Forgive

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On Monday I went for a drive to visit my parent’s graves and just as I was heading down the street I had to stop to avoid this other driver going the opposite way. He had briefly swung into my lane to get around a line of parked cars. I think that I had the right-of way as my lane was clear and he was obligated to stop and wait for me to get past him before he moved into my lane. Not a big deal as it wasn’t a near collision, we were far enough apart along the road. But a little bit of irritation with him rose up briefly that was squelched by the word:

Forgive.

It sprang up unbidden, just wafted up from my unconscious and hung there. Not that there was much to forgive but it was interesting nonetheless. Perhaps if I was more angry the word never would have had a chance at breaking through the emotion. But it saw an opportunity and it took it.

My usual automatic reaction would be one of annoyance or irritation or a whole host of nasty thoughts. The dark detritus just emerges and hangs around like toxic waste just poisoning my mood. Frequent negative thoughts fight through and hang about, and from what I gather this is common to most people.

But I was curious as to why the word forgive just popped up and nestled in my brain instead of the brief annoyance or irritation just planting itself, taking root and growing into a monster vine of resentment at other people and how dumb they are.

So I took it upon myself in this drive of which the original destination (the cemetery) turned out to be a brief stop and not the destination, and pondered the notion that forgive was my reaction, and not something meaner, despite the minor offense of the other driver.

I ended up thinking that maybe I can embark upon yet another round of focused spiritual development, of interior conversion centered around training me to have forgive as an automatic reaction rather than a negative one that normally festers. I’ve done this before successfully in my 5 years of sobriety. The AA “Big Book” mentions some things about anger and resentment being “red flags”. And so I, over the course of time, tried to recognize these “red flags” as they arose and strike them quickly. It works. It took time and effort, but eventually I became a less outwardly angry and irritable person. At least I think so. Working on “impatience” as much the same way. As before, when I felt rising anger, irritation and resentment building up that I tried to get rid of, feelings of impatience also were dealt with similarly.

I still get angry, annoyed, irritated and impatient, but they don’t define me. At least I hope so.

Anyway, back to forgive.

So I thought about the effects of going about the day keeping in mind that in any given instance I might have my feathers ruffled, for real or imagined. This post has been bouncing around my head since Monday’s drive, time to get it out on paper. Or electrons. 🙂

It seems to work. Whenever there is an instance where someone bothered me (again, specifics don’t matter, just go about your day and reflect on how many times people seem to irritate you, and they probably aren’t even aware.) It was like a mantra, just thinking forgive.

It has a healing effect. It immediately soothes. Instead of a rising negative attitude that may be sustained for a few minutes or hours, it quickly quiets them. All this repeated negative detritus just accumulates and poisons your soul. Repeating forgive gets you over it quickly.

I am melancholic. Which means I have a tendency towards being sensitive and dwelling on things, along with a certain bit of nostalgia. That sometimes makes for an unhealthy combination in which things from the past get dredged up and dwelt upon. Sometimes from the faraway past. Just repeating forgive helps soften the pain. To me, it was as if I was automatically releasing it (whatever it was) to God.

The repetition of forgive also helps interrupt the flow of the negative thoughts. This is related to something I had posted before, I forget which post, about why AA’s attend meetings when they feel like they may be about to relapse. The idea is that you relapse sometime before you actually take that drink, but meeting attendance, if that’s the best tool you have, interrupts the sequence of thoughts leading to the drink. Even if all the AA did was attend the meeting, regardless of the topic, the environment was enough to stifle the continued flow of thoughts which would have led to the action of taking a drink.

Same for thinking the word forgive. It immediately interrupts the self-righteous, indignant feelings that arise when you are wronged, regardless of how serious, regardless of whether the injury was intended or just accidental, or real or imagined. (You know what I mean, someone looks at you the wrong way, or they’re talking quietly to themselves and you think the muttering is about you. You’re not as important to the World as you think, they may not even be aware that you were passing through their field of vision when a stray thought of theirs caused them to do whatever it was they did. And maybe it was an upsurge of negative thoughts! HA!)

