communicates His will to us. He is the Advocate and our Guide, sent to us after Jesus ascended to Heaven before Pentecost, returning to the Father. Where the Spirit is, so are the Father and the Son.

All three are God, and yet are One, and yet are distinct Persons. To me, this uniqueness and impossible-to-understand idea (yet has persisted for 2,000 years) is proof of its Truth.

You just can’t make this stuff up. So much theology and so much symbolism for human relationships have been derived from the Trinitarian idea.

As sober alcoholics, we can take tremendous reassurance from the Trinity. The Spirit dwells within us, offering us guidance and direction if we quiet ourselves and listen to its promptings. It protects the Church from teaching error in areas of Faith and Morals. The Son communicates God’s Word to us through the Bible and the Church. He established the sacraments by which we live and grow in the Faith. The Father is just that, our Father to whom we love, petition, and are grateful towards. He sent His Son to suffer for our sins, as we were unable to do so for ourselves.

The Trinity provides endless amounts of material for pondering. Its resources will never be exhausted.

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!!)

Spiritually inhibiting

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I haven’t been to an AA meeting since February or March 2006. It has been apparently of no consequence. I do not have any greater or lesser desire to drink. There are days when I wish I can take a drink, and days where the thought is absent. It was that way when I was a regular at meeting attendance. I simply outgrew it. Bear in mind, this is just my experience, my path, and I don’t judge anyone else’s meeting attendance. But I will talk more about AA meetings and why in my opinion they should be abandoned after a while because they inhibit one’s spiritual growth as a Catholic Christian. I am just proposing my thoughts, accept or reject them as you will.

Abandoning AA meetings won’t harm AA or cause it to eventually disappear. New people will always show up and will be helped by others with a few years of sobriety. Early AA did very well with that model. With no more that 4 years of sobriety by the oldest member, they produced the first “Big Book”. Maybe that’s the best way for AA to “Keep it simple.” When an organization gets as large and as old as AA, and members stick around for decades, attending meetings and such, it tends to get set it its ways, and its culture. Despite AA’s lack of traditional governance, it still has become something of a large institution and I wonder what the early AA’s in the 1930’s would have thought of that, 70 years later. But the point of this post isn’t to be critical of AA’s structure, so if the early AA’s would have approved or disapproved of AA today is irrelevant.

Anyway, perhaps the best way for AA to keep it simple and just focused on learning the basics of living a sober life is for members to move on after a few years. Join, get sober, learn the Twelve Steps and how to apply them in everyday life, re-learn how to react to things, and then stop attending (at least regularly). It is hard to grow spiritually when you are essentially transferring your dependence on alcohol to dependence on meeting attendance. It has been my experience in meetings that the same people say the same things about the same topics. This can be just as spiritually stunting as alcohol was despite its being healthier and safer.

What is needed is for members to discover a deeper spirituality than a design-your-own Higher Power and an idea that has evolved to beome morally relativistic. “It doesn’t matter what you believe in, as long as you believe in something,” is what AA’s insistence on a individualistic Higher Power has become. It was originally intended to be an idea that would enable members to continue to hold their personal religious beliefs and practices without the fear that another religion is being forced upon them. You practice your religious Faith, and meetings supplement that practice. But it has largely mutated into the notion that one religion is just as good as any other. This is wrong. Not all paths to heaven are equal. Catholic Christianity has all the Gospel and Apostolic tools needed for one to achieve salvation. Other paths may indeed get you to Heaven, but Christianity is the only secure roadmap plotted out by God, and Catholic Christianity is its fullest expression. (Go to the sidebar and read the posts under the label “Church”.)

So, what to do if you’re a Catholic faced with the need to attend meetings? Go. Do the “90 meetings in 90 days” recommendation. This is largely to ensure that you will at least get the basics of AA, as in 90 meetings you’ll probably be exposed to every kind of meeting and topic you’ll ever see. (If you live in an area that this is impossible to do, try online meetings. They’re just as useful. I might join one that may be Catholic in membership. If I do it’ll be just for the occasional refresh of Twelve Step philosophy.) Get the “Big Book”, along with the AA text “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions”. Another is “Experience, Strength and Hope”, a book containing the personal stories from previous editions of the Big Book” that are no longer included in the current edition. Other good AA books are “Living Sober” and “Daily Reflections”. Both titles are self-explanatory, the latter being a good 12 Step quick reference. Other books are the three Grapevine anthologies “The Best of the Grapevine, vols 1-3”. The Grapevine is AA’s ‘official’ magazine, its “Meeting in Print”. There are other, more specialized Grapevine anthologies, but if you only want a few, go with those. Also, find a sponsor, someone who will personally guide you through the 12 Steps and is a sounding board for your AA experience. He or she (almost always a person of your gender) should be a person who will respect your decision to remain firmly and primarily Catholic.

