St. Maximilian Kolbe: August 14, 1941

Posted on by

Today is the feast day of St. Maximilian Kolbe, who was martyred on this date in 1941 by Nazi death camp guards. His death is an heroic tale of self-sacrifice, courage and dedication to the family.

maxkolbepriest

In short, and I won’t do the story justice, but ten prisoners were selected to die because another had escaped. One of the chosen was a Polish Army sergeant named Franciszek Gajowniczek who protested that he had a wife and family. Cynical people would say that his protest was pointless as the Nazis couldn’t care less about that. But, enter Auschwitz Prisoner No. 16670, a Catholic priest named Maximilian Kolbe. He offered to go in the sergeant’s place. To the astonishment of all gathered, the Nazis agreed to the switch. You’d have thought they’d have just have added him and make eleven. But no.

Gajowniczek survived the camp and the war, and lived to give testimony to Kolbe’s heroism.

John 15:13 “No one has a greater love than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.”

He is a particular favorite of mine as he is considered to be a patron saint of addicts and alcoholics due to the manner of his martyrdom. I have blogged about him numerous times before: St. Maximilian Kolbe post archives. There are numerous links on him in the sidebar.

Marytown, the National Shrine of “St. Max” has a nice piece on him: Who is St. Maximilian Kolbe?

Photo courtesy of MaryPages

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 “Sober Catholic Trudge Report” will no longer be out

Posted on by

Several years ago when I was using Twitter more actively, I enrolled in a service called “paper.li.” It is an automated service that culls content from your Twitter feed, per your individual customizations. You can select which Twitter follower lists you have for it to cull, and other ways of determining content (I think). I thought, “This is cute, it might enhance the Twitter experience. I have my own newspaper!” I even had a clever name for it, “The Sober Catholic Trudge Report.” “Sober Catholic,” from the name of this blog and Twitter account, and “Trudge Report,” from the AA phrase “trudging the road to happy destiny” as well as a clever play on a popular news aggregate site.

It ended up being responsible for maybe 90+% of my Tweets, with blogposts another ~9% and actual original Tweets 1%. I decided long ago that Twitter wasn’t worth the hassle. I mean, 140 characters? What can you say with that? Mostly good for links and quick hit-and-run posts…

I discontinued the service today when I discovered it was irritating a Twitter user and follower of my @sobercatholic Twitter account. She, for her own reasons, didn’t like the service picking up her Tweets and adding them to the paper’s feed. Why, I don’t know, as Twitter is primarily for promotion, but for whatever reasons valid and appropriate for her, she didn’t want it and kept repeatedly asking me to stop. Unfortunately, I rarely use Twitter, don’t check my feed much at all, and so wasn’t aware of it until I just happened to login today and find out her consternation.

I decided that despite frequent retweets of the Trudge Report’s tweets by a number of people who appreciated it, it isn’t worth it. The lady’s irritation with me was compounded by the fact that my Twitter account is ignored by me, and for that reason I should have more control over what goes out over it. If I rarely use it, then an automated service shouldn’t either.

I do feel bad that she was irritated, and wish that I had noticed her requests sooner. I’m not sure how I could have eliminated her tweets from being picked up as I think I only logged in to customize paper.li twice since signing up, and so am not familiar with the full range of its functions. So, even if there was a way to just block her tweets from the Trudge Report’s feed, I’m not going to bother. Too late anyway as I’ve already deleted the account. Even in doing that, I had a heckuva time!

I am not going to identify her Twitter account in this post, but I do hope she somehow finds out about my sorrow over her irritation with me and that I meant no harm. It was just carelessness on my part due to my inattention to a social media account. (She has blocked me, and so won’t see anymore @sobercatholic tweets.)

