St. Monica Novena

Mike, over at What Does Mike Think?, reminded me that tomorrow, August 18th, is the start of a Novena to St. Monica. She was the mother of St. Augustine. St. Monica is the Patron Saint of “Alcoholics, Married women, Mothers, Wives and Difficult Marriages.”

My friend Number 9, over at Catholic Alcoholic, reports on why she is considered a patron saint of alcoholics:

“Augustine gives only one incident from her youth, obviously relayed to him by Monica herself, of how she was in danger of becoming a wine bibber, but was corrected when her secret sips in the wine cellar were discovered and a maid, in a moment of anger, called her a “drunkard.” This stinging rebuke prompted her to change her behavior and develop perseverance. Perhaps this is why recovering alcoholics are among the many groups who intercede to Saint Monica.”

via Saint Monica: Another Patron Saint for Alcoholics.

I’m thinking that she could also be a patron of those who suffer from someone else’s alcoholism or addiction. How many people have “difficult marriages” due to addiction? She also is most famous for praying for the conversion of her son, St. Augustine, daily for 18 years. How many parents are estranged from their children over alcoholism and addictions? How many children are lost to the seductions of worldly pleasures, as Augustine had been? You get the idea.

St. Monica is most assuredly someone every alcoholic and addict should become acquainted with.

The novena is here: St. Monica Novena.

The site which has the novena is Pray More Novenas, a “Novena Prayer Reminder.” Sign up with an email address for notifications about upcoming novenas and you can participate in them all year round!

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It’s time for “Second Lent” again

Reblogged from last year:

“Second Lent” is upon us again!”

For the past few years I have been announcing what I like to call “Second Lent,” an highly unadvertised and unannounced additional penitential period that the Church offers. It begins on the Feast of the Transfiguration (August 6th) and end on the Feast of the Exaltation (or Triumph) of the Cross on September 15th.

The link in the first sentence takes you to an earlier blogpost that talks about it more; that post itself has links about ANOTHER penitential period that is a Franciscan devotion, known as “St. Michael’s Lent.”

I love the Church. She gives us so many opportunities to find our way down the narrow path.

So, as always, if your regular Lent wasn’t satisfying, you have TWO opportunities coming to make up for it!

I plan to blog a lot through Psalm 119. Not sure how successful I’ll be, but that is the plan.

Blogger’s Note UPDATED : I didn’t blog at all through Psalm 119, as I had planned. So, I may try again this year. (the Update: I haven’t and probably won’t during this “Second Lent.” Eventually!

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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. Maximilian Kolbe Novena for Alcoholics and Addicts begins again

It is early August and that means that it is trime for the annual novena through St. Maximilian Kolbe for alcoholics and addicts.

It starts August 6th and ends on his Feast day, August 14th. Although some sources begin it today, the 5th.

Here are links to two prior blog posts on the Novena, the first one contains links to all nine days of the novena that I wrote in 2007, the second one is a much shorter one.

St. Maximilian Kolbe Novena for Alcoholics and Addicts (links to all nine days).

St. Maximilian Kolbe Novena for Alcoholics and Addicts (a shorter one).

For the complete archive of Kolbe posts: St. Maximilian Kolbe Archives at Sober Catholic.

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!!)

Twitter update for @sobercatholic

I recently found out that Twitter has a follow limit of 2,000. That’s the maximum number of accounts that you can follow. So I decided to review who or what I’m following and “cull the herd,” so to speak.

I chose to trim my “recovery” list. As I am not a recovery professional, I decided to unfollow almost every treatment facility/detox center and the like. I have nothing against such places, they do great work with people. But if I were to make use of Twitter in the manner I’d prefer to use it, I’d just follow and interact with individuals. And so my recovery list is now filled with fellow people in recovery, with some exceptions for Catholic organizations and recovery media accounts. I know that I can add accounts to a list and not follow them, but there’s already too much noise and clutter online. Again, facilities do great work and are a critical need, but I cannot read everything that comes across a feed or timeline and so some restrictions are in order. Having multiple Twitter accounts only multiplies the problem.

