Read Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3 of this series on addiction and Saint Benedict’s Twelve Steps of Humility.
Humility, like recovery, begins with a healthy fear of God—the awareness, as Saint Benedict puts it, that we are “always seen by God in heaven” (Rule). There is not a thought, word, or deed of ours that is not perceived and known by God. Fear of God therefore means that we are always in the presence of God affirming what the Psalmist exclaims, “O Lord, you have examined me and you know me…Where can I go to hide from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence” (Psalm 139:1, 7)?
This fear of God is not a cowering or servile dread, but rather consists in a sense of awe and respect like that of a servant before a master, or of a subject before a king, or of a child before a parent, or of an addict before the Higher Power who promises to “restore us to sanity” (Step Two). Fear of God is the affirmation that I am not God, and that the God who does exist is exceedingly worthy of my attention and devotion. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10).
It is where the covenantal relationship between ourselves and God begins to be healed as we reject the illusion of self-sufficiency and begin affirming the truth of God-sufficiency. Fear of God is precisely what is awakened when we make Step One, Step Two, and Step Three in recovery. Nothing else good will happen in conversion and recovery without this basic level of humility.
Self-denial is the second degree of humility and means “that a man loves not his own will nor takes pleasure in the satisfaction of his desires” (Rule). It naturally flows from an authentic fear of God, and it represents the asceticism of the spiritual life and recovery. Self-denial is the exercise of abstinence and self-control, the intentional effort we undertake to curb the disordered desires that relentlessly conspire to overthrow our reason and conscience. Self-denial is how we mortify concupiscence’s imperious demands for wealth, pleasure, power, and honor with a progressive, day by day—sometimes moment by moment—renunciation of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
To be sure, self-denial is a lifelong and difficult struggle, and ultimately impossible without God’s grace and the support of recovery fellowship. That is why it is absolutely vital that we stay close to Christ in the sacraments and prayer, and with one another in our recovery relationships, especially when we fall. And while certainly implicit to all the Twelve Steps of recovery, self-denial is quite explicitly practiced in Step 11 and Step 12. Mortification of our appetites and self-will is the basis of sacrificial love, which is the purpose of recovery from addiction and which reaches its fullest bloom in the final two Steps with service to God and service to neighbor. You might say that self-denial brings out the “inner monk” within each of us as we learn to be in the world but not of the world, a detached way of life essential for any recovering addict seeking freedom in Christ.
Obedience, the third degree of humility, is closely linked to fear of God and self-denial and is really at the heart of defeating pride, which is essentially disobedience. Obedience is manifested through submission to the collective wisdom of sponsors, recovery fellowship, recovery literature, the teachings of the Church, and the witness of the Saints.
It is above all surrender to God, that vital and most important act of unconditional love we make in Step Three in recovery (in my opinion the pivotal step upon which all recovery depends). It is where we begin to understand that our lives are not our own after all, and that recovery is really not something we “do” of our own accord, rather it is how well we learn to “cooperate” with the will of God who alone affects conversion and healing within our hearts. We cast off those aforementioned masks of our prideful personas—denial, bargaining, fear and distrust, vanity and vainglory, and self-pity—as we seek to live in honest transparency before God, self, and others.
For Saint Benedict, obedience is absolutely crucial for acquiring the virtue of humility. In fact, he begins the Prologue of the Rule by addressing the centrality of obedience: “Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from a father who loves you; welcome it, and faithfully put it into practice. The labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience. This message of mine is for you, then, if you are ready to give up your own will, once and for all, and armed with the strong and noble weapons of obedience to do battle for the true King, Christ the Lord” (Rule).
For Saint Benedict, conversion in humility progresses with the fourth step, perseverance, which is simply the practice of consistent self-denial and obedience over time and “under difficult, unfavorable, or even unjust conditions” (Rule). In other words, perseverance is obedience in the midst of suffering and privation. It reflects unyielding trust in God’s plan and mercy for us in the spiritual life as well as in our programs of recovery no matter the temptations, falls, relapses, contradictions, confusion, or setbacks. It is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak, of stringing together many “one days at a time” and starting over again. The Benedictine way of life is indeed characterized by an attitude of always beginning again and again no matter what.
Perseverance is where we learn that recovery, the spiritual life, and love of God and neighbor are not primarily about our feelings at all but rather are founded on decisions and actions that will often not “feel” gratifying or pleasurable in any way. Sometimes perseverance is nothing more than the dogged decision to show up regardless of how we feel, such as to a recovery meeting, prayer time, calling our sponsor or accountability partner, or receiving the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Holy Eucharist. God already knows our lives are unmanageable and will take care of the rest if we remain steadfast in perseverance. He will always graciously receive our humility in this way. “But as for you, be strong and do not be discouraged, for your work shall be rewarded” (2 Chronicles 15:7).
In thinking about this degree of humility, I recall the inspiring words of the great Carmelite, Saint Teresa of Avila, who wrote, “God withholds himself from no one who perseveres. He will by little and little strengthen that soul, so that it may come forth victorious” (The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus). Her words speak to the mystery of perseverance and how it works in recovery and conversion—that by just “showing up” one day at a time and honestly giving to God the only thing that is truly ours, our sin and brokenness, His grace will work miracles within our souls. This is a dynamic process that is entirely beyond our sensory awareness at any given time and yet is quite obviously discernible in the hindsight of experience and time as our lives begin to change for the better. The enduring value of perseverance is indeed what is affirmed when those experienced in recovery say to one another and especially to the wavering newcomer or relapsed addict, “Keep coming back, it works if you work it!”
Perseverance is more deeply actualized in the fifth level of humility, repentance. This is where the rubber really meets the road! Saint Benedict says, “the fifth step of humility is that a man does not conceal from his abbot any sinful thoughts entering his heart, or any wrongs committed in secret, but rather confesses humbly” (Rule). For us in recovery, it is the contrition exercised in the hard and painful work we undertake in Steps Four through Ten and the various “confessions” we make to our sponsor, to our recovery fellowship, to those we have harmed in seeking to make amends (when doing so will not cause further harm), to our Lord in prayer, to our spiritual director, and to our priest in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Saint Benedict cites Psalm 37, “Make known your way to the Lord and hope in him” (Psalm 37:5) and Psalms 106 and 118, “Confess to the Lord, for he is good; his mercy is forever” (Psalm 106:1; Psalm 118:1). What I find so uplifting about this degree of humility is that God’s inexhaustible mercy fosters and deepens hope. Without hope, we have nothing. But with hope, our faith can move mountains and our recovery can truly flourish.
This series will continue with Part 5.
Pete S. is a grateful Catholic in recovery. He lives in Augusta, GA and helped start a CIR General Recovery meeting at St. Teresa of Avila Parish in Grovetown. He actively sponsors several individuals in CIR. He is also a regular content contributor for the CIR Daily Reflections. And as a result of his recovery journey in CIR, he discerned a calling to the Benedictine spiritual way of life and on September 30, 2023, was invested as an Oblate novice of the Order of Saint Benedict affiliated with St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, PA.