Category Archives: This Too Shall Pass

Hide not your face from me in the day of my distress

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The excerpt from the Responsorial Psalm for the Mass of Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent is from Psalm 102:2-3.

O LORD, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you.

Hide not your face from me in the day of my distress.

Incline your ear to me; in the day when I call, answer me speedily.

COURTESY:  USCCB

This is similar to the lesson for Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me. The day of your distress could have been any day during your active addiction; or it could have been your last, that day when you finally cried out to the Lord for help. It may not have been a literal prayer to God, but just a scream from the depths of your soul. Nevertheless, he did not hide His face from you but answered you. And now you are clean and sober (or soon to be.) Keep on the path, pray every day so that he hears your daily cries for help, or words of gratitide and praise. God is your partner in this and He leads you along the 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!!)

There is no foothold

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This excerpt from the Office of the Readings from the Liturgy of the Hours for the Friday of the Third Week of Lent comes from Psalm 69:1-2; 14-16.

Save me, O God, for the waters have risen to my neck.

I have sunk into the mud of the deep and there is no foothold.

I have entered the waters of the deep and the waves overwhelm me.

This is my prayer to you, my prayer for your favor.

…


In your great love, answer me, O God, with your help that never fails;

rescue me from sinking in the mud, save me from my foes.

Save me from the waters of the deep lest the waves overwhelm me.

Do not let the deep engulf me nor death close its mouth on me.

Courtesy: DivineOffice.org

This psalm speaks to those of us who have been there, at our bottom, with nowhere to turn, except to cry out in some manner to God. Whether it was an actual cry out to God the “save me, please!” or just our emotional state screaming into the void where only God can hear.

Reflect on this psalm; recall where you were when you prayed this (however you did it.) Have you been grateful to God for pulling you out of the mud? Today is Friday, Confession is likely to be available sometime this weekend; perhaps you can do an examination of conscience focusing on ingratitude and add those sins to your list of things to confess?

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 among them

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From the Office of Readings for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time in the Divine Office:

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 nether world on earth,
For justice is undying.

Courtesy of Divine Office – Liturgy of the Hours of the Roman Catholic Church (Breviary)

The phrase “not a destructive drug among them” popped right out at me; I’m surprised I never noticed it before (perhaps I did, but don’t recall.) Anyway, the phrase is connected to ‘justice,’ which I consider to be significant. Whether ‘destructive drug’ is associated with alcohol or addictive substances, I doin’t know, but I’m associating it for the purposes of this blog! 

This is what the CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA has to say on Justice:

Justice is here taken in its ordinary and proper sense to signify the most important of the cardinal virtues. It is a moral quality or habit which perfects the will and inclines it to render to each and to all what belongs to them. Of the other cardinal virtues, prudence perfects the intellect and inclines the prudent man to act in all things according to right reason. Fortitude controls the irascible passions; and temperance moderates the appetites according as reason dictates. While fortitude and temperance are self-regarding virtues, justice has reference to others. Together with charity it regulates man’s intercourse with his fellow men. But charity leads us to help our neighbour in his need out of our own stores, while justice teaches us to give to another what belongs to him.

Ok, we see that justice is that ”moral quality or habit which perfects the will.’ We alcoholics and addicts hardly had a ‘perfected will,’ we were driven at great lenghts to support our habits and our wills were aligned to that, which often involved behaviour what was immoral, disorded and often criminal. We lacked the sense of justice in our lives. Our definition of what is ‘just’ was whatever was orderd to satisfy our needs and desires and we lacked consideration or compassion for anyone else.

From this arose the behaviour for which we had to make amends upon recovery.

Have we cultivated a sense of justice? Do we place God first, others second and ourselves third? Do we grant others that which is their due (“render to each and to all what belongs to them.”)? Once we have cultivated this sense of justice, when we seek only which is rightfully ours (and not so based on pride, vanity, ego, and selfishness) and we grant others the same right, could we reasonably claim to be “recovered” (or steadfastly “recovering”) from our addictions. 

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!!)

