Category Archives: Virtue

The Celestial Choir of Virtues to the rescue!

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Yesterday, September 29th, was the feast of the Three Archangels: Sts. Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. I said the chaplet of St. Michael as a novena leading up to it. When I prayed it on the final day and as I was studying the salutations for each of the nine choirs, with their accompanying petition, the one for the Celestial Choir of Virtues hit me right between the eyes (No idea why I didn’t notice this before. Emphasis mine.)

By the intercession of St. Michael and the celestial Choir of Virtues may the Lord preserve us from evil and falling into temptation.
Amen.

It is the same petition at the end of the Our Father:

Our Father, who Art in Heaven

Hallowed be Thy Name.

Thy Kingdom come,

Thy Will be done,

On Earth as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our Daily Bread,

and forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

and deliver us from evil.

Amen.

There’s an entire celestial choir of angels who can help us with preserving us from temptations and delivering us from evil!

So, who are the Virtues?

The “Celestial Choir of Virtues” refers to one of the traditional nine choirs, or orders, of angels. They are not “virtues” like faith, hope, and charity. “Virtues” is the traditional English translation of the Latin Virtutes.

The traditional, three-tiered hierarchy, following Pseudo-Dionysius and St. Thomas Aquinas, is:

Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones in the upper tier; then:
Dominions, Virtues, and Powers in the middle; and
Principalities, Archangels, and Angels bringing up the bottom.

In the traditional angelology, the Virtues are responsible for assisting in God’s divine ordering of the created universe. St. Thomas Aquinas places them below the Dominions and above the Powers. A traditional explanation is that the Dominions receive and administer God’s commands, while the Virtues carry those commands into operation in creation. The Powers are then carrying out the commands of the Virtues to resist and restrain hostile spiritual forces that run amok in the Universe.

Hence the name Virtutes: it is related to the Latin virtus, which doesn’t only mean “moral virtue,” but also strength, power, efficacy, or capability. So, the Virtues are concerned with “the power to accomplish the right ordering of nature.” Not just human nature, but the exercising of God’s power in the natural world. Recall that Evil disrupts the divine ordering of creation. Remember Genesis 3 and the Fall of Adam and Eve. Everything was perfectly ordered until Adam and Eve misused their Free Will and succumbed to the Serpent.

Old, traditional accounts associates the Virtues with the movements of the heavens, planets, stars, the seasons, and so forth; that angels ‘guide’ the orbits of stars and planets, etc. We can ‘modernize’ that by thinking of the Virtues as the source through which the laws of science as we understand it govern the Universe. God exists, He created the universe, established its order (science!) and ordinarily governs His creation through secondary causes—including, in Catholic theology, the ministry of angels. (God always works through His creation. He doesn’t have to; He chooses to. I suppose we humans can be regarded as the tertiary creative powers in the Universe?) God 

All of this gives the fifth salutation of the Chaplet a little more impact. Since it asks:

“By the intercession of St. Michael and the celestial choir of Virtues, may the Lord preserve us from evil and from falling into temptation;” we can see at work here God’s placing an entire order of angels in charge of restraining evil: at large in the Universe, or in our own particular, individual lives. Not bad, huh?

So, basically: the Virtues are traditionally understood as the angelic choir through which God’s creative and providential power is manifested and ordered in the created universe. Evil disrupts that power, and so the Virtues (and Powers) can help preserves us from that Evil when we make the petition through the Or Father prayer. (And especially when reciting the Chaplet!) The Virtues are not cute little angels who hand out “virtues” to people like Halloween candy or Christmas gifts. However, under their protection, you can grow in virtue. (Remember: virtue is the opposite of vice.)

You can read for yourself how to Say the Chaplet of St. Michael the Archangel courtesy of  EWTN and look at each of the salutations and what the petition is. I think all of us Sober Catholics should make a habit of reciting the St. Michael Chaplet as often as we can.

NOTE: ChatGPT assisted in the researching of this post (I wrote 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!!)

The Apparition of Our Lady of La Salette as a help in your addiction recovery

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I ran across this article on Spirit Daily about Our Lady’s apparition to two young French shepherd children in La Salette, France in 1846 (today, September 19, is the 180th anniversary of it.) 