Just let it go. It isn’t worth mulling over. It isn’t worth wasting time holding onto the resentment of a momentary irritation, or some wrongdoing someone wrought upon you the other day or some time ago. Just forgive.

We Christians know how to forgive. Turn it over to God, let Him deal with it and you just cut the emotional ties to the event. Stop feeding the monster. If you persist in nurturing the resentment, it’s as if you are climbing up on God’s judgment seat and condemning the other person. That’s God’s job, assuming He agrees with you. He might not. If you are a Catholic Christian, in your examination of conscience that you do prior to Confession, analyze what you may have done in your relations with the other person to have caused the incident. (That’s part of humility. Never assume you’re entirely innocent.) Then confess it and work on your firm purpose of amendment to not do that ever again. Don’t feel self-righteous about another’s behavior towards you. “How dare they?” You’ve probably caused your fair share of unintentional and unwitting grief as well.

This repetition of the word forgive whenever something irritating is done by somebody is also done unconditionally. You don’t debate who’s right or who’s wrong. It’s easy enough to sweep away the garbage when the rising emotion comes from a routine going on about the day and there’s a host of attitudinal and emotional bumping and grinding. (Like the driver way back in the beginning of this post. Wow, that’s way back up there!) It’s another when there is a rupture of some degree and there is genuine hurt. This was touched upon in yesterday’s post.

You may refer to Matthew 18:21-22 “Then Peter approaching asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?”

Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.”

Jesus was using a common Hebrew shorthand of using multiples to mean “a lot” or, “a long time”. You forgive as often as you need to. As often as you are wronged.

Forgive anyway. It is tough, and o
ften might not be immediately possible, but is necessary eventually.

There is also something perhaps uniquely Christian about just saying forgive. It is self-sacrificial. This is the unconditional part from 2 paragraphs up. You are not counting the cost to yourself, nor determining who’s right or wrong. In any rupture, both sides can be held accountable. Even the person wronged, perhaps. (I mean interpersonal conflicts, slights, offenses. Not crimes.)

Think of Matthew 5:38-45 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on (your) right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.”

Therefore, you are in essence, “turning the other cheek” when you think or say forgive. You are not making an accounting to settle with later. You are turning it over.

Forgive is healing in another way. As you go about the day uttering to yourself forgive automatically whenever the heat of rising irritation begins to bubble towards the caldera of your mind, and those times when you forgive the really big hurts that have been inflicted on you, you notice that you heal in another manner.

You begin to forgive yourself. Sometime by this weekend I plan to post something I thought of during the priest’s sermon last Sunday. The post (title unknown yet) concerns concupiscence (look it up) and self-esteem. Anyway, we all hurt. Much of it is self-inflicted. Many times we are harder on ourselves than we are on other people. We tend not to forgive ourselves. As we repeatedly utter to ourselves the word forgive it gets easier to ignore slights, real or perceived, committed against us by others. But it also should make it easier to forgive ourselves. For anything. No matter how long ago. As long as you also take care of it in sacramental confession, presuming it’s a sin, jettisoning the negative emotional dreck should become easier.

Forgive, then, works then simultaneously on inside, as well as on outside, threats. As you learn to forgive others, and become more accustomed to it, you get used to doing it for yourself. This doesn’t absolve you of any responsibility towards making amends to people you’ve hurt, but in the possibility of no reconciliation, it’s a good way to complete the healing.

Don’t forget some of Jesus’s final words spoken from the Cross:

Luke 23:33-34

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him and the criminals there, one on his right, the other on his left.

Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” They divided his garments by casting lots.

He was dying, up there. God, a common criminal. And yet he forgave them. Of course, He’s God, He can do that. But it was a lesson to us. An important one. If He can forgive what was done to Him, who are we to decide that we cannot?

Forgive.

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!!)

