Category Archives: Musings

Morning Prayer

Posted on by

What do you do first thing in the morning? (I mean after the immediate basic…stuff.) From Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”

The following pasage from the First Reading of today’s Mass (Wednesday of Holy Week): Isaiah 50:…4-5:

Morning after morning he opens my ear that I may hear; And I have not rebelled, have not turned back.

If you awaken in the morning, that means you’ve been given another chance. Once again, you’ve got another day to do whatever it is you feel called to do. To function properly you need to start the day out right. Your body needs to be nourished as well as the mind. Breakfast and a shower energizes you and shakes off the old.

But your soul needs nourishment and a cleansing, too. And for this you need prayer. Prayer, perhaps the thing to do before the body and mind rituals, is important to get properly oriented at the start of the day.

I’ve written before, both here and here about keeping to a regular daily routine of morning prayer. Getting your mind situated in the proper direction helps everything else fall into place. You lessen your chances of rebelling, and turning back.

When morning after morning the Lord opens your ear, do you listen? Prayer is an act of communication. You pray and mediate, and you listen for a response. Just rest in the space of prayer.

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!!)

Bruised reeds…

Posted on by

Isaiah 42:3

A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench…

This excerpt from The Book of Isaiah from yesterday’s Mass (Monday of Holy Week) speaks of the mercy of Christ.

This passage is an important one for anyone to remember, but particularly for us alcoholics.

For we were bruised reeds and we were smoldering wicks. Caught in the grips of alcoholism and perhaps at the depths of despair, we were on the verge of breaking or winking out.

And yet we did not break; our light, however dim, was not quenched. How we managed to grab onto whatever lifeline that pulled us out of our misery may be a mystery. It might have been a family member calling the local AA hotline, or a clergy rescuing a lost soul, or some other seemingly coincidental or improbable event, but whatever it was, we had enough hope left in us to grab onto that lifeline.

Some of us pulled on that lifeline and entered AA. A lot stayed there, content to remain with the comfortable and easygoing spirituality and friendships it offered. Some of us were not satisfied and kept on searching. We needed something deeper and more sustainable and somehow entered the Catholic Church.

Perhaps our hurt was not fully healed by the 12 Steps of AA, and we responded well to the Church’s teachings on God’s mercy and forgiveness. That despite whatever our past, God still loves us and desires us to be close to Him. We heeded the sacramental call and drank of the deep waters of the Eucharist and Penance. And we were satiated like alcohol never could do for us.

There was a “hole in our soul” that we thought could be filled by our addiction, and we were eventually disappointed and wounded. But upon entering the Church, we became whole again, healed by the sacraments and an invigorated, deeper prayer life.

Rest in God’s mercy.

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!!)

Why be Catholic?, Part 2

Posted on by

In the previous post I briefly mentioned about the Catholic Church’s rules and regulations and how people may view them as obstacles that get in the way of a personal relationship with God.

People forget that God Himself established rules. (“Ten Commandments”) Although He wants a personal relationship with each one of us, that doesn’t mean that we get to pick and choose what we can do. Humans, being such, usually pick the path of least resistance or the “lowest common denominator”. Rules are designed to tell people the right and correct way of living and acting so as to be pleasing to Him. They can be viewed as negative, but only by those who seek the temporary and passing joys of the world, things which do not endure. They are not easy, rules usually aren’t, but viewed from the right perspective they can be seen as a sort of safety mechanism. They assist in achieving long-term survival, as opposed to short-term gain. Pleasure is here today, gone tomorrow. If you wish to perpetuate it, you need to keep chasing after it. It doesn’t endure. The peace and serenity that is derived from following the Commandments endure.

Same for the obligations that the Catholic Church expects of its members. Instead of being viewed as chains keeping us down and limiting our enjoyment of the passing fancies of the world, the precepts and “regulations” of the Church can be seen as an attempt to liberate the average person from the limitations of being human. Face it, the joys and pleasures of the world (like alcohol) are ultimately destructive at worst, forgetful at best and possibly humiliating in between (Are you paid what you’re worth? Is your dignity as a human being respected by the world at large? This is what I mean.)