In the remote Alpine village of La Salette, France, two shepherd children, Mélanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud, encountered a weeping woman bathed in light, her head in her hands. They had been shepherding the cows inntheir charge during the day; however, Melanie had fallen asleep during the afternoon, and Maximin had wandered off; the cows were lost. They quickly searched and found them deeper in the valley. This is where they discovered the beautiful woman crying.

Her message combined maternal tenderness with prophetic urgency, addressing both the decline in the practice of the faith by the local villagers and material issues. The Lady revealed her profound sorrow over humanity’s sinfulness, particularly the violation of Sundays with commercial activity and the neglect of Mass; and the profanation of her Son’s name through casual blasphemy. The message prophesied agricultural failure as a consequence of sin and linked spiritual causes to the material suffering.

According to “Our Lady of La Salette: History, Message & Apparition,” the Message of La Salette involves:

  • A call to conversion and penance for personal and societal sins
  • Warning about divine punishment if humanity refused to repent
  • Emphasis on proper Sunday observance and reverence for God’s name
  • Promise of abundance if people returned to faithful practice
  • Prediction of crop failures and famine as consequences of sin

Taking these points and applying them today involves:

  • Renewed Sunday observance – Protecting the Lord’s Day from secular encroachment
  • Reverence in speech – Avoiding casual profanity and blasphemy
  • Regular sacramental confession – Embracing reconciliation as ongoing conversion
  • Authentic penance – Accepting sacrifice as expression of love and reparation
  • Active evangelization – Sharing faith urgently with those drifting from God

All of these can be applied to your Sober Catholic Way of recovery.

A call to conversion and penance for personal and societal sins;  this is basic to any recovery program, but is adds a distinctly Catholic dimension to it in the reparative work for other people’s sins. Most (if not all) recovery programs concern themselves with helping the alcoholic or addict with remoiving their own defects of character and making amends to others. None concern themselves with the person in recovery making amends for other people.

Warning about divine punishment if humanity refused to repent/Prediction of crop failures and famine as consequences of sin. You are a part of Humanity; your sins contribute to the whole. Your repentance and penance for yours (and others) mitigates this divine punishment. Apparently people hadn’t heeded the Message of La Salette and the Blessed Virgin repeated this at Fatima when she said “War is punishment for sin.” Later, Jesus told St. Faustina, His Apostle of Divine Mercy, that “Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My mercy.” (Diary, 300)

Emphasis on proper Sunday observance and reverence for God’s name/Promise of abundance if people returned to faithful practice. Catholics are obligated to attend Mass on Sunday; missing it is a mortal sin (except when you cannot attend due to extenuating circumstances like illness, weather and other unsurmountable issues.)  “Promises of abundance” should be taken in its proper context. For our purposes of recovery, it could mean material abundance, it could also mean the abundance of graces for those willingy cooperating with God’s Will.

Reverence in speech – Avoiding casual profanity and blasphemy Violating any one of the Ten Commandments is a mortal sin; apart from that, even causal profanity implies a lack of self-control and self-discipline. (I need to work on this; while I do not take the Name of the Lord in vain, I cuss a lot.)

Regular sacramental confession – Embracing reconciliation as ongoing conversion/Authentic penance – Accepting sacrifice as expression of love and reparation It goes without much saying that this is a core part of any Catholic-based recovery program.

Active evangelization – Sharing faith urgently with those drifting from God Start a recovery blog or podcast about your own Catholic-based recovery! Or, just talk about Jesus as best you can with other; or, live the Gospel (“preaching without words.) 

The article also connected the La Salette apparition to Our Lady of Sorrows, whose feast day we just celebrated this past Tuesday (September 15th.)

This sorrowful aspect connects Our Lady of La Salette to the prophecy of Simeon, who told Mary that a sword would pierce her heart. At La Salette, that sword pierces anew as she witnesses her children rejecting her Son through negligence, blasphemy, and hardened hearts. Her weeping calls Catholics to recognize sin’s gravity and embrace the reconciliation Christ offers.

That “embrace the reconciliation Christ offers” recalls Divine Mercy and how important that is to peace: both peace in our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls; and peace in the world.