Reconciliation and Forgiveness

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An excerpt from the Gospel of Thursday in the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time: (yes, I know it’s Tuesday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time, but I’ve been busy. This Gospel passage triggered some things to think about, and I had to go about and think of them before writing this post. There will be 2 more posts on the subjects of forgiveness and reconciliation that I hope to get to today, or if not, then tomorrow. Besides, the Church exists partly outside of Time, that being the “Church Triumphant” in Heaven. And since we are connected to the saints in Heaven by way of the Communion of Saints, it doesn’t really matter that sometimes I’m late with a reading from a particular day. 😉 )

Matthew 5:23-26;

Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you,leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison.
Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.

This concerns reconciliation with a person who has a grievance against you. For the purposes of this post, it doesn’t matter if the grievance is legitimate or even who is guilty. There exists a situation between you and another, and that situation must be cleared up before you can make an acceptable offering to God. An offering of prayer, or of yourself, whatever. You need to engage in something with God, an that will be impure and unacceptable until you have cleared the slate with another.

This is incidentally the basis for the Catholic teaching that you must confess all known mortal sins in sacramental confession before receiving Holy Communion, and why you must, if you’re thinking of returning to the Church, meet with a priest so he can help clear the way.

You reconcile. There is a thing between you and another, and that situation also would cause harm in your relationship with God. It must go. It is “clogging the pipes” through which grace flows to you. You meet with the other (when you can) and settle the difference. If the offer is rejected, and you’ve made and honest and sincere attempt, then you forgive and move on. You’ve done your part. The failure is now between the other and God.

Forgive means to break the emotional hold something has over you. In the previous paragraph, you tried to settle with the other and it was rejected. The hurt remains, the situation still exists. The other refuses to accept your offering to settle, nothing more can be done. You’ve been wronged, but it still has a hold on you. Get over it. It’ll take time, but to forgive means to release the situation, it is out of your hands and exists in the pasts. To not forgive means that the situation will still remain a part of you, although it existed back in the past. It becomes a resentment, a wrongdoing nurtured and sustained by the wounded.

It serves no useful purpose. It hinders your forward spiritual development and harms your developing relationships. It wears you down.

Turn it over to God. Let Him deal with it. By whatever means necessary, whether by prayer, some symbolic action, or just not thinking about it, try and no longer enable the event or transgression to have a hold on you. Divorce your emotions connected with the memory from the memory. No regrets, you’ve done all you could, it’s time to let go and move on. It will take time. Keep trying.

Another Gospel excerpt: Matthew 6:12, 14-15;

and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors…
If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.

This is part of the Lord’s Prayer, as told in Matthew. It simply means that if you do not forgive others who have wronged you, do not expect mercy from God for any wrongs you have committed. It makes sense. You have no business asking for mercy if you are not willing to extend it. This is related to the first Gospel excerpt concerning the need to reconcile with another before attempting to enter into something with God.

Forgiveness and reconciliation is healthy, mentally. All sorts of junk is tossed away.

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!!)

Liberty to the Captives

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The basic idea behind “Sober Catholic” is that you can use the religion and spirituality of Catholic Christianity to preserve and maintain your sobriety. Catholicism may not be your only tool, but should be the primary one.

The Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament of the Bible contains many of the Hebrew prophecies concerning the Messiah (the anointed One of God), whom Christians regard as Jesus Christ.

The following excerpt from the First Reading of today’s Mass (which celebrated the Feast of St. Anthony of Padua) is from Isaiah :

Isaiah 61:1-2 The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly, to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, To announce a year of favor from the LORD and a day of vindication by our God, to comfort all who mourn…

This is Jesus. He had come, and is still present among us in the form of the Eucharist, and still guides us through His Church. Following Jesus and participating in the sacramental life of the Church (living out your baptismal promises and receiving Holy Communion and going to Confession) liberates you from the false and empty promises and lies of alcohol and the other seductions that the world pollutes you with. You were once a captive of alcohol. It seduced you into thinking that it was your best and only friend and only through drinking could you discover your true self.

After a fashion you discovered that this wasn’t the case. In the end you hit bottom and ended up sitting in front of a computer reading about how Catholicism can keep you sober. But like everything else about the Catholic Church, it merely points the way to Jesus. Committing to Him, as you’ve presumably have done (or are thinking of doing) liberates you from the need to subscribe to the world’s values and the world’s solutions. Jesus is “The Way, the Truth and the Life” and is the only true counter-cultural force that endures. By “counter-cultural” I mean that in being a Christian one operates in contradiction to the the preferred manner of the world. Your master reigns in Heaven, and is not subject to this world’s demands. And by following Him, neither are you.

