About four years ago, before I got involved with Catholic in Recovery, I started to see some of the fault lines and divisions in the Church. It was at this moment that I began to shift my thinking from “the Twelve Steps …

When I do an Examination of Conscience, or my Daily Examen, I’m often confronted with how sinful I am. A Daily Examen is the practice of recounting our shortcomings and sins prayerfully in the presence of the Lord, asking for His forgiveness …

We might know in our minds that God has the attributes of being all present, all knowing, all loving, and all merciful. But if we can come to know these also in our hearts, then I believe it becomes easier to trust …

When I stop and look back through the years of my recovery, I can see without a doubt how God has been with me, gently nudging me, pushing me further away from my own desires and toward His desires for me. A …

In my opinion, after the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is the second greatest sacrament for Catholics. It allows us to grow closer to God and helps us receive the many graces God wants to pour out over us. Confidentiality is also …

In my own recovery, I have found many helpful tools in St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises. I could almost call the Exercises a recovery program for addiction and codependency. Within these exercises, St. Ignatius offers rules for the “discernment of spirits” …

The phone rang. I was 23 years old and hadn’t heard from my friend Sara in five years. We grew up together. “What have you been up to?” Sara asked. “Well, I’ve had a life-changing experience and I’ve become a born-again Christian!” …

I’ve heard it said that “Home is the place where you have to go, and they have to take you.” For many of us in addiction recovery, whether as addicts or their loved ones, there’s a lot of baggage around “having” to …

In this episode of the Catholic in Recovery podcast, Scott Weeman and Father Sean Kilcawley discuss the complexities of managing addiction recovery alongside mental illnesses, specifically addressing a listener’s experience with sex addiction and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). They emphasize that a strong …

“In place of the visio Dei, Christ has a visio mortis as he contemplates the repulsive horror and self-isolation of sin’s selfishness.”—Alyssa Pitstick, summary, Balthasar’s Mysterium Paschale, First Things At the age of nearly 96, I look back on more than 80 …

In this episode of the Catholic in Recovery podcast, Scott Weeman and Father Sean Kilcawley addresses listener questions, first focusing on a seminarian’s struggle to balance a busy formation schedule with the time commitment of 12-step recovery, followed by a definition of …

As Catholics, we receive the Eucharist during Mass. However, there is another opportunity for us to experience the Blessed Sacrament through Eucharistic adoration. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains the importance of incorporating adoration into our prayers to God: “Adoration is …