It has been my experience that rank-and-file AA’s tend to be wary of any form of spirituality that threatens their primary belief that AA is the only way to maintain sobriety. It may be the oldest and most successful method to focus on alcoholism, but it isn’t the only way. This fixation is why I feel that AA’s Higher Power” concept has developed the way it did. You are free to believe in whatever you wish, but AA remains the centerpiece, religion gets subordinated to it.

AA is a fine tool, when used properly and in moderation. Excessive use of it can derail or subvert your spiritual growth. Use it as a tool, but only one of many.

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 Advocate

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Tomorrow (or Sunday, depending on where you live) is the Solemnity of the Ascension. This is the Christian teaching that Jesus bodily ascended into Heaven 40 days after He died. (How He accomplished this is unknown, and is irrelevant. God is not subject to the physical laws He created.)

What is important about this is in doing so He opened Heaven to all who believe in Him, a Heaven that had been closed since the Fall of Adam and Eve. Heaven was barred to us due to our First Parent’s arrogant decision that they could be just like God and decide what is right and what is wrong for themselves. Jesus paid our price for their sin. And now Heaven is open again.

He had said that this was necessary for another reason. Without His leaving, the Advocate would not be able to come. Who, or what, is the Advocate? It is the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. It is the source and guide for each of us, the ‘inner promptings’ that we sometimes receive that encourages us to do a certain thing. Our conscience is guided by it.

Our alcoholism made it impossible for us to pay attention to what the Holy Spirit tells us. Distractions from the world around us and from our own inner turmoil prevent us from hearing the ‘still, small voice’ that is the will of God caring for us.

Prayer and a disciplined life (living moderately and responsibly) helps us to keep in tune with the Holy Spirit’s promptings.

But the Ascension, important as it was for the Holy Spirit to descend upon the Earth (10 days later on the Solemnity of Pentecost), how does it relate to our sobriety?

Jesus had completed the task for which He incarnated Himself. He came down to Earth to die. He had done this, along with leaving behind a body of teachings to live by. He also established a Church to safeguard and defend those teachings until He returns. The Holy Spirit’s chief task is to prevent that Church from teaching error in matters of doctrine and dogma. It doesn’t prevent that Church or its members from behaving sinfully, after all, the Church is composed of sinners. But we have the guarantee that where the Church speaks on Faith and Morals in line with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit protects the Church’s voice, namely, the Pope. We have an assured guide when we are confused, or when our moral compass is not pointing True North.

If we are sober then we have completed a task. We have stopped drinking. Our alcoholic self has essentially died, and a new person is born. That person is now open to clearly an willingly receive the graces and guidance that the Holy Spirit offers, and we as Catholics can receive the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion. Jesus died and lives in us in the sacramental nature of the Eucharist, and through this union we can better live out our Baptismal promises of rejecting Satan and sin. If we were Confirmed in the Faith as young adults we can grow more deeply in the Holy Spirit and spiritually develop in ways that those who adhere to a more secular way of living are puzzled and confused over. They need false and valueless stimuli as TV and and other worldly crutches to cope with the day.

Pray to Jesus, go to Mass and receive Holy Comunion, if you can. And start preparing for Pentecost, which comes in 10 day’s time.

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!!)

Counsel and shield

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The Daily Wisdom Dose for today:

Proverbs 2:7

He has counsel in store for the upright, he is the shield of those who walk honestly…

By following God’s will, and in listening for it in either in prayer or in the variety of life, we are given His counsel, His advice and guidance on getting through the daily routine. Being upright and honest, that is, living out your life in accord with God’s will and commands earns for you the gifts of His counsel and strength. These are freely available to all, but most fail to avail themselves of them because they do not see and hear due to the distractions of life.