Hurt people hurt people

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I often run across memes online with the phrase “Hurt people hurt people.” This means that people who have been hurt turn around and hurt others. It is assumed that since they’ve never experienced any healing from the hurt, or even justice for it, the  wound festers and they respond by hurting others.

I sympathize with the rationale behind “hurt people hurt people.” It’s hard to be sensitive to other people’s pain when your own has never been completely healed, or the ones who hurt you seem to continue on happy and healthy as if nothing happened.

I do not always think that the pain rendered unto me by the actions of my family after my Mom died in 2005 has ever been completely dealt with, and certainly “justice” (however that is defined) has never been enacted. Nor has the pain from the trauma my sister visited upon me in 1995 been dealt with (I thought I had blogged about that incident, but I can’t find any post on it. So be it, let it rest, for now. 2025 is the 20th and 30th anniversaries of many traumas. The dates are coming up in a coiuple of months.) For all of that, it’s easy for me at times to be resentful and less than empathic towards others. I am a hurt person who once in a while hurts others. Bear in mind that everyone does this; but at least I know the source of where it comes from. We all walk around broken and wounded. The wounds are there; some healed over, others not so much. 

It is obvious from all this that people need healing, and that access to effective and affordable mental health resources is imperative. Also, people need to embrace forgiveness. If a hurt person cannot get access to mental health resources, then “forgiveness” may help as far as it goes.

There is one method by which a person who has been hurt can find healing and perhaps justice as well. Although much patience is required.

“Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay.”

That is a passage from the Bible. You can’t get a better method of justice than God going to bat for you and doing unto others what should be done unto them.

St. Paul refers to it explicitly in his Letter to the Romans:

Romans 12: 17-19

“Render to no one harm for harm. Provide good things, not only in the sight of God, but also in the sight of all men.

If it is possible, in so far as you are able, be at peace with all men.

Do not defend yourselves, dearest ones. Instead, step aside from wrath. For it is written: “Vengeance is mine. I shall give retribution, says the Lord.”

St. Paul was quoting (“For it is written”) the Book of Deuteronomy 32:35: “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay them in due time, so that their foot may slip and fall.” 

Granted, this is something that will happen “in God’s time;” and while we would rather those who’ve hurt us to get their comeuppance in our lifetime (and quickly!) and maybe even being able to witness it; this is one of those things that it is better to wait for. God’s justice is sweeter when it happens when it’s supposed to. 

It is also important to note that the people on whom God will wreak His vengeance and justice on are those who are unrepentant. I think that if those who’ve hurt you realize the gravity of their actions and repent, even if they do not outright make amends to you, “somehow” God will pass a healing on to you. (Based on this, my family hasn’t repented; I have passed out of family history, mostly fogotten and unregarded. At best, a footnote mentioned at gatherings.)

Another Scripture verse harkens to this vengeance:

Psalm 23:5 “You set a table before me in front of my enemies…”

What better vengeance than for God to bestow His blessings on you in the sight of those who’ve hurt you? This could be in this life; your ‘enemies’ witnessed you moving on from the pain they’ve caused and you seem (outwardly, at least) unharmed.

But it could also be in the next life. You die and enter Heaven, joining in the celebrations of the “wedding feast of the Lamb (Rev 19:1-10).” That incredible eternal feast which takes place after the Second Coming and the final triumph of good over evil and the resurrection of the dead, where all the faithful gather in joyous union with the glorified Christ.

Just think about the possibility of your unrepentant and unforgiven enemies witnessing this from the tortures of Hell (which I think may be one way to increases their suffering.) These are the people who have willfully done you serious harm; whether it be crimes such as physical or psychological abuse, or something else (neglect, bigotry, prejudice…) They have also probably harmed many others. Now they are paying the price for their sins and deservedly so. 

Take heart, of sorts: there is no need for you to nurture the pain with in you as a reminder of past injuries, dwelling on the injustices done unto you and dreaming of a way to get even; or, worse, spread the pain onto others by treating them the same way you had been. For when a “hurt person” “hurts others,” they are no better than those who’ve hurt them. Worse, even for they know the pain and should be sensitive to that pain in others.