Alcohol and its abuse is an aberration used by people who have an unfortunate misperception of the world. Feeling rejected or at odds with it, they turn to alcohol and suddenly feel accepted. Alcohol makes you feel as though you finally “fit in”. It’s a lie, of course. In the end you are nearly destroyed by the lie.

Follow Jesus. You were once captive, and now you are free. Study the Gospels and get radical about living. Study the Catholic Church’s teachings, and be lifted up. They are not designed to chain you by listing a series of “do’s and don’ts”. Taken with the proper perspective, they liberate you from the limitations of being merely human.

Faith endures. Truth liberates.

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!!)

Truth vs. Opinion

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Admittedly some of the teachings of Catholic Christianity can sound bizarre, if not ridiculous. For example, the Trinity is about 3 Divine Persons in one God, yet not three gods, only One, but they’re all One Being, and yet still Three. You get a headache trying to figure it out.

Jesus is one of those Three, fully human (except in sin) and fully God, but not half of either. Not a demigod like Hercules. All God, yet all human.

Mary! Herself immaculately conceived, and also remaining a virgin after giving birth to Jesus. Just how is that possible? A virgin birth is a contradiction.

The Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is another. How can something that looks like a little white cookie be Jesus Christ, His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity? Just because the priest says a few words, exactly like Jesus did? Looks like a cookie…

The Resurrection of the dead is another. You die, and perhaps centuries or millennia later, you will come to life again?

All this is either true or the biggest con game invented. So much seemingly ridiculous illogical beliefs all gathered together in one philosophy should have died out centuries ago, collapsing under the weight of it own silliness.

But it didn’t. In fact, people have shed their blood for Christianity, convinced of its Truth.

Philosophies that are inherently illogical and irrational tend to die out. They may persist for centuries, but never attracting a large sustainable following for long, relative to other ideas.

But nearly a third of this planet is Christian. That’s about 2 billion people.

Are they all nuts?

No, because as incredulous as Christianity sounds, most of those 2 billion believe in the fundamental Truths of Christianity. There is an underlying conviction of the truthfulness of Christianity’s teachings.

This conviction is that God Himself is teaching us through Christianity things about Him and how to live in accord with His will.

This is where Christianity (along with its elder brother Judaism) differ from all other world religions. Judeo-Christianity is the only revealed religion, all others derive their teachings from wise, intelligent and charismatic people.

But, all the other world’s religions are fully understandable by humans. Their philosophy may be extensive and eloquent, but they never contain anything that’s virtually impossible to wrap one’s mind around like Christianity does.

This inability to be fully understood, the idea that seemingly irrational concepts can be true is, in my opinion, the Truth of Christianity.

In short, IF IT CAN BE UNDERSTOOD, IT IS FROM HUMANS; IF IT CANNOT, THEN IT IS FROM GOD.

What does that mean? A human-originated philosophy can be comprehended by humans. A philosophy coming from God will contain the essence of God’s nature and His ways that can never be completely understood by people. It is illogical and not very humble to presume that mere human intellect can probe the mysteries of the Divine and comprehend it. Our ability to comprehend is limited by our physical and temporal nature. We exist only for a limited period of time and our physical powers are not omnipotent. God is eternal and is not subject to the laws of science and reason that He created.

Science is like this. Science is the rational and logical study and exploration of nature, from the vastness of space to the minute levels of the subatomic world. God created the world and everything else, He laid down the laws of science to keep it in motion. Is science easy to understand? No. If you study science, then you study God, through His works. Science explores God through the physical realm; religion and spirituality explores God through the non-physical realm. If you find it difficult to comprehend science, why would you feel it easy to understand God and His ways?