Other resources on the Apparition:

The National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette

Our Lady of La Salette at Catholic Tradition

Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette

Our Lady of La Salette at Roman-Catholic-Saints

Our Lady of La Salette at Simply Catholic

La Salette: Sorting Fact From Fiction

“Our Lady of La Salette “ is one of Our Lady’s apparitions that I’ve not paid too much attention to since the message of it has been corrupted by the repeated false claims that the statements and prophecies of one of the seers (Melanie Calvat) were approved and are a part of the ‘message,’ despite her making them decades after the apparition. (See the last link I added on “Sorting Fact from Fiction.”) Because Calvat is a seer of an approved apparition, many things she has said decades later have been mislabelled as being a part of the approved apparition. This is incorrect. Approval of an apparition does not extend to things the seers have said or done after the apparition is over.  

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!!)

Countering Adam and Eve’s pride

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The excerpt from Second Reading of the Mass of Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion is from Phillippians 2: 6-8.

Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God

something to be grasped.

Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,

coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,

he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death,

even death on a cross.

Courtesy USCCB

I’ll take my inspiration for this post from my pastor’s homily (we attend the Vigil Mass.) He pointed out the Christ’s humility as mentioned in this passage, undid the pride of Adam and Eve. Whereas Jesus did not regard His divinity as “something to be grasped,” unlike Adam and Eve, who grasped the apple in an attempt to grasp something more: the false promises of Satan to become like God. 

Jesus’ humilty rendered His godhood as unimportant to His mission of redemption (althoiugh it was key) in dorect opposition to Adam and Eve’s belief that they’ll become like God.

Something to ponder as we think about our own pride.

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!!)

May he preserve you whole and entire, spirit, soul, and body

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The Reading from the Night Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours for the Thursday of the Third Week of Lent is from 1 Thessalonians 5:23

May the God of peace make you perfect in holiness. May he preserve you whole and entire, spirit, soul, and body, irreproachable at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Courtesy: DivineOffice.org

Let this be a prayer for all who are striving to maintian their sobriety.

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

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

Where your heart is, there is your treasure also

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Today I bring you two excerpts from the Second Reading of Office of Readings of the Liturgy of the Hours for the Saturday of the Second Week of Lent, They were taken from “the treatise on Flight from the World “ by Saint Ambrose, bishop.

Where a man’s heart is, there is his treasure also. God is not accustomed to refusing a good gift to those who ask for one. Since he is good, and especially to those who are faithful to him, let us hold fast to him with all our soul, our heart, our strength, and so enjoy his light and see his glory and possess the grace of supernatural joy. Let us reach out with our hearts to possess that good, let us exist in it and live in it, let us hold fast to it, that good which is beyond all we can know or see and is marked by perpetual peace and tranquillity, a peace which is beyond all we can know or understand.

…

Let us take refuge from this world. You can do this in spirit, even if you are kept here in the body. You can at the same time be here and present to the Lord. Your soul must hold fast to him, you must follow after him in your thoughts, you must tread his ways by faith, not in outward show. You must take refuge in him. He is your refuge and your strength.

Courtesy: Divine Office.org

Where is your treasure? Is it still found in the false escape of alcohol or drugs? Or something else, such as an inordinate interest in a pop culture fandom? How about pornography? Your treasure should be found only in God and in all of His promises which He does fulfill for those who hope and trust in Him. 

Prayerfull read, and reread, the excerpt from the Office of Readings. You can also go to the link in the courtesy attribution and read the entire paassage. It’s a guide to succesful addiction recovery. 

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!!)

Do not conform yourselves to this age

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This excerpt from the Evening Prayer for the Monday of the Second Week of Lent is from Romans 12:2.

Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may judge what is God’s will, what is good, pleasing and perfect.

Courtesy: DivineOffice.org

This was the very first Scripture verse I even memorized because I found in it the central theme of addiction recovery by the graces of the Catholic Church. 

“Do not conforme yourselves to this age:” We are Catholic. We reject the false morality of the secular world which would have us murder unborn babies; treat with grave inhumanity undocumented immigrants fleeing poverty, violence and corruption; accept sexual deviancy as normal; and acept the general dehumanization of everyone through economic exploitation.

“But be transformed by the renewal of your mind:” Through prayer and the reading od Sacred Scripture and good spiritual reading, we can help our mind become renewed in Jesus.

“So that you may judge what is God’s will, what is good, pleasing and perfect:” And once that renewal has begun, we are better able to see God’s will in our lives and in the society around us.