Instead of focusing on the short-term pleasure and satisfaction that rules may seem to deny you, try to focus of the long-term gains achieved by following them. You already do this in a manner of speaking if you’ve attained any degree of sobriety. Wouldn’t a drink taste very good right now? Wouldn’t it help take the edge off, ease the pain and suffering you’re going through, or even just the petty little inconveniences called “daily living”? Of course it would! So why not have a drink? Just one? Of course you wouldn’t! Why? Because some time ago you learned that the fruits of long-term sobriety are better than the pleasures of a short-term drinking spell. Following the principles of a 12-Step movement are grand, but they only deal with sobriety. And I am aware that sobriety is the basis or starting point from which the rest of life is lived. But why limit yourself to just that? There is so much more to living than just not needing to take a drink today. That is a part of it, and indeed an important part. But there is so much more. Too many AA’s are chained to the notion of “not drinking” almost as much and as desperately as they were chained to the notion of “drinking”.

Liberate yourself from such a deterministic attitude. Yes, you’re sober. But you can be Catholic, and instead of seeing life through the lens of sobriety, you can start seeing life through the lens of a vastly universal spirituality. The things that drove you to drinking in the past, and to AA meetings now, will seem minuscule.

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!!)

Why be Catholic?

Posted on by

One may ask, “Why be Catholic?” Or, “Why the Church for help in one’s sobriety? It’s just a Church, full of rules and regulations that just get in the way. Why not just have a personal relationship with God?”

Well, you can. And the best place for that to happen is within the Catholic Church. It is the historical church established by Jesus Christ and His Apostles and it bears all the hallmarks of a Church established by Him. There are four marks, or signs, usually named to identify the church founded by Jesus. Those four marks are that it is one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

It is one: Jesus established only one church, not numerous churches. The apostles, as they scattered about spreading the Gospel, established churches in their journeys, but all were subject to the authority of Peter, the first Pope, and his successors. Some churches may have held a large degree of autonomy, but ultimately they were united under the leadership of what would eventually be known as the Papacy.

It is holy: It’s holiness is not found in the actions and behavior of its members, from the rank-and-file butts in the pews and the clergy, to the Pope. It’s holiness is derived from its establishment by Jesus, the miracles God works through it, and the lives of the saints and martyrs.

It is catholic: “catholic” means “universal”. This means that it holds the fullness of the Gospel truths taught by Jesus. The Catholic Church has never discarded as inconvenient or irrelevant any of the teachings of Jesus. It teaches everything that Jesus taught, with no redactions. As such, its teachings are applicable to everyone, in every place in every time and in every situation. Other Christian denominations, while they are to be respected for the sincerity of their member’s beliefs, have over the centuries discarded (or “reinterpreted”) various of His teachings.)

It is apostolic: It traces its history back to the time of the apostles. The apostles were entrusted by Jesus to teach and spread His message to all nations. The twelve apostles were the bishops of the early Church, they in turn passed their authority to teach to their successors. This has been transferred down the centuries to today’s bishops.

If you examine Catholic history, you will see a history replete with heresy (rejection of Catholic teaching), schism (rejection of Catholic authority), scandals, crimes and corruption. Yet it survives. It survives due to the actions of the Holy Spirit to maintain it despite its leadership and membership. It survives because Jesus said that He will be with it even until the end of time, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. Its history has shown that Hell has sought to prevail, and while Hell has had some success it causing the above mentioned troubles, in the end it will fail.

No mere human-founded organization has such a guarantee of survival. Not a bad thing to link your sobriety to.

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 Veil is Removed

Posted on by

2 Corinthians 3:16-18

but whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Earlier, I wrote about Eucharistic Adoration. The above Scripture quotation from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians can be illustrating the effect that Adoration can have on an individual.

We are in the Real Presence of Jesus. The Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ is there, mysteriously and inexplicably in the form of bread. When we enter into His Presence, whether it is in an Adoration Chapel or in a Church, we come before the Lord. We are unveiled before Him, and we gaze into His physical form. In the presence of God we cannot be unchanged. We are slowly being transformed, as St. Paul wrote, into what we see. We are transformed into the image of Christ.

Do you ever feel different when you are in the presence of someone great? That by being near them you absorb some of their greatness and charisma? Who is greater than Jesus Christ, the Son of God and who is God??

Visit an Adoration Chapel. There are two links in the sidebar, “Mass Times and Adoration”, and “Eucharistic Adoration” that contain times and locations worldwide where you can visit Jesus in the Real Presence of the Blessed Sacrament and be transformed by Him.