Leave it up to God. He knows exactly why those people hurt you. He knows what’s in their hearts and souls and He alone can wreak proper justice. If that includes Divine Vengerance, so be it. Better Him than you. 

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!!)

Memorial of the First Martyrs of the Church in Rome

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Today is the Memorial of the First Martyrs of the Church in Rome. As I prayed the Divine Office this morning, I was struck by the Intercessory Prayers from the Morning Hour:

INTERCESSIONS

Our Savior’s faithfulness is mirrored in the fidelity of his witnesses who shed their blood for the Word of God. Let us praise him in remembrance of them:

You redeemed us by your blood.

Your martyrs freely embraced death in bearing witness for the faith,

– give us the true freedom of the Spirit, O Lord.

Your martyrs professed their faith by shedding their blood,

– give us a faith, O Lord, that is constant and pure.

Your martyrs followed in your footstep by carrying the cross,

– help us to endure courageously the misfortunes of life.

Your martyrs washed their garments in the blood of the Lamb,

– Help us to avoid the weaknesses of the flesh and worldly allurements.

Courtesy: Common of Several Martyrs – Morning Prayer

I was reminded that we all may be called to be martyrs. But even if not, some of the intercessions do remind us alcoholics and addicts of the road we are called to trudge along, especially:

Your martyrs followed in your footstep by carrying the cross,

– help us to endure courageously the misfortunes of life.

and:

Your martyrs freely embraced death in bearing witness for the faith,

– give us the true freedom of the Spirit, O Lord.

For the first one, evryday we are beset with annoyances and trials. “Normal people,” i.e, the ones who can drink safely, either take these in stride or resort to a few drinks to “take the edge off.” We, of corse, cannot. Furthermore, while in the past we abused the privilege of being able to drink by resorting to it for any reason, we also failed to learn socially acceptavle ways to “take things in stride.” In our recovery we had to relearn basic skills we somehow missed when others learned them. Even long after sobriety, we sometimes have to engage these new coping mechanisms willfully, so as to avoid the drink. Normal respond in stride, alcoholics have to think about how to cope. As Sober Catholics, we’ve learned to “offer it up.”

For the second one, we can reframe the martyrdom as having witnessed our old self dying for recovery. This means that in willingly turning away from the drink, we killed that old addicted version of ourselves and are reborn in Christ Jesus. In essense, we have found what true freedom is; liberation from the chains of addiction and having our souls fed by Holy Mother church via the Mass and Sacraments. We become free to become our truer selves.

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. Jude Thaddeus, Apostle and patron saint of alcoholics and addicts

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Today (Oct. 28) is the feast day of St. Jude Thaddeus (it’s also shared with St. Simon the Zealot, but St. Jude is the subject of this post.)

St. Jude was one of the Apostles of Our Lord and is the author of the Epistle of Jude in the New Testament. He is often called the “brother of Our Lord,” but this is an extended meaning of the term “brother,” in reality Jude was the cousin of Jesus as Semitic languages lack the word for “cousin.” He is often depicted with having a flame about his head; this symbolizes his presence at the first Pentecost and also distinguishes him from Judas Iscariot, the traitor of Jesus, who is quite likely covered in flames of a different sort. St. Jude is also often depicted with a plate or shield with Jesus’ image on it; legend has that he carried this with him and it healed people.

He was martyred by beheading circa 65AD.

I’ve never had all that much of a devotion to St. Jude, mainly because there is so much pop Catholic cultural “stuff” about him. Prayer cards and booklets and so on readily available in parishes, items in the classified sections of newspapers in response to favors granted (and that you are guaranteed a favorable response to your St. Jude novena if you promise to publish the novena for nine consecutive days. This is borderline superstitious as prayer doesn’t really work that way.) All this served to be a little “off-putting” for me, and despite having tons of these prayer cards stashed in a wooden box where I keep excess pious items, I never gave him much thought. 