I will look at other lists that I have used to organize my Twitter follows, and trim those as well. I may limit my Twitter follows to just people in recovery, writers of any stripe, (but preferably Catholic or involved in recovery), pro-lifers and those few people I consider online friends but I know only through Twitter (or perhaps elsewhere, but Twitter is an additional way to keep in touch with them).

I don’t have much personal use for Twitter; it exists mostly to promote the posts I write for this blog, and to a lesser extent, to connect with other people. The fact that Twitter limits you to 140 characters for any post renders the latter somewhat less than useful. I’m a writer and blogger, what can I do with 140 characters? Its user interface isn’t to me very helpful, anything that happened much longer than a few hours ago is basically lost to history. Twitter power users might point out that the use of lists can help along those lines, but due to what I said above, I have little interest in being a “power user.” I do make use of lists as I’ve indicated above, and they do help matters, but still, the limited nature of 140 characters dissuades me from making much use of the network. The 140 lends itself to shorter online attention spans, oh look! my cats are doing something cute.

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!!)

Five First Saturday Devotions

The “Five First Saturdays” were instituted at the request of Mary in 1925, during an Apparition to Lucia, one of the then only surviving seers of Fatima.

Our Lady requested that the faithful, on the first Saturday of the month for five consecutive months:

 • Go to Confession

 • Receive Holy Communion

 • pray the Rosary

 • meditate on the one of the mysteries for fifteen minutes

 • all of the above in a spirit of reparation

Confession can be eight days before or after.

Communion can be received in the usual ways: either at Mass, such as a Saturday morning daily Mass or the Saturday Evening Vigil Mass, or from a priest or Eucharistic Minister, or during a Communion Service. Many parishes may have such a service to assist people in fulfilling the requirements. Check around your locale at Mass Times for parishes.

Why five Saturdays? Our Lady requested that for the following reasons:

Five first Saturdays of reparation were requested to atone for the five ways in which people offend the Immaculate Heart of Mary:

 1 attacks upon Mary’s Immaculate Conception

 2 attacks against her Perpetual Virginity

 3 attacks upon her Divine Maternity and the refusal to accept her as the Mother of all mankind

 4 for those who try to publicly implant in children’s hearts indifference, contempt and even hatred of this Immaculate Mother

 5 for those who insult her directly in her sacred images.

I am posting this now as tomorrow, August 2nd, is Saturday, and the first one of the month. It’ll be a good time to start as there are only five calendar months remaining in the year, so it’s easy to remember. When I did this devotion, I usually selected November through March, as they are the five full (or nearly full) months without any Major League Baseball regular season games. I’ve never heard of anyone selecting any particular months to do this (any five will do, as long as they are consecutive.) But in my opinion, try five that will be easy to remember to complete the devotion. The first five months of the year, or the last five, or if your favorite sport has a five month-long offseason, or something else entirely, whatever works! 😉

Why consecutive? I don’t know, probably to link them all in a continuity.

For more information, please visit here: Immaculate Heart of Mary and here.

The Five First Saturdays devotion is a part of the Fatima series of posts, found here.

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!!)

Fatima Apparition of July 13, 1917 and Praying for Peace

The third Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the three little shepherd children occurred on July 13, 1917. In this appearance, Our Lady asked that the seers pray the Rosary every day for world peace and for a “end to the war.” World War I was raging at the time.

This call to pray the Rosary for world peace is just as urgent now as it was in 1917, perhaps even more so. Considering the continued existence of nuclear weapons, terror threats and the increasing persecution of Christians world-wide (but especially in Africa and the Middle East/Southwest Asia), we need to use all of the spiritual weapons at our disposal to combat the evil spreading about the world.

The oldest of the three seers, Lucia, asked her as to who she was. Mary replied that she will identify herself in October, and also will provide a miracle so that all will believe.

It was also during this Apparition that Our Lady provided the seers with a vision of Hell. I’ll refrain from writing about that, this year. I do have to spread things out as I have three more years (God-willing) in which to work on these Fatima posts. I have to save some things for later. 😉

For those of you who recite the Rosary, it was also during this Apparition that Mary requested that the phrase “Oh My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of Your Mercy” be added to the end of each decade of the Rosary.