How does this relate to sober alcoholics? Try the next time someone tell you that you don’t need God or organized religion. Just think of what you know about Jesus and ask, “What is a better way to achieve sobriety and salvation? A human idea that can come and go, shift and change with the passing fancies of human whims, or an idea revealed by God Himself, the eternal and perfect?”

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the learning of the learned I will set aside.”
Where is the wise one? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?
For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,
but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Edited 10:26 PM 12 June 2007

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!!)

Corpus Christi

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Today the Church marks the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. (It was celebrated last Thursday in most areas of the world, but in the USA it was moved to this day.)

In essence, the Church is specifically honoring the Eucharist, the nature of which I have written about before, here and here.

Eucharist means “Thanksgiving”, and at Mass we are giving thanks for the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, thereby redeeming (paying the price) for our sins.

Plenty to be thankful for.

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!!)

AA Anniversary

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On this date in 1935, in Akron, Ohio, Alcoholics Anonymous was founded.

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!!)

Sacred Heart

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Various months of the year have different themes or devotions. June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. (May, incidentally, is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and I blew it in not talking about it. I’ll make up for it over time. This blog is still new and wobbly.)

The Sacred Heart of Jesus has special significance to sober alcoholics, especially to those who are familiar with AA. If you know your AA history, back in its early days one of the co-founders of the movement, Dr. Bob Smith, was greatly assisted in his treatment of alcoholics by a Catholic nun by the name of Sister Mary Ignatia Gavin, an administrator of St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio. After an alcoholic completed his stay at the hospital, Sister Ignatia would “award” him with a Sacred Heart Badge, sort of a “graduation” gift, I suppose. This eventually developed into the practice of AA’s recieving medallions or coins representing whatever sobriety anniversary they were celebrating. This is detailed in the book Sister Ignatia: Angel of Alcoholics Anonymous, 2nd Ed., by Mary C. Darrah; Hazelden Pittman Archives Press; 2001 (ISBN 1-56838-746-6. Probably available through Amazon, or Hazelden)

Anyway, the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is one of the oldest and most Catholic of devotions, next to the rosary. Quite simply it is a devotion concerning a person’s healing and also reparation for sins committed against Jesus.

The “Litany to the Sacred Heart of Jesus” illustrates the nature and meaning of the devotion. A litany is a Catholic prayer in which an individual prayerfully repeats various titles or invocations of God, Mary, or a Saint. The idea is that it will “tune” your heart and mind to the virtues of the prayer.

Litany of the Sacred Heart

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Christ, hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.
God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Son of the Eternal Father, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, formed by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mother, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, substantially united to the Word of God, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, of Infinite Majesty, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, Sacred Temple of God, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, Tabernacle of the Most High, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, House of God and Gate of Heaven, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, burning furnace of charity, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, abode of justice and love, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, full of goodness and love, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, abyss of all virtues, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, most worthy of all praise, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, king and center of all hearts, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, in whom dwells the fullness of divinity, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, in the Father was well pleased, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, desire of everlasting life, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, patient and most merciful, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, enriching all who invoke you, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, fountain of life and holiness, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, propitiation for our sins, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, loaded down with opprobrium, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, bruised for our offenses, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, obedient to death, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, pierced with a lance, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, source of consolation, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, our life and resurrection, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, victim for our sins, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, salvation for those who trust in you, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, hope of those who die in you, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, delight of all the saints, have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

V. Jesus, meek and humble of heart,
R. Make our own heats like yours,

Let us pray. Almighty and eternal God, look upon the heart of Your most beloved Son and upon the praises and satisfaction which he offers You in the name of sinners; and to those who implore Your mercy, in Your great goodness, grant forgiveness in the name of the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with Your forever and ever. Amen.

(Thanks to the Sacred Heart website.)

Say the prayer slowly and meditatively. Think about each of the invocations (the parts immediately before “have mercy on us”) and ponder their meaning to you. Allow them to help you grow spiritually.

The Sacred Heart is about 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!!)

Trinity

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Yesterday was Trinity Sunday. Better late than never in discussing the Trinity, so here goes.