Until yesterday and today. I have been trying to recruit more saints and blesseds to intercede for us alcoholics. For that reason, as well as that I am compiling a prayer book for sober Catholics and I want it to exceed expectations by having numerous saints in there that people do not know about (or who are not typically associated with ex-drunks; St. Dismas is one. ) While I was pondering him yesterday, St. Rita of Cascia also came to mind as she’s important to me (there is a point to this, please bear with me.) She is known as the patronness of impossible cases, just like St. Jude. (Maybe that’s another reason why I never developed much of a devotion to him?) But yesterday I got to thinking about St. Jude, and decided that another saint dedicated to helping hopeless cases could work. He and St. Rita could team up. Based on where I’m at right now (more on that later) I decided to think about cultivating a relationship with him. And I let that slide until today. 

And so I looked through that wooden box where I’ve kept all those “excess pious items” and found a bunch of prayer cards. I read them over and they hit me. Yes, I need his help. AND I can begin blogging about him now and then and perhaps those of you who do not have a devotion to him can see the value in it. 

And so I just recruited St. Jude to be an advocate and patron saint of alcoholics and addicts. The thought occurred to me that what with all the devotions surrounding him regarding being the patron saint of hopeless and desperate cases, he’d be a perfect intercessor for us. Now we alcoholics and addicts have TWO Apostles in our corner, the other being St. Matthias.

I mentioned a few paragraphs above about “where I’m at.” Due to a variety of circumstances, things are a bit stressed financially at the moment, although they should improve come Springtime when Social Security begins for me and my wife and I begin the process of relocating to a more affordable residence. If you’d like to help out by assisting in bridging the gap between now and then, you can do that in two ways:

One, by paypalling me whatever you can spare at: PayPal Paul Sofranko. Thank you! (It is NOT tax-deductible. It wouldn’t be an act of charity, then.) You can also mail a check, payable to: Paul Sofranko; and send it to: P.O. Box 358; North Boston, NY 14110.

Two: by purchasing my books and online products. You can purchase for yourself or multiple copies for others that might be interested. My new book, “The Sober Catholic Way” comes as an ebook for Amazon Kindle, or as a paperback from Amazon. If you prefer Barnes and Noble, then here is the link for a paperback; and if you have a B&N Nook, here is the Nook purchase link. 

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It is also now available at numerous other ebook retailers like Apple Books and Smashwords. You might also try this Universal Book Link: click and then select the logo of your fave online bookshop.

Click on this page to discover where you can buy The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts. 

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It’s available through Amazon, B&N and Apple, as well as Smashwords and other retailers. 

The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics is also available; that page tells you all the places you can buy it!

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Are you creative-minded? Know people who are? Then Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

 

“Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics” is a call to arms, or rather, a call to pens, paintbrushes, and video cameras, for creative Catholics to take up St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe’s call to infiltrate pop culture and help alleviate the ills that pervade contemporary society. St. Maximilian saw back in the 1920s how the use of cinema, radio, and mass-market books was corrupting society. He thought that those same tools could be used as a countercultural force to overcome this corruption. 

Furthermore, it explains through the example of three critical apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Guadalupe, Lourdes, and Fatima how she herself suggested strategies and alternatives to the dehumanizing and increasingly pagan contemporary culture we have today.

“Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics” concludes by showing how the Catholic Faith can be used to provide a road map out of our current morass and a blueprint to build a more just and fair society constructed according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy and other elements of traditional Catholic Social Teachings.

Get it for your Amazon Kindle through this link!

Prefer the paperback? Get it through this link!

Are you a happy Sober Catholic? Then Shop Sober Catholic! That page offers a selction from the many other products, such as T-shirts, mugs, rosary cases and zippered book cases, stickers for your laptop, smartphone cases, and much more! You can see the entire product line at The Sober Catholic Pixels Shop!

I just added some new products, including some featureing St. Jude and a prayer I wrote for alcoholcs and addicts! (It may not be available, yet, so please check back later. Actually, I will probably blog about it when it hits the general public.)