It is said that people of Faith, particularly those who pray frequently, experience less stress and anxiety than those who follow purely secular means of coping. The latter are groping in the dark, and in trying to get through things on their own experience the stresses of that burden. With the counsel of the Lord guiding you, and the shield of the Lord (the armor of Faith, the detachment from the values and morals of the world) about you, there is nothing that cannot be handled.

Prayer calms you, settles and relaxes you. I’ve written before about it, here
and here.

Once regular prayer clears out the daily fears and frustrations, you are better able to recieve the gifts that God has available for you. It’s there for the asking.

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!!)

Feast of Sts. Philip and James, Apostles

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An excerpt from the Gospel of today’s Mass:

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Jesus is the sole way to the Father, He preaches the Father’s Truths and belief in Him gains one eternal life with the Father in Heaven.

These are the Truths that the Apostles handed down to us through the centuries of Christianity, and that is the Faith that we profess today.

If we follow this Faith with sincerity, fidelity and with humility, we will have the strength to persevere through anything that is dealt to us by circumstance. No further need have we for alcohol when we have Jesus, the Bread of Life.

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!!)

Memorial of St. Athanasius (May 2nd)

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Today’s Mass was the Memorial of St. Athanasius. An excerpt from the First Reading (1 John 5:3-5):

For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.
Who (indeed) is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Here, then is the key in our victory over alcohol. If we keep the Commandments of the Lord, we show that we love God, and we are rewarded with victory over the world (especially its allurements and entrapments, such as alcohol).

An interesting point is made in the verse that states, “And His commandments are not burdensome…”. The world will tell you the opposite. The world will tell you that following God’s commandments puts you at odds with fully enjoying the world’s offerings of sin and wonder. And didn’t we agree to this when we were drinking? Didn’t we cast off the “shackles” of organized religion? Didn’t we feel “freer”. Perhaps, until we were caught in the world’s traps, and discovered the false allure of the world’s “freedom”. It’s “freedom” comes at a price (alcoholism, drug and porn addiction, sexually transmitted disease).

His commandments are not burdensome. They instead liberate us from the confines of the world and help us overcome it and conquer it. If we look upon them as best we humanly can from the perspective of eternity, then we can see they are easy to follow, once we keep our eyes on the prize of Heaven and our salvation.

Keep your eyes on the prize.

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!!)

“This saying is hard; who can accept it?”

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From today’s Mass Reading:

John 6:60-69;

Many of the disciples of Jesus who were listening said,
“This saying is hard; who can accept it?”
Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this,
he said to them, “Does this shock you?
What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
It is the Spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.
The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life.
But there are some of you who do not believe.”
Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe
and the one who would betray him.
And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me
unless it is granted him by my Father.”

As a result of this,
many of his disciples returned to their former way of life
and no longer walked with him.
Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe
and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

I’ve written about this passage before. The disciples and Jews could not accept the teaching that Jesus was putting forth. He was speaking literally, and not figuratively, and they understood that or else He would have corrected their misunderstanding that had caused them to return to their former way of life. He was telling them that they had to literally eat of His Flesh and drink of His Blood in order to have eternal life, even though He was referring to His Body and Blood in the form of Bread and Wine. This was all too confusing, or disgusting, and so they left Him. And He allowed them to go.

When you are confronted with Scriptural or Catechetical truths that are too hard to understand, what do you do? Do you work to understand them, knowing that aince these are Divine Mysteries it will never be possible to fully comprehend them? But you accept them anyway in all humility like Peter? Or do you respond like Jesus’ disciples and the Jews in the passage above and turn away and leave? Perhaps refashion the teachings in such a way that are more acceptable to human understanding, despite their contradicting the Divine truth?

Humility is understanding your relationship to reality, adjusting your perspective to fit that reality, and being content with the results. Reality is that Jesus is God, not you, and that the only way to eternal life is through Jesus, (This does not mean that non-Christians do not attain eternal life, just that Jesus, the Just Judge, determines your admittance to Heaven based on the choices you’ve made in life. To continue on this track, then why be Christian? Because Christianity is the sole guaranteed roadmap to achieving salvation. Guaranteed by God.)