This is, however, a development in the reassessment of my social media use I’ve done over the past few months. I’ll blog about that later. This is the longest I’ve had to deal with Twitter in Who knows how long, so I’m going outside. (A coincidence? I learned about this lady’s irritation with me only because I decided to use Twitter for an original tweet, “Going outside to get outside.” It’s a nice day out there and I wanted to go out and putter around. For no apparent reason I decided Twitter was the place to announce that, as if the world cares. 😉 )

Although I seriously doubt that anyone should be upset with my decision to terminate the Trudge Report, if anyone is, please get over it. It is no big deal, I didn’t read it myself and rarely thought of it. It was all automated, and I put no effort into it apart from logging in once or twice over the years and customizing the feed. I might have been able to just prevent it from picking up her tweets, but I didn’t care enough to find out how to do that. In a way, she did me a favor as I will take a look at my social media use overall, and consider what else is irrelevant. Today I deleted a twitter service responsible for most of my Tweets, I’ve also laregely ceased using Google Plus (I decided on that a few months ago.)

I’d better stop as I’m getting into that post I said I was going to write later…

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!!)

Prayer to be Merciful

Posted on by

There is a prayer that I have said off and on over the years, but this past month I have “taken it to heart” and have said it with more devotion. It is “St. Faustina’s Prayer to be Merciful”.

This is the abbreviated version on the prayer card that I use:

Help me, O Lord, that my eyes may be merciful, so that I may never suspect or judge from appearances, but look for what is beautiful in my neighbors’ soul…

Help me, O Lord, that my ears may be merciful, so that I may give heed to my neighbors’ needs…

Help me, O Lord, that my tongue may be merciful, so that I should never speak negatively of my neighbor…

Help me, O Lord, that my hands may be merciful and filled with good deeds, so that I may do only good to my neighbor…

Help me, O Lord, that my feet may be merciful, so that I may hurry to assist my neighbor…

Help me, O Lord, that my heart may be merciful so that I myself may feel all the sufferings of my neighbor.

May Your mercy, O Lord, rest upon me.

The full version, taken from St. Faustina’s diary, “Divine Mercy in My Soul,” can be found here: St. Faustina’s Prayer to be Merciful. Otherwise, if you have a copy of her Diary, it’s in paragraph number 163.

I have found it to be a very fruitful prayer, a good way to practice the Works of Mercy in a small way, and at least to open oneself up to the task of doing them. The prayer can even merely be a petition to deal with others in a more Christ-like way.

The line: May Your mercy, O Lord, rest upon me, has become a short aspiration that I say throughout the day, particularly before having to do something or deal with a person. It’s a good aspiration to quickly say on a job. 😉

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!!)

Not a destructive drug

Posted on by

The First Reading from today’s Mass on the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time is a rather interesting one from a sober Catholic perspective:

Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:23-24…

(italics mine)

“God did not make death,
nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.
For he fashioned all things that they might have being;
and the creatures of the world are wholesome,
and there is not a destructive drug among them
nor any domain of the netherworld on earth,
for justice is undying.
For God formed man to be imperishable;
the image of his own nature he made him.
But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world,
and they who belong to his company experience it.”

Courtesy: USCCB

God does not desire for us to perish. But perish we do, as a consequence of our actions. But it wasn’t supposed to be that way.

The things of the earth were not supposed to be destructive in nature, God created everything and called it “good.” (Genesis, Chapter 1). Life wasn’t drudgery and full of pain; that didn’t set in until our Rebellion (Genesis, Chapter 3). That Rebellion, when our First Parents were duped by Satan in to thinking that they can be “like gods” and decide for themselves what is “good” and “evil” is when “death entered the world.”

Literal death, but also other “deaths,” anything that devalued and destroyed life. Disease, addictions, pain, suffering…

Despite the beliefs of certain Protestant Fundamentalists, there’s nothing wrong with drinking alcohol. Abusing it, yes. But merely consuming it, no – if done in moderation. Many things done in moderation become sinful when abused. That is inherent in sin, which is the abuse and misuse of the good things God gave us: our minds, bodies and stuff about us. Just like what our First Parents did, and their Original Sin is replicated quite often today when people disregard God’s Laws and make their own…

You don’t have to suffer from addiction… you can be free of 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!!)

Immaculate Heart of Mary and Purity

Posted on by

Back when I was looking around for Catholic resources for addiction recovery, I was stunned to discover that almost all of them dealt with porn, lust and sex addiction.

