Category Archives: This Too Shall Pass

The days of adversity, prosperity and death

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A reading from the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours has these interesting cautionary words:

Sirach 11:25-26: “The day of prosperity makes one forget adversity; the day of adversity makes one forget prosperity. For it is easy with the LORD on the day of death to repay man according to his deeds.”

(Via USCCB.)

Do you lead a balanced, grateful life? When things are good do you forget how things were during the bad times? When times are bad do you remember that they had been good, and can be so again (or do you sink into despair thinking that God has abandoned you?)

Do you thank God for the good times and rely on Him during the bad?

Just asking!

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!!)

LET IT PASS AND IT WILL PASS

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Spirit Daily has an article posted yesterday (or today) entitled: LET IT PASS AND IT WILL PASS. It is on the spiritual and sacramental benefits of Confession.

In Twelve Step movements we usually hear a lot about cleaning up the past, and this in important in 4th and 5th Step work. Past hurts, resentment and guilt all can clog up and retard your spiritual development. Not to mention unconfessed sins can perhaps condemn you if they are mortal.

In the Spirit Daily piece linked to above, the writer describes how Jesus can help you clean up your past through Confession.

This is the season of Advent. We must prepare for the coming of the Lord. Clean up your life by examining your conscience and going to Confession before Christmas.

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!!)

Patience has a practical purpose

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The Reading from Evening Prayer for today has advice concerning patience, a topic not unfamiliar in 12 Step Meetings:

James 1:2-4: “My brothers, you will always have your trials but, when they come, try to treat them as a happy privilege; you understand that your faith is only put to the test to make you patient, but patience too is to have its practical results so that you will become fully-developed, complete, with nothing missing.”

(Via Universalis.)

Sounds like patience is a practical tool for “spiritual progression”, a goal much sought-after by 12 Steppers. We all seek to become better that we were, to develop a stronger sobriety, to become more spiritual.

Trials have a purpose, they test our faith and our commitment to God. We endure them and grow stronger as a result, or we resist them and become bitter, or worse we surrender and drink again.

Our choice. They will enter our life whether we wish to or not, how we react to them is mark of our sobriety and faith.

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!!)

Joy in trials

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The Evening Prayer for yesterday had this excerpt from the Letter of James:

James 1:2-4: “Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

(Via USCCB.)

Easy faith is easy. It doesn’t stand trials. Encounter any problem with life, and we all have many, and easy faith turns to despair. Or, a loss of faith and perhaps a “conversion” to an easier religious faith.

James believes that good, sincere, faithful faith understands that trials happen in life, and faith is the way to cope with them, and in doing so such faith grows and becomes stronger. It perseveres and assists the person trudging through life endure to life’s end.

They joy in James’s reference is probably this understanding that we become stronger to endure through to the end of life. Trials are a reminder that this life is not permanent and that we are destined for something greater.

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 Scriptural One Day at a Time

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An excerpt from the Gospel Reading for the Mass for Saturday morning shows that Jesus was teaching the concept of “One Day at a Time” to His disciples:

Matthew 6:34: “Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”

(Via USCCB.)

So do not worry about tomorrow. All you have is today. Tomorrow’s problems may be solved before the day gets here due to things outside your knowledge, or it may never come at all.

Just think about today and what you need to do to get through 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!!)

A weakling and a failure

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In today’s prayer from Universalis there is a fitting passage from the Old Testament that reaches out and gives hope to anyone who is caught in the despair and seemingly endless futility of an addiction:

Sirach 11:12-13: “Another goes his way a weakling and a failure, with little strength and great misery

Yet the eyes of the LORD look favorably upon him; he raises him free of the vile dust,

Lifts up his head and exalts him to the amazement of the many.”

(Via USCCB.)

We all felt this way. Weak, because it didn’t seem possible that we would ever be free of alcohol and/or drugs, and obviously a failure because of our wasted potential and opportunities. Quite often we would be reminded of these “facts” by the people around us.

Maintain hope in the midst of the burning and crashing disasters that surround you. Maintain hope despite yourself, for help from the Lord will arrive eventually.

There is a saying heard in the rooms of AA: “Don’t give up 5 minutes before the miracle happens.” You never know just when someone or something will happen to you that provides the light needed to see the way out. Often, the help seemingly comes from out of nowhere.

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!!)

Our Lady of Victory

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On October 7th the Church celebrates the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. Here is a post written a few years ago on its background (it also has a great litany prayer for your use):

Our Lady of the Rosary

The old name for this feast day is Our Lady of Victory. We can beseech Our Lady of Victory to be our own special intercessor in Heaven for us alcoholics and addicts. We can ask for the Blessed Virgin Mary’s maternal help in keeping us safe from our weakness over our addictions. She can aid us in turning our weakness into a strength. She has worked miracles in my life and can be a major intercessor for you as well.

As a personal historical sidenote: this is a copy-and-paste of a post from last year:

Today was the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. That link is a post I wrote last year.

It has been quite a year for me since that post. In that year I relocated to a new city to be closer to my then-girlfriend (after commuting weekly 360 miles/580 km round-trip for nearly 2 months), took a low-paying part-time job just to be near her, got a new job a few months later – just before the actual wedding, and endured a lot of change and trials on that job these past 8 months on it. I proposed to her 10 months ago today on the Vigil of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (Rose said “Yes” but made me propose again the next day as she felt it was more proper to do so on the day of the feast instead. Women… (!!!). ) All in all, a new life, and a year that most people would have taken several years to live out. No boasting, just a lot of life development and such all packed in to one year, that others would have experienced over a longer period.

A strong faith and strong sobriety was key in my surviving this past year. There was much that could have undermined my sobriety, ask any long-term member of a 12 Step group and they would have said something about too much change too soon. Change, or big change and a lot of it, isn’t good for any recovered/recovering alcoholic. Having something worthwhile to achieve (like a great lady) helps.

From Romans 12:12: “Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer.”

(Via USCCB.)

 

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

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

God took me for a walk

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Via USCCB.)

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

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

Person of Destiny

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

An excerpt explains it better:

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

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

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

Read the rest via Spirit Daily.

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

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

Template issues

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There seems to be a problem with the template (the way the blog is laid out). I haven’t done anything to the template, but for some reason it appears that the items in the sidebar are showing up below all the blogposts instead of along the right hand side where they belong.

I am not sure why this is so, but it is probably a Blogger (Google) issue. I shall investigate, not that I can do anything about 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!!)