Category Archives: Musings

How often do you pray and go to Church? Part 3

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Continuing on from Part 2 on living a Catholic life through prayer and the Mass:

Beneath the Mass in importance is the “Liturgy of the Hours”, also known as the “Divine Office” or “Breviary.”

Depending upon the version used, it is said either 2-3 times a day for non-religious (people who aren’t priests, nuns, monks, etc) or up to seven times for the latter. It sanctifies (makes holy) the day through prayer. It consists mainly of Psalms and Canticles from the Bible, as well as short excerpts from Old and New Testament readings.

In saying the Divine Office you establish a prayerful rhythm to the day, always keeping in mind a spiritual and holy connection to God and also with all others who pray this. This helps you maintain a sense of perspective and balance during the day, keeping you from completely getting inundated with worldly nonsense.

So, how often did you drink back in the day? Morning, noon, and night? A few shots in the morning to fortify you? Maybe a few more throughout to keep you going? A few more to get you to sleep? The Divine Office has prayers for when you rise, another set to mark the beginning of the day, more for mid-morning, mid-day, the afternoon, nightfall and bedtime. Sounds like an old drinking schedule?

The printed form of the Office comes in 2 versions, a one volume book and four volume set. A one volume version titled “Christian Prayer” costs around $29-39 USD. This abbreviated version is intended for non-religious. (There is another one volume version titled “Benedictine Daily Prayer.” Costs somewhat more.) The “official” four volume set (for religious) costs about $129-149 USD. It is titled “The Liturgy of the Hours.” If either cost is prohibitive there are always online versions:

Universalis: “This is the link that is at the top of this blog, above the posts.”

Divine Office – Liturgy of the Hours – Breviary : “free audio MP3 and podcasts.”

Roman Breviary: “online and also in mobile format.”

Liturgy of the Hours Apostolate: “PDF and mobile formats.”

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!!)

How often do you pray and go to Church? Part 2

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Yesterday I wrote Part 1 of this post. Today I hope to conclude this topic.

I concluded yesterday’s post with this question: “Now I ask the question, or rather reframe the question in the title, ‘How do you live the life of the Church?’

The life of the Church is marked by prayer and the liturgy. The Sacraments are Her lifeblood. How often do you explore and partake of them?”

The liturgy permeates the year. The Church has her own calendar, with its own seasons. These are independent of the physical seasons, perhaps symbolizing the eternal nature of the Church and how it sits astride creation. The Heavens and the Earth will pass away, but never the Church.

The Mass is the highest form of prayer on Earth. Nothing surpasses it. Jesus established it during the Last Supper. In fact the Mass is the presentation again of the Last Supper and the continuation of Christ’s suffering and death on Calvary. Note that this is NOT a re-sacrifice, but a continuation – across space and time. If you are at a Catholic Mass, you are as if you are at the Last Supper or at the foot of the Cross.

Most Catholic parishes offer Mass daily, or at least a number of times during the week. If due to work obligations one is unable to attend, Mass is online. But you can attend a Catholic Mass more that just once a week on Sundays. If you participate in 12 Step meetings, how often do you go to them? Well, then you can attend a Mass perhaps as often. If it is boring to you, or you get nothing out of it, what do you know about the Mass apart from what I said earlier? Pray the Mass, dwell on its meaning. Worth a lot more than a 12 Step meeting.

Online Masses:

EWTN Television Schedules

Via EWTN.

CatholicTV Schedule

Via CatholicTV.

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!!)

How often do you pray and go to Church? Part 1

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Quite often in the 12 Step meetings that I attended years ago some newcomer would ask the question as to how many meetings they should attend. Some old timer would ask:

“Well, how often did you drink?”

The newcomer responded, “Every day.”

The oldster replied, “Then go to meetings every day. If you drank every day, then you can go to meetings every day.”

The idea is that as often as you flooded your mind with alcoholic and addictive thoughts, you can now flood your mind with 12 Step principles and meeting discussions and fellowship. As much time as you gave your drinking, you can give to your recovery.

OK, if you read this blog often enough and perhaps are even a member of Catholic Recovery, you somehow arrived at the notion that your Catholic Faith may have some hand in keeping you sober and clean. But can it provide the all the tools necessary to keep you sober?

For the intentions of this post, and follow-ups, I won’t touch upon the nature of the Church Jesus founded, nor any theology or other “high concepts.” Just the bare bones basics of the possibility that your life is not what it could be. There’s something missing. Sure, you attend your regular AA meetings, you talk to your sponsor, (or maybe are one yourself). You go to Sunday Mass and are generally “Catholic”. But there’s a hole and an emptiness. You feel that your life as you’re living it is something less than it can be.

