Category Archives: Meanderings

Catholic Resources

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As I hope you’ve noticed, there’s a collection of links along the sidebar entitled “For All Things Catholic…” This is a list of very excellent resources on the Catholic Faith. Everything from the Vatican’s website with it’s vast body of information, to other excellent sites such as Catholic First, New Advent, Catholic Answers, Scripture Catholic and PhatMass. All these contain pretty much anything you ever want and need to know about the Catholic Church from throughout its 2,000 year history. Much of the documentation extends back that far. Historical writings and records proving the scriptural basis of Catholic teaching along with proof of the Church’s historical continuity from the time of the Apostles through today can all be found in those sites (along with a few I didn’t mention, but are listed in the links.)

There’s another site that I just discovered on Dymphna’s Well (a wonderful blog listed in my “Blogs of Interest” links section). The site is Catholic Digital Studio a vast storehouse of everything from catechesis (learning about the Faith, beginning to advanced), apologetics (again, beginning to advanced) to scores of free classic and modern texts and audiofiles.

I’m agog and in awe of this site. Much of it duplicates some of the other places I’ve listed, but it’s a great one-stop-shop to learn about Catholicism.

View it as a fun way to learn, not as something that’s intimidating. Think of the fun you’ll have digging through all this neat stuff.

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!!)

He found them sleeping from grief

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Luke 22:45

When he rose from prayer and returned to his disciples, he found them sleeping from grief.

This was an excerpt from Palm Sunday’s Passion narrative from the Gospel of Luke. Jesus was praying on the Mount of Olives and His disciples did not have the strength to stay up with Him. They were in grief. They comprehended to some degree what was to occur, and were probably in what we today might call “anticipatory grief”. You grieve over a loss that is to come. Despite it all, anticipatory grief does not necessarily prepare you for the real thing.

Grief, nevertheless, does have a physical component to it. It affects your mind and body. Despite some people’s assertions that you “should get over it”, or wonder why one month or six months or a year later you are still distressed over the loss of a loved one, grief takes its own time with each individual. You grieve in your own time, not someone else’s.

It affects people in different ways. One of the things I learned in my own griefwork since the death of my Mom in November 2005 was that most people lose sleep. Not me. I was like the disciples on the Mount of Olives with Jesus. I slept more. This is why this passage jumped out at me during Mass on Palm Sunday. Their grief caused them to sleep. Perhaps their way of coping. Not to excuse it at all, as Jesus had desired their attention and companionship, but through my own personal perspective on the issue, I have an empathy for their actions.

Perhaps not a traditional take on that particular verse, but it touched me in a personally relevant way.

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!!)

A day or so late and a few coins short…

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I have been a little tardy with posting. There have been a few selections from the Mass readings these past few days, particularly Palm Sunday, but I wasn’t able to get to them due to other commitments and obligations. After this explanatory post I’ll address them over the course of the rest of this day.

Sober Catholic is an avocation, a hobby so-to-speak and not a full-time duty. I have a commitment to it, but unfortunately it may take a back seat to life at times. Needless to say, some postings may not always be timely. I also regard it as a resource that people may refer to time and again, so it may not matter if, for example, I post about Palm Sunday two days late. Hopefully over the course of time tardiness will be the exception (as it so far has.)

Concerning my commitment: I shall reiterate that the purpose of this blog is to assist people in discovering the riches and resources of the Catholic Faith and her spirituality with regard to keeping their alcoholism (or perhaps other addictions) in check. I have my own particular or peculiar vision of this, namely the reversion path I took simultaneously with stopping drinking. I keep in mind where I was in 2002 when I was looking for online resources for Catholic sobriety and fould little except for what’s in the links section of the sidebar. I keep asking myself “What was I looking for? What did I hope to find?” And for the most part Sober Catholic is it. I never found anything like discussion forums or blogs from a purely Catholic Christian perspective. I never found sites that accepted the fullness of Gospel and Apostolic Truth as taught by the Church, and also accepted the legitimate Authority of the Church and all her authentic teachings. Plenty of evangelical and other non-denominational sites and blogs, but nothing Catholic.

Either I am lousy at Google, or others do not promote their sites. If anyone knows of other blogs or websites that address sobriety from a Catholic perspective, you can email me through this blog (email link is in the “View my complete profile” thingy).

Thanks.

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!!)

Symbolism and Spirituality of Cleaning

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There is an inherent symbolic and spiritual aspect of cleaning.

Think about it.

Whether it’s dishes or laundry, you have a stack or pile of stuff that’s dirty. You submit them to a cleansing process and afterwards they are clean, free of anything and everything that soiled or dirtied them before.

Sort of like our souls before and after sacramental Confession. The graces of God that flow to us through the priest cleanse our souls, and make us as new as the day of our baptism.

There is also a therapeutic side to cleaning. You can mentally force a symbolism onto things laying about in a messy residence, weeds in a garden, or the pile of dirty clothes and stack of dishes. Each item that needs to be removed or cleaned off can represent a resentment, an envy or anger, or something bad that disconnects us from God and others. Imagine the resentment going away as things get more organized. As you forgive.

Thinking of cleaning in this manner is somewhat better than regarding it as a chore or drudgery.

Anyone that knows me is aware of a connection between my state of life and how well the apartment looks.

I’ve been doing a lot of cleaning and organizing lately.

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!!)

For your convenience

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I have added some tools to this blog make it more convenient to read and access.

If you scroll down the sidebar, you’ll notice that I’ve added links to enable you to add Sober Catholic to your customizable MyYahoo and Google pages. The same for a customizable MyCatholic.com page, but please bear in mind that MyCatholic.com doesn’t have a login service, so chances are you will not be using it from a public access computer. It remembers your settings by IP address and browser. Aside from that, it’s a great Catholic portal, enabling you to subscribe to up to 20 blog feeds, in addition to their own optional default feeds. You can also grab up to 20 links, great place to have all your morning daily perusal links.

You can also subscribe to sober Catholic via email, the link for that is in the Feedburner section of the sidebar. Whenever I add a post, you get an email.

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!!)

Lent 2007

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I had a post marking the beginning of Lent, which starts tomorrow, but lost the whole thing during an edit. I took it calmly. Really. I shall attempt to re-write it tomorrow.

So instead, a small plea: If you are Catholic, please go to Mass tomorrow and receive the mark of ashes on your forehead. It is a wonderful sign of public witness to your Faith. It is a reminder to others that there are considerations besides the purely secular.

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!!)

Mom

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Today, January 20, would have been my Mom’s 91st birthday. She died November 7th, 2005. Although she might have suspected that my Catholicism in the 1990’s was less than sincere, she never let on.

She watched EWTN a lot on TV. One thing she watched daily was the Divine Mercy Chaplet. (I’ve added a special collection of links in the sidebar so one can learn about Divine Mercy, in addition to a selection of EWTN links.)

She taught me to pray it and I believe that learning it was one of the crucial things that happened along the way in my return to the Catholic Church. This is in addition to the other things I told in my reversion story, but this was the single prayer I was proactive about and not just responding to any interior prompting of the Holy Spirit. This was when I engaged God and asked Him to help me, please.

I miss my Mom. I still use the rosaries she prayed the Chaplet on, and when I look at them I sense her. She told me numerous times that I was the primary reason she prayed the Chaplet.

Thanks Mom, Happy Birthday. It took many years, but you eventually saw me home.

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!!)