So, that is it for this month’s post on the Fatima Apparitions. As I have said before, I plan on blogging about these Apparitions in hopes that Catholics in recovery can find some additional tools to pack in their spiritual toolkit for fighting addictions. Every month from May through October, on or within a week or so of the 13th, I shall post something on Fatima through the 100th Anniversary of the Apparitions in 2017.

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

Today is the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Traditionally linked with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, it is a devotion to Mary’s interior life, as exemplified by the passage from Luke 2:19,

But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.

via Catholic Public Domain Version of the Sacred Bible.

In Twelve Step programs, we are reminded that we cannot hope to always work the program perfectly, that we should focus on “spiritual progress, not perfection.” Mary, however, was our race’s greatest triumph, and due to her immaculate conception, was sinless. Essentially perfect. Although we cannot hope to be just like her, we can strive to imitate her virtues and devotion to Jesus and God the Father.

If you are struggling with impurity, a devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary can help ease the suffering.

She can be our model in our recovery life. She can help us, inspire us, and through our recitation of the daily Rosary, be the focus of our Step 11 work. Yes, I think the Rosary is the best way to really practice Step 11 daily (in addition to whatever prayer manuals and such you may use. But you can carry a Rosary about you wherever you go. It can be recited while driving. Difficult to do that with a Bible or prayer book.

Wikipedia has a nice article on the Immaculate Heart:

Immaculate Heart of Mary – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

And so does the Catholic Encyclopedia:

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Devotion To the Heart of Mary.

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!!)

Blesseds Francisco and Jacinta Marto, Fatima seers

Today and tomorrow are two special days on the Catholic liturgical calendar. Today is the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and tomorrow is that of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. More on the latter in a subsequent post.

Recently I have undertaken a study of the 1917 Marian Apparitions at Fatima, Portugal. While I had known the basics, I felt it necessary to delve beyond those and read more about the Apparitions. In doing so, I have found myself becoming more devoted to two of the three little shepherd children who were seers of the Apparition, Blesseds Francisco Marto and his sister, Jacinta. Francisco died in 1919 and Jacinta in 1920, both a few years away from becoming teenagers. They were beatified in 2000.

I have started a series of posts on Fatima, and these will continue on or about the anniversaries of each Apparition through their centenary in 2017. And so while I will be writing more about each of the two Blesseds off an on during the series, today I wish to introduce two aspects of them that I think Catholic alcoholics and addicts might find helpful in their struggle to maintain their recovery.

In reading about Fatima, I fell into a fascination with the unashamed and unabashed piety and holiness of these two young ones. While it might be relatively easy for young children of that era to be very devout and pious, before the corruption by mass media, TV, movies and radio, it was still very edifying.

Both of them, in their spiritual development during and after the Apparitions, took to two different pious acts. Francisco was always seemingly drawn to “comfort and console” Jesus; while Jacinta was more concerned with making reparations to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. All of this can perhaps be better grasped if you read more on the Apparitions and the two Blesseds elsewhere (as I encourage you to do as it’s beyond the scope of any one post), or just gradually wait for the publishing of future posts on Fatima here 😉 . But in short, the basic message of the Apparitions was that the Blessed Virgin Mary exhorted the three seers (Francisco, Jacinta and their older cousin Lucia) to pray the Rosary for world peace and offer up personal sacrifices for the salvation of souls, especially those caught in grave sin, particularly sexual (although due to their age, the reference to sex was about “sins of the flesh.”) and to make reparations to the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts. The result in the lives of the three seers are inspirational and hopeful messages of courage and love.

They were horrified to learn that many people are damned due to certain sinful acts; their lives afterwards were marked by a sincere desire to make reparations for these acts. The Virgin Mary had revealed that people should make reparation for sins against the Sacred Heart of Jesus (heresies, sacrileges and blasphemies against the Church and the Eucharist) as well as sins against her Immaculate Heart (specifically against impure acts, in addition to Marian teachings and practices of the Church.)