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!!)

Lenten progress

Posted on by

Lent is over two weeks old. In this time of fasting and abstinence, or becoming introspective and focusing on shedding sinful behaviors, how are you doing so far? A rhetorical question, your conscience can answer for you. You need to just listen to it.

I measure my progress by where I end up by Holy Thursday. This is regardless of the goal. You need not make steady progress the whole season. As sinners, we advance and we fall. We try to do better. The important thing is to not let our defeats get the better of us and convince us that we shouldn’t bother.

I forget the source, except that it was probably a priest on EWTN, said that a good Lent is one that is better that the one last year.

We fall, we get back up. We sometimes pay more attention to our sins and our weaknesses. As long as we remain focused on those, we run the risk of remaining in our defeats. We must instead learn to focus on the love and mercy of God. The Divine Mercy of God is freely available to any who ask of it. (See the Divine Mercy links in the sidebar.) By redirecting our attention to the love of God and His desire for us to be united with Him, we may more easily resist temptations and sinful acts, and also when we do fall, to rise up and resolve to do better.

We do not deny our sinful nature and sinful acts. They are just not the focus of our attempt to amend our lives.

As with Lent, in which we have the entire season to work with and not let early distractions and backsliding get us discouraged, we have all our lives to work with in amending our behavior and preparing, hopefully, for Heaven. As we continue to seek out His love and Mercy, and trust in His perfect justice, we will be on the path to our true home, Heaven. When our exile on Earth is complete we will be admitted into His loving embrace and be reunited with our loved ones gone before us.

Keep plugging along.

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!!)

"Does this Shock You?"

Posted on by

Take into consideration the following passages from the Gospel according to John:

John 1:1-5

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 6: 35, 48-58, 60-66 (see John 6: 22-71 for the entire passage)

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.
I am the bread of life.

Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?”

Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
Then many of his disciples 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 accompanied him.

This first passage is from the start of John’s Gospel of Jesus. It defines just who Jesus is.

Jesus is the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity (I’ll explain the Trinity in a later post, hmm-mmm!). John refers to Jesus as “The Word.” Jesus is the Word of God. The Bible is also the Word of God. Jesus is the Bible. The Bible is Jesus.

In the beginning was Jesus, and he was with God, and was God (a glimmering of the Dogma of the Trinity) and was in the beginning with God.

All things (everything) came to be (were created) through Him, and nothing that was ever created, was created without Him. All of creation came to be through Him, including life. Especially human life.

He was the beginning, and was in the beginning, and was God, and was with God, and everything came into existence through Him.

Sounds rather confusing from a human perspective, almost as if it were a riddle, which in a way it could be. But not so much if you relax and ponder it prayerfully.

If you read this carefully, the implication is staggering. Jesus wasn’t just some itinerant First Century Palestinian Jewish preacher who claimed to be God and backed it up by performing miracles. Nor was He a just a wise man who had a lot of nice things to teach us about how to live and get along.

He was (for lack of a better word) the instrument through which the Creator – God the Father – the First Person of the Trinity- created the Universe. The single point through which all of Creation came into existence.

And then He, Himself, became a man and lived among us. Billions and billions of years after the Universe was created through Him, He did not come down to us in some majestic, overpowering Olympian way to do His teaching among us. He was born a vulnerable and innocent baby in difficult circumstances, as if He was using His own beginning as a human as a teaching lesson.

Now, the second group of passages are from John’s 6th Chapter. This is the “Bread of Life Discourse”. In it Jesus is telling His listeners that He is the “Bread of Life”, the truest path to salvation (eternal life with God the Father). Only through Him is the way to the Father fully revealed. And He just happens to mention that it is His own flesh that is this “Bread of Life”, and by eating His flesh one can attain eternal life. Naturally this disgusts some of His listeners and they cannot accept this difficult teaching of His, and they leave.

They are disgusted because He was speaking literally, and not symbolically, and they knew this. If He was speaking symbolically, they wouldn’t have left, or if so because of a misunderstanding, He would have corrected them. He would be a shepherd, going after lost sheep. But instead, He was literally referring to His flesh as bread, that when eaten will grant eternal life. This was too difficult to accept, his listeners left, and He didn’t change His story to accommodate them.