The Church, rooted in Sacred Scripture, teaches that God is a Trinity of Persons. God the Father, the creator and sustainer of all things; God the Son (Jesus Christ), the incarnation of God, or His Word become flesh; and God the Holy Spirit, the perfect Love that exists between Father and Son that is so intense it forms a distinct Person. Paragraphs 234-256 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church discuss at length the Trinity; as always, see sidebar for link.

The Trinity does not mean that we Christians believe that there are three gods. God is Three Persons, in one God. How this is so cannot be explained nor understood by mere human intelligence, and yet it is a fundamental belief among Christians. Belief does not require understanding. You can believe in the existence of electricity without comprehending how it works. One needn’t stick a finger in a light socket to know that you’ll feel electricity’s existence.

God the Father created everything. Atheists may disbelieve in God, yet they cannot explain how everything came into being. Where did all the matter come from? Where did all the physical constants and mathematical variables and chemical formulae and so forth come from, how did they develop? From where and when did they start? How did they start, or come into existence? Some intelligent force or guiding spirit must have been the first cause at some point in existence to start the whole thing.

Evolution may explain many things, but is based on random chance and denies God’s involvement. Again, I return to the previous paragraph, where did it all come from to begin the evolutionary cycle or path?

Creationism does not explain things, unless you believe that God is a trickster bent on deceiving His people. Creationists believe that the Universe is about 6,000 years old and was created in 6 days, despite physical evidence to the contrary. If God created the Universe 6,000 years ago, yet planted evidence that it is billions of years old, what’s to say that the Universe isn’t really 30 seconds old, and any evidence to the contrary is false? Nothing in the Bible implies an age of 6,000 years, such a figure was derived at by believing that Biblical history is a continuous one, without breaks in its chain. God is Truth, He does not deceive. Creationism “dumbs down” God to a human level of understanding and maligns His magnificence.

Intelligent Design is also weak, as it implies God is merely a designer, an architect, and nothing more. Pope Benedict XVI recently postulated the idea of “theistic evolution”, which in simple terms accepts all that science states about the physical nature of the universe, yet declares that God is the author of it all. God designed the scientific laws and methematical and chemical formulae that govern the workings of the universe. Unlike primitive religions in which a deity causes things to happen, theistic evolution states that God gave the universe a type of free will (perhaps “autonomy” is a better term as free will implies intelligence or consciousness. But it is poetic.). It operates on its own, yet is dependent on the Creator, for without His continual sustenance, existence would cease. Just like we have our free will, or autonomy, but use our intelligence to freely align with God’s will or not to choose His will. The difference between us and nature.

God the Son is the physical manifestation of the Father into creation. The Father and the Son are one, and yet are distinct. Where one is, so is the other. The Son is the means by which the Word of the Father reaches us, and creation.

God the Holy Spirit is the perfect, intense love between Father and Son that serves as the means by which the Father communicates His will to us. He is the Advocate and our Guide, sent to us after Jesus ascended to Heaven before Pentecost, returning to the Father. Where the Spirit is, so are the Father and the Son.

All three are God, and yet are One, and yet are distinct Persons. To me, this uniqueness and impossible-to-understand idea (yet has persisted for 2,000 years) is proof of its Truth.

You just can’t make this stuff up. So much theology and so much symbolism for human relationships have been derived from the Trinitarian idea.

As sober alcoholics, we can take tremendous reassurance from the Trinity. The Spirit dwells within us, offering us guidance and direction if we quiet ourselves and listen to its promptings. It protects the Church from teaching error in areas of Faith and Morals. The Son communicates God’s Word to us through the Bible and the Church. He established the sacraments by which we live and grow in the Faith. The Father is just that, our Father to whom we love, petition, and are grateful towards. He sent His Son to suffer for our sins, as we were unable to do so for ourselves.

The Trinity provides endless amounts of material for pondering. Its resources will never be exhausted.

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!!)

Why did God make you?

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And the answer to that question from the first volume of the old “Baltimore Catechism” (the 4 volumes of which educated millions of American Catholics until the 1960’s) is:

“God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.”

