Our insatiable appetite to desire after virtually anything or anyone other than God, the only one who can actually fulfill our every desire, is seemingly limitless. This reveals our fundamental spiritual brokenness. Before I came into recovery, I was unable to recognize, let alone accept, my spiritual brokenness, and my resultant compulsions were numerous and destructive. Spiritual brokenness is the existential condition of every human being, that innate moral decay towards selfishness and sin, to turning our backs on God. Conversion and recovery do not really begin until we turn around and face our spiritual brokenness and embrace our need for a savior. 

This requires living the virtues of humility, surrender, and trust, all of which are exceedingly difficult in practice. Why? Because in our spiritual brokenness, we are deluded in three prevailing ways. We are possessed by arrogance, which is the delusion that we are the sole masters of our lives and answer to no one. Or we are tricked into denial, which is the delusion that we are just fine and in no need of God’s saving help. Or worst of all, we are tempted to despair, which is the delusion that we are totally unforgivable and beyond the pale of God’s mercy. All of these pernicious delusions are manifestations of pride, the sin of all sins, and the rot at the very heart of our disordered lives. Only God’s mercy and grace can remedy our spiritual brokenness.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus says to the Pharisees, “Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil. You fools! Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside? But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you” (Luke 11:39b-41). This is a word spoken to us in recovery, both as a warning and a promise. Our Lord warns us that the arrogance, denial, and despair typical of our disordered lives in addiction is the certain road to plunder and evil, to spiritual death. But He promises that if we give ourselves away to Him in humility, surrender, and trust, then “everything will be clean for you” (Luke 11:41). This is the road to blessedness and eternal life. 

All of us in recovery are on the path to martyrdom. We may not be called to a literal bloody death like Saint Ignatius of Antioch, but we are definitely called to die to the world and to the self so that Christ alone may become the one object of our quest, our one and only desire.

Saint Ignatius of Antioch, pray for us!

Reflection Questions

• What has your recovery journey taught you about your brokenness before God?
• Share how working the steps and recovery fellowship keeps you on the quest for God.

Daily Mass Readings

First Reading: Romans 1:16-25
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 19:2-3, 4-5
Gospel: Luke 11:37-41

Reflection by Pete S.