When a person seeks addiction recovery, they’re usually after one goal—to become free of disordered behaviors and addictions. However, for those of us in CIR, we’re also after another goal. We don’t only strive to stop our addictions, compulsions, or unhealthy...
Read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series. Growth in Virtuous Love To undergo real transformation in holy love, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux asserts that three commitments are required of any person, three essential conditions that should sound awfully familiar to us in...
Read Part 1 of this series. 2nd Observation: God Is the Very Source of Our Love Saint Bernard’s second observation for why we should love God is that God, who is Love itself, is the absolute origin of our own individual yearning to love and be loved, and as such He is...
“Then one of the scribes…asked Jesus, ‘Which is the first of all the commandments?’ Jesus answered, ‘The first is: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,...
Saint John Henry Newman’s distinction between notional and real knowledge offers profound insights for the journey of recovery as an adult child of a dysfunctional home. Recovery, much like Newman’s view of the Christian life, involves moving from a theoretical...
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 guaranteed. Many...
Stepping over the threshold into the rooms of recovery is one of the hardest things many of us will ever do. By God's grace, we muster up the courage to admit our powerlessness and surrender ourselves and life to a fellowship of recovery. By living sober, we realize...
One of the first prayers some Catholics are taught as children is directed to their guardian angels: “Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here. Ever this day be at my side, to light, to guard, to rule, to guide. Amen.” This was true for me....
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, or Part 5 of this series on addiction and Saint Benedict’s Twelve Steps of Humility. We come to the second to last stage of humility, discretion. According to Saint Benedict, “The eleventh step of humility is that a monk speaks...
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, or Part 4 of this series on addiction and Saint Benedict’s Twelve Steps of Humility. The fruit of the fear of God, self-denial, obedience, perseverance, and repentance is the gift of serenity, where we truly begin to live in detachment...