Day 59

When I first walked into the rooms of recovery, my initial sponsor told me, “Don’t make any major changes for at least a year. Whatever is troubling you most, we’ll revisit it then.” This was amazing advice. Instead of rushing to end my marriage, abandon my calling, and destroy the covenant I had made with my wife, I was encouraged to focus on getting better. I was guided to work the 12-step program diligently, to keep working with a sponsor, and to trust that my perspective on the situation would likely change. And it did completely. Not only was my life restored, but my marriage was restored in accord with Saint Paul’s words today:

“So this is what I think best because of the present distress: that it is a good thing for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek a separation. Are you free of a wife? Then do not look for a wife. If you marry, however, you do not sin, nor does an unmarried woman sin if she marries; but such people will experience affliction in their earthly life, and I would like to spare you that” (1 Corinthians 7:26-28).

God lifted the despair that had weighed us down, and though we still faced “afflictions,” our perspective began to shift. Instead of focusing on each other’s faults, we turned inward and worked on ourselves. It was through this process that restoration began. In the rooms of recovery, we are called to do the same—to mortify our desires, focus on bettering ourselves with humility, transform our anger or fear into love, patience, and tolerance, and look for ways to serve generously. When we show others Christ’s love—especially to those we find difficult—we become living testimonies of what He has done for us. As the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous reveals, “Though we did not like [others’] symptoms and the way they disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We ask God to help us show the same pity and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended, we said to ourselves: ‘This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done.’” Therefore, let us ask God to see others with love, despite their faults. And when we do this, we allow God to transform both our own lives and the lives of those who enter the rooms of recovery.

Reflection Questions

• Has your perspective on your circumstances and relationships changed since you started recovery? How so?
• Is there someone in your life now you’re being called to love and serve, even if he or she “disturbs,” annoys, or angers you? What can you do today to love them better?

Daily Mass Readings

First Reading: 1 Corinthians 7:25-31
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 45:11-12, 14-15, 16-17
Gospel: Luke 6:20-26

Reflection by Juan Carlos P.

(1801-1890) — The fifth saint of the city of London was an Anglican priest and academic at Oxford when he converted to Catholicism at age 44 (the date of his conversion was set as his feast day by Pope Benedict XVI at his beatification in 2010). Newman was an influential writer, philosopher, theologian, historian, and poet, and a member of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri. He was made a Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII, and declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIV almost 180 years later.

Saint John Henry Newman studied himself into the Catholic faith, but what really drove him was his prayer and willingness to go wherever His Savior led him (Steps 3 and 11).

“A habit of prayer, the practice of turning to God and the unseen world in every season, in every place, in every emergency – prayer, I say, has what may be called a natural effect in spiritualizing and elevating the soul. A man is no longer what he was before; gradually…he has imbibed a new set of ideas, and become imbued with fresh principles” (Saint John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, iv, 230-231).

Reflection by Brad Farmer