Thank you for reading this far, as well as for whatever assistance you can provide. It is greatly appreciated and I will add you to my prayers.

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!!)

I went on a retreat this weekend and didn’t even realize it

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I went on a retreat this weekend and didn’t even realize it.

I’ve been feeling a combination of being ‘sorry for myself’ and dealing with recurring stress and anxiety (who isn’t these days?) Much of my stress is over chronic pain (fibromyalgia, arthritis, osteoarthritis… if it’s a muscle or a joint, it hurts. And hurts really bad, too. Plus I’ve had two tooth extractions over the past month. Can anyone say “Broken down, crotchety old man?” Not to mention that I’ve been plagued for the past few months by a voice in my head that has been repeatedly putting me down.

When this happens and I want to remain at home, I often select one of Mother Angelica’s books. I’ve written about this before .

And so I opened Mother Angelica’s Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality and read a few passages on pain, meaning accepting it and the benefits of offering it up. I knew all this as I continually ‘offer it up’ for the usual devotional suggestions (reparation for sins – mine, yours, other people’s; reparations for sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary; for the conversion of sinners; for saving souls…….)

And so I felt better. But I could feel even more better. So I watched a few of her classic programs on EWTN On-Demand. I caught one on using the scraps of your life. “Scraps,” according to Mother, are those things in your past that you cannot let go of. All the mistakes, the stupid, rotten, bad things you’ve done or were done to you,  traumas perpetrated against you, and so forth that still haunt you. I know all about scraps; they are the fuel for my fiction writing. I am a firm believer that writing is a form a therapy. Even if you don’t publish a word, creating stories in which you dump all the dumb things you’ve ever done or traumas you’ve experienced to flesh out characters and backstory helps your perspective on them. It also objectifies the pain. But she went on about how the scraps can be used to sanctify yourself. That the scraps of you past life can make you sensitive other people who also are carrying bags of scraps. People who are hurt often are more sensitive to other people who are hurt. 

That latter sentence is where I have some difficulty at times. I’ve seen social media memes that say something like “Hurt people hurt other people.” Meaning that hurt people often lash out at others. Their pain causes them to make others feel pain. (This is often the reason why the ‘bad guys’ in fiction often become bad guys. Something bad happened to them long ago, they never got help or justice and so their pain festered and transformed them into a ‘bad guy’ and they kill a lot of people, or rampage across the galaxy enslaving entire species or go around blowing up planets or are just truly wicked. I wrote about that on my other blog. 

The “where I have some difficulty ‘at times’” is the feeling that lashing out at others can be justified if the ‘bad guy’ never got justice, help or some kind of moral satisfaction against whoever perpetrated the evil done to him. Of course that’s wrong. The ‘bad guy’ is just creating more victims from innocent people; he is extending to others the evil done to him. It is easy to fall prey to the idea of being justified in one’s victimhood; hey, if no one helped me when I was being driven to suicide by my family long ago, why should I be considerate of others?   

OK, I went off on this topic longer that I thought I should, but I’m leaving it in. The thing is, and this is what struck me out of the blue as I was watching Mother talk about sensitivity to others and the marginalized seeking solace in one another due to the accumulated scraps from their past, is that although I didn’t really have an ally or advocate during the many times in my life when I was bullied, mocked and ridiculed or made an outcast, (or driven to consider suicide,) I really did (though I didn’t realize it until later, but that’s OK.) This may sound trite, but my allies were Jesus and His Blessed Mother. I may have mentioned this in a much earlier post (I can’t find it) but I often go to my nearby Adoration Chapel… because I felt summoned to go there. Or to attend a Daily Mass when I didn’t feel like it….because I felt summoned to go there. Same for prayers, at time…. I am just ‘not up to it’ but feel that call to pray a rosary or whatever. 