I have written about this passage numerous times before:

Be Transformed by the Renewal of Your Mind

Transformed

Renewing Your Mind

What is Good and Pleasing and Perfect

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!!)

Run so as to win

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The Evening Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours for the Second Sunday on Lent is from 1 Corinthians 9:24-25;

While all the runners in the stadium take part in the race, the award goes to one man. In that case, run so as to win! Athletes deny themselves all sorts of things. They do this to win a crown of leaves that withers, but we a crown that is imperishable.

Source: DivineOffice.org

If athletes can deny themselves all sorts of things for a prize that is transtory (after all, who remembers who won a particular championship years ago? And if that team hasn’t won one since, is that much comfort to fans who want a championship this year?) then we, as sober(ing) Catholics, can deny ourselves the allures of the immediate gratification of alcohol and drugs for the ultimate prize: Heaven. 

Keep your eyes on the prize as you trudge your road of happy destiny.

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!!)

Wash yourselves clean!

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The Reading from the Morning Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours for Saturday of the First Week of Lent comes from Isaiah 1:16-18

Wash yourselves clean!
Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes;
cease doing evil; learn to do good.
Make justice your aim; redress the wronged,
hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.
Come now, let us set things right,
says the Lord:
Though your sins be like scarlet,
they may become white as snow;
Though they be crimson red,
they may become white as wool.

This is similar to yesterday’s lesson. This is also the process of recovery: in ‘washing ourselves clean’ we cast away our character defects and through our fearless and searchiung moral inventory, discover how deep our “evil” had been.  And then we begin to fix things. We mend our relationships with those we have wronged, we give help to those who need it when we are capable; and we seek to be outside of ourselves, we turn outward after fixing our interior and we try to make right the ills of the things around us. “Outside issues” may be a way to keep societal wrings and injustices out of the discussion in recovery meeting rooms (and rightly so, for they distract from the immediate issue of recovery) but in our lives “out there,” in society, we can take the lessons from the Church as she teaches us through Scripture and prayers and the sacraments, and try to heal the world around us.  

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!!)

Taking up your daily cross

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The Gospel for the Thursday after Ash Wednesday:

Jesus said to his disciples:
“The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected
by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.”

Then he said to all,
“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit himself?”

Courtesy USCCB

Taking up your daily cross is something few really enjoy doing. Even if you pray every morning the traditional Morning Offering (or any variant) in which you offer up all of your prayers, joys, and sufferings; and habitually “offer up” to God when the happen your pains, aches, fears, worries and anxieties; insults and attacks on your dignity as a human person; and all the other “stuff” that happens throught the day that we wish would just “go away,” it is still preferable for any f that to not have happened.

Yet Jesus is clear, if we are to folllow Him as His disciples, we must join ourselves to His propitiatory sacrifice of Calvary. Just as He was offered up in sacrifice to atone for the sins He was not guilty of; so, to, must we offer ourselves and our sorrows and sufering to atone for the sins we did not commit. All sin is an affron to God and disturbs the moral order, which has an impact in the physival world. Therefore, when we accept our crosses, we help out in repairing some order to the world about us. 

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!!)

Lourdes, the Immaculate Conception, the Militia of the Immaculata and Sobriety

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Reblogged from several years ago and edited slightly:

This is a story about a Marian feast day, its significance; a saint and what he did with it; and what all this meant for yours truly.

Today is February 11th, day when  Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous in a grotto near Lourdes, France in 1858.

The apparition was significant in several respects: the most important was that Our Lady identified herself with the words, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Not that she was “immaculately conceived,” but rather she was the essence of the immaculate conception. As St. Maximilian Kolbe later pointed out (this is a paraphrase) “To be white is one thing, to be whiteness is another.”

For another, it seemed as if Heaven was endorsing the definition of the Dogma of Mary’s Immaculate Conception in 1854 by Pope Pius IX in Ineffabilis Deus:

“We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which asserts that the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God, and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from every stain of original sin is a doctrine revealed by God and, for this reason, must be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful.”

And one more: that Mary’s self-identification as the Immaculate Conception was utterly fascinating and mysterious to St. Maximilian Kolbe, who meditated and pondered on it his entire life. It inspired his “Militia of the Immaculata” and associated media enterprises and friaries.