Today is the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, an optional Feast Day on the Church’s liturgical calendar. Mary is the refuge of those seeking purity, as it was only through her immaculate conception that Our Lord was able to become Incarnate and redeem us from our sins (as He certainly could not be born through a woman enslaved by Original Sin, right?)

Today is also the 98th Anniversary of the Fatima Apparition of June 13, 1917. It is a happy coincidence that the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary falls this year on that anniversary.

One of the significant parts of the “Message of Fatima” is that the Lord is greatly offended by the increase in sexual impurity. Those are my words, Our Lady didn’t speak that way to innocent children. She basically said that various fashions are displeasing to the Lord and many people go to Hell for such offenses. Later on, I think, this was interpreted to mean the increasing secular nature of culture and the growing trends towards immodest fashions and casual sex.

If the Lord was offended by the standards of sexual culture 100 years ago, you can imagine His offense today.

Anyway, if you are troubled by lust and impurity, the Rosary is a safe refuge. Praying it slowly, meditating of the Mysteries can interrupt the thought processes leading you to impure acts. Perhaps find sacred art and place it around your residence. Fill your mind with holy things! It will take effort, some times easier than others. Lust never sleeps; like alcohol, it is “cunning, baffling and poewerful.”

Related posts: Immaculate Heart of Mary and IHM and Fatima Apparition of June 13th.

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!!)

Sacred Heart of Jesus

Posted on by

Today is the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, an ancient and popular devotion amongst Catholics. The Sacred Heart is also important to alcoholics in recovery, as those who know AA history are aware that Sister Ignatia of St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio, (who worked closely with Dr. Bob, the co-founder of AA) gave out “Sacred Heart Badges” to those alkies who were successfully treated there. From it came the AA tradition of “chips”or coins marking periods of sobriety.

An example of a Sacred Heart Badge:

PC983

 

Image courtesy of Roman Catholic Sacramentals Foundation

Romans 8: 35-39 “Then who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation? Or anguish? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or peril? Or persecution? Or the sword?

For it is as it has been written: “For your sake, we are being put to death all day long. We are being treated like sheep for the slaughter.”

But in all these things we overcome, because of him who has loved us.

For I am certain that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor Principalities, nor Powers, nor the present things, nor the future things, nor strength, nor the heights, nor the depths, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The Sacred Heart represents Jesus’ love for us, and our devotion to it represents our returning that love, our offering of ourselves as sacrifices to make reparation for sins against Jesus (blasphemy, sacrilege, indifference).

How can YOU do this? By consecrating yourself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus! You can read the prayer on EWTN’s site, go here: Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

I have written previously about the Sacred Heart, check the Sacred Heart Post Archives out to learn more!

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 all our affairs

Posted on by

We practice these principles in all our affairs, taking the vision of God’s Will into our lives asking, “Not my will, but thine be done.”

When stumbling along the path, confused, angry, irritated or just plain lost, we recite: “God, Grant me the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

For we may be the only Gospel of Christ or Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that anyone sees that day. We must be ever mindful of that, as well as when we meet other people throughout the day, that moment is but a snapshot of who they are along their journey. And that moment doesn’t define them.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

St. Rita of Cascia, patroness of lost causes

Posted on by

I always found it to be a sign of Divine Providence, or maybe evidence of a Divine Sense of Humor, that today, my sobriety date, is also the Feast Day of St. Rita of Cascia. She is known as the patron saint of lost causes, of which I think I was nearly one. My early recovery was marked by a lot of drinking. Yes, I know that’s not the way to do it.

That she is known as the patroness of lost causes is due to her marriage to an abusive husband and their two sons who appeared to be following in his path. She has nothing to do with alcoholism except that a lot of us drunks and ex-drunks have been considered “lost causes” by many. The fact that she prayed for his conversion for all 18 years of marriage before finally succeeding (just before he died) is the probable reason for her patronage. Some people can be pretty intransigent.