To me, that means that Jesus and Mary want me around them. Therefore, there is no need for me to ever feel like I’ve never had an advocate or an ally. Yes, it would have been nice for God to have ‘done something’ back when I was going through trials, but we all know, but often forget, that trials are there for a reason. (Mother Angelica has lots to say about that in the book I mentioned way up above. In short, they are there to prune us of our pride, self-will, self-love, and teach humility.) In God’s time, justice will be served, and not earlier. I can, right now, just take some comfort in the fact that I am not alone; besides my wife (who also seems to enjoy having me around, go figure) there is Jesus and Mary asking me to spend some extra time with them every so often. They know about the bad things that have happened to me in the past, all the scraps of my life that still haunt me and mutter in the recesses of my mind that “I’m a loser.” But in their own fashion, they will deal with the people who’ve hurt me. And what they can do about them  is far better than whatever I could have done. By some divine combination of Mercy and Justice, all will come out in the end. I just have to remain cognizant that my pains and agonies can be companions on the journey and not tormenters. I can convert them into assistants to help me to be kinder and more compassionate.

Incidentally, I watched more than just a few of Mother Angelica’s classics on EWTN On-Demand, but the other shows are beyond the scope of this post. But they all contributed to the feeling that I went on a retreat this weekend for a few hours and my head got rescrewed back on. The little negative voices that have been tormenting me these past few months have fallen silent, today. I hope they stay quiet as it may have been a case of demonic oppression, but I hesitate to give extra credit to Satan to what may have merely been low self-esteem. But on the other hand, given the voice’s persistence….

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!!)

What is good and pleasing and perfect

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The Evening Prayer for today (Monday, First Week of Lent) has one of my favorite passages from Scripture and the first one I ever attempted to memorize.

To me, it is at the heart of being a person in recovery: Romans 12:2 “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.”

In recovery, we are essentially becoming transformed. We live by the principles of our recovery program (be it Twelve Step or something else) and if we are Christian, we seek out what the Church has to offer people struggling with their addictions. And one key thing, and this is something I’ve stressed from time to time: you don’t conform to this age, you do not seek value in the so-called “morals” of the World. They do not offer anything of substance and certainly they do not offer anything good for your salvation. In this “transformation” and our “renewal” we gain the capacity to discern what is the will of God, “what is good and pleasing and perfect.” How to discern the Will of God? Reading Sacred Scripture is one way. In another Gospel passage Jesus tells His disciples: Matthew 16:24-27 “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay all according to his conduct.” Again, “taking up the Cross” is essential to our recovery. We do not seek to run away from our troubles, all of the problems, big or small, that life throws at us daily. That is what we did while drinking. Everyone has troubles, it is a fact of human existence. We now have to tools to effectively deal with them, and perhaps even people around us who can assist us. But it’s more than that. It’s building a new life in recovery, and becoming a better follower of Jesus Christ! Our lives today are better than when drinking. And even better than before we first picked up a drink due to our “renewal” and “transformation.”

Mass Readings via USCCB.

So, “renewing your mind” is a recovery theme. We drop our old ways of thinking, acting, reacting and feeling and so on, and adopt new ones assisted by God’s grace. “Taking up the cross” is what all Christians are supposed to do, we cannot be followers of Christ unless we willingly embrace the Cross.

NOTE: This post is an edited version of two older posts. 

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. Stephen and St. Paul: united in Heaven

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I’ve always loved this passage from the Second Reading of the Divine Office for the Feast of St. Stephen, Protomartyr:

From a sermon by Saint Fulgentius of Ruspe, bishop:

Now at last, Paul rejoices with Stephen, with Stephen he delights in the glory of Christ, with Stephen he exalts, with Stephen he reigns. Stephen went first, slain by the stones thrown by Paul, but Paul followed after, helped by the prayer of Stephen. This, surely, is the true life, my brothers, a life in which Paul feels no shame because of Stephen’s death, and Stephen delights in Paul’s companionship, for love fills them both with joy. It was Stephen’s love that prevailed over the cruelty of the mob, and it was Paul’s love that covered the multitude of his sins; it was love that won for both of them the kingdom of heaven.

It is probably my second favorite reading, right behind the one from Holy Saturday (‘Something strange is happening – there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep.”)