So, like the title of this post suggests, “How often do you pray and go to Church?” It isn’t as easy a question as you might think. This is particularly true if your Catholic education stopped when you received the Sacrament of Reconciliation or graduated from high school. Basically, teenage years. Your concept of God probably stopped developing at that point. You figure that putting your hour of Church in once a week (or so), praying to Jesus or maybe Mary when you’re in a jam, is enough. But now you’re sensing that isn’t quite true.

Now I ask the question, or rather reframe the question in the title, “How do you live the life of the Church?”

The life of the Church is marked by prayer and the liturgy. The Sacraments are Her lifeblood. How often do you explore and partake of them?

I will continue this in Part 2.

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!!)

Morning start

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I ran across a quote from Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement:

“My strength returns to me with my morning cup of coffee and reading of the Psalms.”

(Via Quotations Catholic.)

This is so true.

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!!)

Responding to the annoying

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Nice article from Spirit Daily about reacting to the annoying people in our lives, and how to profit from them:

“WHEN SOMEONE IRKS YOU, CAST OUT DEFECT THAT MAY CONNECT YOU AND RISE ABOVE 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!!)

November: the Month of the Dead

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An excellent article by Susan Tassone appears in Spirit Daily: Spirit Daily – Daily spiritual news from around the world: “‘MONTH OF THE DEAD'”

(Via Spirit Daily.)

It reminds us that November is a particularly good month to remember our deceased loved ones.

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!!)

Death Quotes – Quotations and Famous Quotes on Death

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From across the philosophical spectrum (from a non-Catholic site).

Death Quotes – Quotations and Famous Quotes on Death

(Via StumbleUpon.)

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!!)

Suffering Servant

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The First Reading for the Mass of the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time is one that serves as a foreshadow or prophecy of Jesus as the Messiah, and of His suffering mission:

Isaiah 53:10-11:“The LORD was pleased
to crush him in infirmity.

If he gives his life as an offering for sin,
he shall see his descendants in a long life,
and the will of the LORD shall be accomplished through him.

Because of his affliction
he shall see the light in fullness of days;
through his suffering, my servant shall justify many,
and their guilt he shall bear.”

(Via USCCB.)

God was “pleased” to crush Him, inasmuch as He was sent to Earth incarnate for one reason, to suffer and die for our sins. Jesus fulfilled His Father’s will, and in doing so bought for us salvation. His suffering will be the instrument by which His followers will be saved. We shall be with Him in Eternity.

I had a weird thought while I was reading this before the Saturday Vigil Mass I attend. As Christians we are called to be like Christ, to accept suffering as our part in working out our redemption. My weird thought was connected to the lament often heard by the newly sober: “Why am I an alcoholic?”

Well, I think the answer to that lies in the passage from Isaiah. If it can be rewritten from the perspective of an alcoholic being like a “suffering servant” using his addiction as a means of fulfilling God’s will, perhaps alcoholics can take some comfort, or strength, in their addiction. So, here is a paraphrase of the Suffering Servant passage from Isaiah (feel free to substitute “her” for “him”):

“God was pleased to crush him in his infirmity.

If he uses his life and offers it up for his addiction,
he shall see his fellow addicts in a long life,
and the will of God shall be accomplished through him.

Because of his addiction he shall see the light in fullness of days;
through his suffering, my servant help many to be righteous,
and their guilt he shall hear.”

(The inspired writer of Scripture is much better than I!)

In short, by adapting the Suffering Servant passage, alcoholics and addicts can see their addiction as a means of fulfilling God’s will. By combining their understanding of addiction with their personal experiences of it, they can help others. They can “hear” other people’s pain and sorrow, and begin to see the brokenness in them. The addict’s woundedness and suffering can be used to alleviate other people’s pain.

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!!)

God took me for a walk

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I have been feeling melancholic of late. Usually happens near the end of my days off from work or on unproductive rainy days. (Or productive rainy days but the productivity wasn’t what I had planned.)

Anyway, I had just gone outside to say my Evening Prayer, and was awestruck by the beauty of the dusky sky.

I had gone outside and I “got outside.” Sometimes we need to get outside of ourselves, and sometimes that can be accomplished by simply and literally going outside. I went outside to the yards around my house and meandered down the driveway to the country road we live on, and God took me for a walk.

How can anyone see the glory of nature and not believe that there is a Creator, a Master Artist, a Chief Architect, is an idiot. Or hopelessly unimaginative and spiritually dead.

Whatever the result is of “going outside” it is a sure antidote to the cravings of an addiction or the temptations of a relapse. The connection with God disrupts unhealthy thinking.

Luke 1:46-47: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

(Via USCCB.)

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!!)

Person of Destiny

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There is an article from Spirit Daily that I encourage you to read.

An excerpt explains it better:

“You are a person of destiny. You are destined for Heaven. You are destined to be the best you can be.

You are also unique. Period. Your greatness is not worldly greatness.

And so your soul bears God’s secret imprint.”

Read the rest via Spirit Daily.

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!!)