In today’s first reading we encounter the following descriptors: feeble, weak, fearful, blind, deaf, lame, and mute! We might add “powerless” to the list as well. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous describes this state of being as a “hopeless state of mind and body” and adds that “no human power could relieve our alcoholism.” Being feeble and weak in my relationship with God, others, and self, and completely blind, deaf, and paralyzed in my disease, I was unable to experience a loving God inviting me into recovery. I was powerless.
There was a very long season of my life when I lived with fear dictating my unhealthy choices. However, when we work the steps, “Fear falls from us, we begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had spiritual beliefs but now we begin to have spiritual experiences” (Alcoholics Anonymous). As we work the steps, the ninth step promises about freedom materialize in ways we never could have imagined. Isaiah later declares in the first reading, “A highway will be there, called the holy way” (Isaiah 35:8). In our recovery, that “holy way” toward God’s healing is the Catholic Church, Scripture, the sacraments, and the Twelve Steps. We are privileged to have such blessings at our disposal as we live one day at a time.
Reflection Questions
- What circumstances or people lifted your “yoke of captivity” to addiction or an unhealthy attachment, enabling you to start on the “holy way” of recovery? How can you continue on that way this Advent?
- Similar to the paralytic man in today’s Gospel reading who picks up his mat, in what ways do you participate in the miracle of your recovery each day? Are you still on your “stretcher,” paralyzed by the “bondage of self,” or have you picked up your “mat” and started down the road of recovery and healing?
Daily Mass Readings
First Reading: Isaiah 35:1-10
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 85:9ab and 10, 11-12, 13-14
Gospel: Luke 5:17-26
Reflection by Marybeth B.