I particularly enjoy the one from today’s Office because it convincingly states one aspect of Heaven: enemies forget their animosity or hostility and are united in fraternal love. Now, St. Stephen didn’t hate St. Paul while the two were living; there’s no record they ever actually met. Even if they did, Paul (then named Saul) was just one of the good number of Pharisees who opposed and tried to silence Stephen. But the lesson is there: Paul hated Stephen and this contributed to Stephen’s death. But now they are joined in Heaven. What caused their differences on Earth now unites them in Heaven.

Something that provides a great comfort for all of us down here. Given our past alcoholic and addictive behavior, we have compiled quite a list of people who hold us in less than high regard. It is comforting to know that if we all make it to Heaven, all of that Earthy stuff is gone. Our actions are understood and forgiven, and nothing is left but love. 

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!!)

Four things to help you get through difficult times

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I am going through some ‘stuff’ right now; some personal issues as well as the usual anxieties about world and national events. The latter are bothersome, but I’ve gotten to realize that there’s not much I can do about them apart from prayer. The personal stuff is very worrying and those worries intrude on my limited personal time (evenings and a short weekend.) 

This post is on “Four things to help you get through difficult times” and although they are not new to me nor probably to you, I have been reacquainted with them in my recent spiritual readings and recollections. They are beginning to help me cope with the difficulties that are besetting me.

I have a two-hour Holy Hour on Friday evenings and the one on February 18th spurred much of this. I read a lot of what St. Maximillian Kolbe wrote on ‘suffering’ during that Holy Hour and it summarized or synthesized the entirety of traditional Catholic teachings on it. So here is the first thing:

Suffering. It shows that God is pruning you of pride and self-love; that bearing up with suffering in the spirit of ‘taking up your Cross’ will give you greater glory in Heaven; in a related note, that God is preparing your soul for special graces and this will mark you in a special way when your Earthly exile is over. Now, I had known this, and have even blogged this before, but I needed a reminder. St. Maximilian’s simple and unadorned way of writing helped to knock some sense into me and in presenting these time-honored truths in his simple style, brought them to me as if I was being introduced to them for the first time! That was an amazing Holy Hour. It was as if Jesus knew I needed a primer on suffering and got St. Max to teach me.

The next three things grew from that Friday.

The Present Moment is the second. St. Max didn’t write about this (or at least I can’t recall at this time,) but Mother Angelica of EWTN did write and talk about it a lot, and since I closely associate St. Maximilian with Mother Angelica (there are a lot of parallels in the development of their evangelical ministries), reading St. Max made me think of her and naturally her doctrine of the Present Moment. To describe it briefly, all we have is now. The past is left to God’s Divine Mercy, the future to His Divine Providence; leaving only the here and now to His Divine Grace. God does not give you His special helps (graces) for the past. Nor does He give it to you for the future. His graces are given to you for what is going on right now. This may help with things done in the past, such as healing from trauma and addiction and such, and He may give you a grace now that will develop into something for a future issue, but it is still given to you for where you are now. (The ‘Now’ could be regarded as the intersection of the past with the future; so that may help with understanding the previous sentence.) Anyway, being too worried about the future may cause you to not receive and cooperate with the graces being given to you now. In a way, it’s like you’re driving down a road, craning your neck out the window of your car to see something going on farther down, and a truck coming up from the right that you didn’t see collides with you. You would have seen it had you been paying attention. Ok, a little graphic, but it paints the picture. Naturally, since thinking about St. Max’s writings lead me to think about Mother Angelica, she got me to think about St. Faustina Kowalska, the “Apostle of Divine Mercy,” since Mother’s EWTN is the major promoter of the Divine Mercy devotion. St. Faustina wrote in her diary about the Present Moment:

2 “When I look into the future, I am frightened, But why plunge into the future?

Only the present moment is precious to me, As the future may never enter my soul at all.
It is no longer in my power,
To change, correct or add to the past;
For neither sages nor prophets could do that.

And so, what the past has embraced I must entrust to God.