There is a popular biography of her (the one published by TAN Books) online: “Saint Rita of Cascia: Saint of the Impossible” by Fr. Joseph Sicardo, OSA

Her entry in Wikipedia: Rita of Cascia. One really incredible thing I just learned about her from Wikipedia is that St. Rita is the unofficial patron saint of baseball! Apparently she was mentioned in the 2002 movie The Rookie. More on that here: Patron Saint of Baseball.

I’ve blogged about her before: St. Rita of Cascia post archives.

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!!)

Thirteen years sober

Posted on by

Thirteen years ago today I sobered up. I took my last drink on the evening of May 22, 2002. If I can get sober, so can you. I’ve probably mentioned this before in various “soberversary” posts and drunkalogues, but I was not exactly the poster child for early recovery. I only attended AA meetings for the first seven months of meeting attendance so I can get out of my old house and visit a liquor store. I also needed the booze to get courage for sharing at meetings. Yep, there I was, exhorting new members that “AA works if you work it!” while slurring my words and then returning to my nap on the room’s couch. I did arrive at meetings drunk. My sponsor had told me that there was some consideration given to banning me from meetings due to my behavior. Never happened as by that time I temporarily stopped going to meetings because I was physically unable to leave my house. I wound up in the hospital for 6 days with DTs and hallucinations. I returned to AA all sober, only to relapse 3 1/2 months later.

So no, I was clearly NOT a shining example of early recovery behavior. But eventually something took hold, and I stopped drinking, never really had any burning desire to drink except for the occasional, wistful wish that I could have a beer on a hot summer day now and then, or maybe red wine in the evening. But such thoughts are readily dismissed.

I do say that while AA helped in providing a basic understanding of alcoholism and much need specific tools to address “how to handle sobriety,” it is my Catholic Faith that keeps my head together. Regular readers if this blog know that. New readers can explore the post categories and learn!

Today is also the Feast day of St. Rita of Cascia. I am running late to get ready for work, so I’ll post about her tonight when I get home; but she is a appropriate saint for this soberversary day of mine as she is regarded as the “patron saint of impossible cases.”

That described me perfectly in “early sobriety.”

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!!)

Posted in Me

Fatima: Prayer, Conversion and Penance

Posted on by

Today, May 13, 2015 is the Optional Memorial of Our Lady of Fatima. On this date 98 years ago the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to three little shepherd children near Fatima, Portugal. I introduced this last year in this post: Fatima. It also contains links for your further edification as you should really, really, be interested in this Apparition of the Virgin.

As I said in that post, I plan on blogging about the Apparitions at Fatima on or about the anniversary dates of each one. The reason is that the “Message of Fatima” is an important one, and is very applicable to those struggling with addictions.

On May 12, 1982, Pope St. John Paul II gave a General Audience just before leaving on a pilgrimage to Fatima. His intent was to give thanks to the Virgin Mary, whom he felt had preserved his life after an assasination attempt one year earlier in St. Peter’s Square. He said in that General Audience, “I am going particularly as a pilgrim of brotherhood and peace to that land that the Virgin chose to launch her sorrowful appeal for prayer, conversion and penance.”

The Holy Father later stated that “I nourish the hope that this gesture of mine will serve to reawaken in believers a renewed sense of responsibility, inducing each one to question himself fairly about his consistency with the values of the Gospel.”

I was reading a compilation of speeches that Pope St. John Paul II gave on the ocassion of his 1982 pilgrimage to Fatima, compliled by the Daughters of St. Paul, entitled “Portugal: Message of Fatima,” and these quotes jumped out.

“Prayer, Conversion and Penance.” These are the core strategies for those of us struggling with alcoholism. We pray, we have an ongoing conversion, and we live penitential lives (or, we do this as best we can. Some times and years are better than others. But we carry on.).

And we must always do a “self-check” ala AA’s “Step 10” concerning how best we live our lives according to the Gospel’s values. Do we choose the Gospel, or the World? Do we live by the divine Gospel message, or secular political or economic messages? Do we cause an injustice and refashion the Gospel so that it fits into our secular ideologies?

If you missed last year’s posts, all my Fatima posts are here: Fatima Post Archives.

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!!)