I discovered St. Maximilian Kolbe and the Militia of the Immaculata in 2002, after I had sobered up sufficiently to search online for what the Catholic Church has to offer me in recovery. As I had stated in my Reversion story, “I had been going to AA meetings, but I knew early on that the brand of spirituality offered there was not going to do the job.” And so I explored the religion of my childhood and never looked back. That St. Max was a patron of addicts helped. When I learned that, I explored more about him.

So I found out about St. Max and the M.I. The M.I. calls for consecrating oneself to the Blessed Mother as her “possession and property” so she can “make of me, of all my powers of soul and body, of my whole life, death and eternity, whatever most pleases” her. That she will use me as “a fit instrument in your immaculate and merciful hands for introducing and increasing your  (note: God’s) glory to the maximum in all the many strayed and indifferent souls, and thus help extend as far as possible the blessed kingdom of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus.” I figured if that’s true (and I never doubted the Blessed Mother) then this may help in my recovery. I doubt that remaining a drunk would be of use to her. This blog post Marian Consecration and the Guarantee of Eternal life expands on how Marian Consecration can help your sobriety. In short, when you become Mary’s possession, she guides you along the path to Jesus. Consecration can heal you, not in any miraculous way (but that could happen!) but it can help you focus and give a new dimension to your prayer and devotional life. I firmly believe that if you consecrate yourself to Mary, the probability of relapse should vanish (your willing cooperation with the graces received through Mary’s interession is assumed.)

And so on October 7, 2002, on the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary, I gave myself to Mother Mary. I joined the M.I. which “is a universal and international public Association of the faithful, erected by the Holy See. The MI was founded by St. Maximilian Kolbe, OFMConv., in 1917, is open to Catholics, of all walks of life, and encourages all people of good will to develop a trusting relationship with Our Lady. The aim of the MI is to win the whole world for Christ through the Immaculata, Mother of God and of the Church.

“The MI is a global vision of Catholic life under a new form, consisting in the bond with the Immaculata, our universal Mediatrix before Jesus.” -St. Maximilian Kolbe.

The MI offers programs that: -Provide formation in the teachings of the Catholic Church
-Foster love for Jesus in the Eucharist and for the Sacramental life
-Promote a deep understanding of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s role in the plan of Salvation and of the gift of consecration to her in the spirit of St. Maximilian Kolbe.
-Ignite with the zeal to become generous instruments of evangelization in one’s own environment, giving witness to the Truth and promoting the sacredness of human life. M.I. members, mindful of their call to evangelize, strive to give witness to the Faith everywhere. They seek to reach out to their own families, friends, co-workers, fellow parishioners, the sick and elderly, youth, adults, and whomever they meet, in order to lead every individual with Mary to Christ, Our Savior and Our Hope.

(Above quote courtesy of M.I. You can also visit that link to learn more about the MI and St. Maximilian Kolbe, along with possibly joining yourself!)

I think Mary started using me right afterwards. She strengthened me against what I perceived as attacks against my Faith in my AA Home Group as well as giving me the courage to stop attending meetings regularly in 2004. Not that I am advocating everyone should stop going to meetings; on the contrary, if you enjoy and need regular meeting attendance, by all means do it. It just wasn’t for me.

Once I drifted from AA, I began looking into what recovery resources the Church offers. You can read about that here: “About this blog.” After a whle I just decided to start Sober Catholic; I mentioned in some earlier post that I believe the Blessed Virgin Mary “inspired” me to do it. A “fruit,” if you will, of of my M.I. Consecration. Not that I received any interior locution or some such thing, just a desire that since no one else was doing this at the time, I might as well. I doubt I’d have the courage on my own.

So here’s the story: A apparition of the Blessed Mother; a saint’s taking that apparition and message and developing it; and a marginal ex-drunk finding a personal mission in it – Trudging the Road of Happy Destiny and taking whoever bothers to read this stuff along with him.

So that’s that! The sanctuary or Our Lady of Lourdes in France is famous for miraculous healings wrought there. Over 7,000 miralulous healinga have been reported since 1858; only 72 (so far) have been confirmed by the Church to me truly miraculous.) Because of that, Pope St. John Paul II also declared today to be the “World Day of the Sick” in 1993. We alcoholics, even though we may be sober, are still “sick.”

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!!)