O present moment, you belong to me, whole and entire.
I desire to use you as best I can.
And although I am weak and small,
You grant me the grace of your omnipotence.

And so, trusting in Your mercy,
I walk through life like a little child,
Offering You each day this heart Burning with love for Your greater glory.

Trust in Jesus is the third thing. Since Max lead me to Angelica, and she lead me to Faustina, the big thing about the latter is the whole ‘Jesus I Trust in You’ theology of the Divine Mercy message. Trust in Jesus. He’s got your back, so to speak. He knows more than you do what’s going on with you, and why. Trusting in Him gives Him great delight; it allows Him to operate more freely within your soul, granting you the graces needed to help you get through ‘stuff.’ And it is a soothing balm to comfort you in trying times. All that is within your reach you can deal with; beyond that (the past, the future, and contemporary trials that are beyond your control) is in God’s hands. If your relationship with God has developed where you believe it’s now a personal one, then this should not be too hard. You love God, you know He loves you, it’s not hard to trust in the ones you love. I know, (trust me, I know!) that it is difficult at times to take that ‘leap of faith’ and believe that Jesus will ‘take care of the matter,’ but when this happens, think about all the times in the past when Jesus rescues you from a situation. Why would He abandon you now?

Trust in the Blessed Mother is the fourth thing. You have to have a pretty good devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary to get this. But it does bring things to a full circle; Maximilian took me to Angelica, who took me to Faustina who took me back to Maximilian. Not surprising since Faustina and Max were Polish contemporaries and their teachings parallel each other. St. Maximilian wrote that “Whatever does not depend upon our will is surely the will of the Immaculata.” This takes some meditation to get. In essence, he means that whatever is beyond the grasp of our will, falls within the grasp of Mary’s. It is his teaching, as well as that of many other great Marian saints, that Mary’s will is identical to that of God’s. Since Our Lady was conceived with Original Sin, she didn’t suffer concupiscence. She never sinned. Sin is essentially turning your will away from God’s. Therefore, her will was always united to God’s. So, we can conclude that since Our Lady is in Heaven watching over us and interceding on our behalf, what she wants for us is the same as what God wants. Trusting in the Blessed Mother and her maternal intercession is complementary to trusting in Divine Providence and Jesus. Our basic trust in Our Lady is evident in the Hail Mary prayer:

Hail Mary, Full of Grace; 
the Lord is with you.
Blessed are you among women,
and Blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners, 
now, and at the hour of our death.

AMEN

There, she is praying for us now, and at some future time when we die. If you are consecrated to her in some manner, such as by the method of St. Louis de Montfort or St. Maximilian Kolbe, then you belong to her and are under her special protection as well as guidance. Entrust your problems, your ‘stuff’ to her and her Son. Using inspiration, graces, including perhaps signal graces, Jesus and Mary will lead, guide, console, and intervene. Patience is necessary since Heaven’s Time is not ours. But then we go back to the first thing, suffering, which we can offer up in redemption for our sins, those of others, and for the general intercessory powers of Heaven.

Now, regarding that quotation from St. Maximilian, “Whatever does not depend upon our will is surely the will of the Immaculata.” There is a tricky thing about that. Our will is that tricky thing. If our will is united to God’s will, to the best of our ability to discern that, then anything beyond that is the will of the Virgin Mary. And what depends upon our will is helped by God’s grace. That’s great. Solutions to the ‘stuff’ are in the works. But, if our will is mostly self-willed pride, and therefore divorced from God’s will, then there lies a problem. What depends upon our will is going to be a great struggle, a tremendous burden, and a trial. We may begin to doubt ourselves, our pride is wounded or we get angry and aggressive. Perhaps the ‘stuff’ that you are going through is the result of your self-willed pride. Perhaps not. (This is what I am attempting to discern about my ‘stuff.’ Am I doing God’s will? Or I’m not and I’m suffering as a result? Or I am and His will is for me to suffer the ‘stuff’ right now? Who knows? (And neither do you since I haven’t identified the ‘stuff’ I’m going through 😉 )

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!!)