Now, many Catholics in AA and other Twelve Step Movements end up leaving the Church or accepting an illegitimate diluted Catholicism because the recovery movements offer an easier and softer way. Easier concepts to accept. Do not sellout or take the easier path. The richness of the Catholic Faith and Her spirituality offer far greater rewards than merely “staying sober”. Consider the teachings of Jesus and His Church to be a mountain that you have to ascend. The higher you climb (the tougher the Divine Mysteries you’re trying to grasp or the tougher the teachings you’re trying to live by) the more character defects you need to shed are cast off. Catholicism liberates you from the restraints of being merely human.

Go mountain climbing.

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!!)

You Belong to God

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I like to read the New Testament writings of St. John the Evangelist, the mysticism always reveals something new (to me at least). I was perusing through the First Letter of John during meditation recently when this verse popped out at me:

1 John 4:4 You belong to God, children, and you have conquered them, for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

The first part of the fourth chapter of this letter concerns itself with how to discern whether spiritual “truths” come from God or from the spirits of the world (Satan, perhaps, or competing ideologies that fall short of Christian Truth). Basically, if the spiritual truth is rooted in the Trinity, observing that Jesus is God Incarnate (God made human), then it is True. Anything else is false.

This passage can be adapted to our needs in sobriety. We have given up alcohol and by whatever path we took, now have embraced, or are seeking to embrace, Catholic Christianity as our means to stay sober. We have accepted Jesus into our lives and as a result have started out on a radical approach to living that rejects the world’s moral values and customs. Values that say it is OK to diminish others as mere means of economic production or consumption (the capitalist/consumerist “ethic” that erodes the soul of human culture). Values that regard human life as disposable (abortion, sexual permissiveness, along with the already mentioned economic ethic). We have Christ within us. We are baptized into His Body, and if we are Catholic we can partake of the sacraments, especially Communion and Confession. We are no longer our own but it is Christ who lives within us (a Scriptural reference, and for the life of me I can’t find the passage) who is our guide and light.

Since he is now dwelling within us, we can “fill our soul” with Him, who will never abandon us, and who can satisfy us like alcohol cannot. We can use our devotion to and love for Jesus to repel the spirit of the world, which calls us to satisfy our pleasures and cravings here and now at the expense of our well-being and future.

Jesus is our protector and guide. We have conquered our alcoholic past, it is in our history. We have Him now. He lives in us, and we are changed. We embrace our fundamental dignity as human beings, and start to care for others about us. “The one who is in the world” would seek to have us remain selfish and unconcerned.

You belong to God, move into the world and transform it. Don’t stop at your own sobriety, work as best you can to meet the world and change it.

There is a criticism of AA’s who spend all there time just living soberly. They have families and jobs, attend meeting and such, and stop there. Compared to their alcoholic past, this is an improvement. Their response to criticism that they should get active is usually along the lines of “Hey, if all I’m doing is raising a family, holding down a job and staying out of jail, then that’s better than most.” This may be true, and for perhaps most, quite enough. But if you have all these things, why stop? If you have it within you to use these things for something greater than just being normal and ordinary, then do it. At your job preach the Gospel, not with words, but with your actions. Don’t just be a Christian during prayer time and Church. Live the Faith on the job. Get your family unit organized around a spiritual and religious life. Too many families are broken or breaking, too individualistic with the group. Lead by example.

Get outside allow your “belonging to God” to renew the world.

Get radical.

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!!)

Octave of Easter

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This week we are in the Octave of Easter. This means that Easter is celebrated for eight days. This is evident to anyone who prays the Liturgy of the Hours (link from Universalis way up above posts) as parts of Morning and Evening Prayers are taken from Easter Sunday.

Imagine a holiday that last for 8 days.

As sober alcoholics we do not need to drink during that holiday. Imagine back in the days of our drinking the very idea of us celebrating anything for 8 days and doing it without drinking. Impossible.

This is the new life we have, the new life as sober alcoholics. Just as Christ’s Resurrection on that Easter morning 20 centuries ago gave all of humanity the potential for eternal life in Heaven, our Resurrection on our own Easter morning, whenever our last drink was, gave us the freedom to choose that eternity with Him. We have a new life in Christ.

Live it wisely, and soberly.

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!!)