The entire passage (John Chapter 6, verses 22-71), forms the basis for the Catholic Church’s Doctrine of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. The wafer that Catholics receive during Communion is literally, and not symbolically, Jesus. Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, He’s all there, in the form of a little piece of bread. The priest utters the words at Mass which in some mysterious way humans can never completely fathom, transubstantiate (change the substance) of the bread into His Body. And yet it remains looking like bread. We cannot ever comprehend how this can be, it is a Divine mystery. But we have Jesus’ testimony in John’s Gospel that this is so.

Just as astonishing as God becoming human as a little baby, Jesus today is physically present among us as the Communion bread (the Eucharist). Humans just can’t make this stuff up. It would have been laughed at into oblivion 2,000 years ago. But they believed because they understood the symbolism of the bread, and accepted Jesus’ connecting it to His Body in a literal manner, and something about Him helped convey its truthfulness into their receptive hearts and minds. They didn’t understand it, but His followers accepted it. They knew it to be a Divine mystery and thus not to be understood completely. They trusted Jesus.

The Jesus in John 1:1-5 is the same Jesus in John 6:22-71. The instrument or point through which all of Creation was made is fully there in the form of bread.

Catholics have a devotional practice called “Eucharistic Adoration”. In thousands of Churches and Parish Halls and whatnot around the world, there are rooms or chapels in which the consecrated (transubstantiated) Eucharist is kept exposed in a receptacle known as a monstrance. It is common to spend 15-60 minutes every so often in prayer before the Eucharist. In some churches it’s done on a regular schedule.

To spend time in prayer with the Eucharistic Jesus. With Him, through Whom all things were made and through Whom all pass through to the Father, (and, as stated in the Book of Revelation, through Whom all things are made new again after the End).

OK, now
. If that idea doesn’t shake you a bit to the marrow of your bones…

NOTE: This post was edited on April 28, 2009 to reflect changes in links referenced in the original version. The URL cited previously is no longer valid and so was deleted. Since I often refer to this post, I figured an edit was needed.

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!!)

In service to others

Posted on by

Most people upon joining AA and other 12-Step programs are quickly told that they should perform service work in the meetings. This usually means picking up and setting up before the meeting, cleaning up afterwards, making coffee, greeting people. This is usually intended to get the new member other-directed, that is, focusing on other people rather than themselves.

It is the start in assisting them in realizing that they are a part of a community of individuals, that in this journey of recovery there is strength in numbers and one needn’t go it alone. In fact, isolation or a solitary program is almost a guarantee of relapsing. In some way, forever, you have to connect with other people and maintain that community.

Service work, or volunteering as I now prefer to call it, is an excellent way to “get outside yourself”. Once you learn the skills of giving of yourself without expecting anything in return, the benefits to yourself are measureless.

One neat saying I’ve learned in AA is that “your mind is a bad neighborhood to be caught alone in”. Without connecting to other people, without learning of their problems and troubles and maybe trying to help them (and much is appreciated in the trying) your only alternative is isolating yourself in your mind and being subject to all the self-defeating and dark thoughts that resurface. Volunteering lets other people into your life, and there are no strings attached (No pay. There is little or no economic gain or risk). This lets light into your life and you realize that others like you simply for being.

Being other-directed distracts you from your own troubles. Witnessing other people’s problems contrasts with your own and yours don’t seem so bad.

Volunteering may also help you in performing whatever for-pay job you have. Working as a volunteer detaches you from the economic strings associated with a job. Liberated from the fear of economic need, you can focus on the tasks at hand and improve your professional behavior. (In other words, you are freed from the fear of getting fired, after all, you’re not getting paid, so if you’re dismissed…)

Volunteer somewhere. Serve.

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!!)

Love is…

Posted on by

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, love is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”

This was taken from the Second Reading from today’s Mass, the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Take out the word “Love”. Substitute the name “Jesus” in its place.

We are Christian. We are to “put on Christ”, in other words, to be like Him. Now read that passage with Jesus’ name substituted for love. That is what we ideally aspire to.

Now go back to the original reading. Again take out the word “Love”, but this time substitute your name in its place. How far from the ideal do you feel?

Yeah, me too.

That is the destination of the lifelong conversion process we are on. That is the happy destiny we trudge towards.

(Anonymous thanks to my priest for my adoption of a portion of his homily for today. 🙂 )

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!!)