And here is why I think Blesseds Francisco and Jacinta Marto might make wonderful intercessors or even patrons for those in recovery, especially those addicted to sex and porn: based upon my readings of their lives, it often seemed that they would automatically, as if it was a part of their very nature, offer up sacrifices and make reparation for sins. Like I said up above, Francisco would be mostly concerned with “consoling” Jesus and Jacinta with making sacrifices in honor of Mary’s Immaculate Heart. With regard to Francisco and his emphasis on consoling Jesus, I would remind you that a central theme of the Venerable Matt Talbot and his “Way of recovery” is to transfer your love for your “drug of choice” onto the Sacred Heart. In other words, love Jesus and not the addiction. Not easy, but like any recovery program, a process you have to work at.

I have found it useful and fruitful to begin to call upon their help. I have yet to make it a habit, but when I remember, it seems to work. Whenever something is going on that might result in sin, be it anger or impatience or whatever, I can almost hear Blessed Francisco cautioning me to “be careful, that would hurt Jesus.” Or if I’m tempted in other ways, I can feel Blessed Jacinta warning me that it will offend Mary. “Too many people go to Hell! You mustn’t!”

And I get through it and feel stronger.

This is why I’m introducing them to you all today, given the proximity to the feasts of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. A pretty good opportunity to bring them to your attention, two feast days that should be of interest to those addicts and alcoholics who struggle with the Catholic Faith, as well as impurity and other grave sins.

(In talking about this with my wife Rose, she told me that her father also had a devotion to them, ending every Rosary decade with a prayer to them. She isn’t sure offhand what the invocation is, if/when she remembers or finds out, I’ll add it in the comments.)

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!!)

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Friday is the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is an ancient Catholic devotion, finding its Scriptural roots in St. John the Evangelist laying his head upon the chest of Jesus during the Last Supper. He would have heard and felt His Heart beat. However, it would not be for another 1,000 years when the devotion actually developed.

The following is an excerpt from a post that I wrote last year:

The Sacred Heart is an old Catholic devotion dating back centuries. It focuses on the human nature of Jesus (the heart long being considered the center or source of human emotion). As Jesus had become human to redeem us for our sins, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus concerns the Divine Love of God for us, and our response to that is our reparation for our sins. We sin, we repent and we make reparation.

In light of this, that the Sacred Heart was chosen as a symbol of recovery is not surprising. In our recovery, we are making reparation for the sins we had committed in our addictions. And in our recovery, we accept and respond to the love God has for us. We know we messed up and abused the gifts that God gave to us. But despite all of that, He still loves us as His prodigal children and always takes us back no matter how bad our sins. As long as we repent and try to amend our lives we are on the right path.

No sin is greater than God’s ability to forgive. Our repentance has to be sincere, and we have to make a best effort at amending. But no matter how evil, we can be forgiven. No matter how often we fall, we get right back up.

via The Sacred Heart and Alcoholism.

I have blogged about it numerous time before, here is a link to the Archive of Sober Catholic posts on the Sacred Heart

Here is an excellent little overview on the history of the devotion:

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The Catholic Encyclopedia has an even more in depth article on it:

Catholic Encyclopedia on the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Finally, here is a link to the Mass Readings for the Solemnity:

Solemnity of Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

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

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

Sober Catholic on YouTube

This blog now has an “expanded presence” online: a YouTube Channel! See:

Sober Catholic on YouTube.

I have not, nor am likely to in the near future, upload videos. But I have subscribed to a number of channels that might be of interest to Catholics recovering from alcoholism and other addictions. I don’t necessarily agree fully with any specifically Catholic content, but I added them as they should get a viewing. I am particularly referring to the videos by Johnny Garcia, of the now offline “Sober for Christ” website. There are a number of other videos from a Catholic perspective, but I have not viewed them all. Discern for yourself.

So, wander on over there and see what’s available and perhaps you can not only subscribe to the Sober Catholic Channel, but to many of the subscriptions I’ve added. Many involve pornography addiction, which is a much more critical and serious issue plaguing Catholics than alcoholism. This was something that I had learned to my surprise way back n 2002 and 2003 when I was searching online for resources for Catholic alcoholics.

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!!)