God made you because He loves you and wants you to return that love now and forever. Period. That’s it. That is why God made you. He didn’t make you to be rich, to be knowledgeable in the “ways of the world”, or to be materially successful. Some of those things are good, depending on how they are used. But those aren’t contained in the question nor it’s answer.

The question and answer is rooted in Sacred Scripture, if you read Genesis 1 and 2 and understand what happened in Genesis 3. God made us in perfect union with Him, and loved us so much that He gave us Free Will so that we can freely return that love. Under the deception of Satan, we decided that we can find fulfillment outside of that love and that we can be “just like God” in determining what is good and evil. This ruptured our relationship with Him, and the World and it’s ways largely became our focus. We are not God, and our stewardship of this planet proves that. Only Jesus Christ repaired our relationship with Him, but the effects of Satan’s deception still afflicts our planet.

Now, back to the question and its answer. Our sole reason for being is to know, love and serve God here and now, and then to be happy with Him forever in Heaven. The pursuit of worldly glory and material power and advantage are contrary to this reason. Even, in my opinion, the need for satisfaction on a more ordinary and mundane level.

Think about that question and its answer next time you feel unloved, unwanted, unneeded, irrelevant. The next time you feel like a loser or a failure, or because you are an alcoholic or drug or porn addict and that you are unworthy of God’s love, or anyone else’s, consider that question and answer.

I quite often feel as if I am a failure, a loser and a screw-up. That is because of my alcoholism and its derailment of my life and career and the financial cost, and the stigma associated with it. If I never picked up that first drink, I would be a few tens of thousands of dollars richer (cost of booze, lost income, hospitalization, etc.) and probably a homeowner (of my late parent’s house, or maybe some other purchased by myself and whomever I might have married had I not preferred vodka, tequila and rum to blondes, brunettes and redheads).

But I cannot dwell on that. That is the world talking. Focusing on the question and its answer takes me away from those feelings and helps me get more oriented on my value merely as a child of God. That as long as I “know Him”, meaning I pray to Him, meditate on Him and read His Bible; “love Him”, meaning I keep His Commandments and follow His Church; “serve Him”, meaning that I do His will in all things (put God first, other people second, and myself last), I will stand a good chance at “being with Him forever in the next.”

All the struggles and failures in this life will have some enduring meaning as they form the person I am now, but if I nail them to the Cross of Christ they will be transformed from the miserable things the world says they are into something else.

We don’t know why any one of us is an alcoholic or an addict. There are theories as to genetics, upbringing, psychological disorders and such, but that is irrelevant. We are what we are and God permitted it for a reason. Evil is permitted because of free will, but God’s influence in the world draws good out of evil. Evil may be in the happening, the event or the occurrence, but good lies in the response.

We can be defeated by whatever it was that happened, we can be defeated by how we are made, but we can rise above it and make the most out of it. I started this blog because of my alcoholism and as an attempt to help others who are Catholic (or seeking Catholicism) deal with their alcoholism in accord with the Faith. I hope to do more than just this.

Regardless of how miserable you think you are, the basis of that misery is temporary. It is not what you are. It will not endure, unless you allow it. It is not insurmountable. Some people resort to suicide because they think it is the way out. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Trust that the seeds of your own “resurrection” lie in the dying and death of your addicted life. The old life dies and a new one is born. We alcoholics and addicts are lucky in a way: we have two lives contained in one lifetime. It is our responsibility to makes certain that the first lifetime bears some meaning in the new.

The entire Baltimore Catechism is available from Gutenberg. Go to here and the Catholic Digital Studio will take you there. At CDS see under “Catechesis: Learning the Catholic Faith”, under “Basic Catechesis” you’ll find Volumes 1 & 2, under “Intermediate Catechesis” you’ll find Volumes 3 & 4.

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!!)

Admin stuff

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Adding “Suicide” as a label to some old posts. I’m not contemplating it, but a post currently being written and edited refers to it which reminded me that there are old posts which also discuss it. Just in case anyone else out there is thinking…

Also in case anyone subscribes and wonders why old posts are in the feed.

I’m at home all day… car in shop. Oil change, two new tires, AC fixed. $$$ :-O.

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!!)