The word "redemption" originally meant the buying back or ransoming of a slave. It is used in the New Testament to express what God in Christ has done for his people.
Having entered the human story through the Incarnation, at the cross he has delivered us from slavery to sin and death by effecting the expiation and reconciliation with the Father which the human will—even with the knowledge of God's law—cannot bring about by its own strength. That is why we need a savior and not just another teacher, philosopher, or lawgiver. The world's religions and civilizations have never lacked moralists, and most of Christ's moral injunctions have close parallels in earlier Judaism as well as in other religions, though he did express these truths with singular sublimity and boldness.
But hearing and knowing these truths is not the same as living them. AA's Big Book puts it this way: "Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to.
Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God's help. Deliverance from this state must come from outside the self and not from within. The central Christian belief is that Christ in his own Person is the Deliverer. The Church, as his body, is that part of mankind that, by self-surrendering faith, has entered into the redemption and manifests and applies it in the world until the coming of God's Kingdom in glory.
It is therefore evident that step spirituality fits in much more easily with Christianity than with other religions and belief systems. I will briefly examine two of these non-Christian alternatives: atheism agnostic humanism and the New Age. The atheist or agnostic humanist who has attained sobriety by placing provisional faith in the AA group as his "Higher Power" usually comes to acknowledge that no merely finite human strength can achieve sobriety.
But AA is evidently human and finite, both in its individual members and as a group; therefore, AA itself cannot really be the ultimate Higher Power operative in recovery from alcoholism. With most step people, this is as philosophical as they want to get.
Their own experience is that their best thinking only got them drunk again. All the same, the Catholic apologist should refer those who want intellectual arguments to C. If the sticking point is the sins of the "institutional Church" or of organized religion in general, one need not defend everything the objector dislikes.
The apologist may simply remind the objector of the Big Book's chapter "We Agnostics" and of its warning that self-righteous hostility to religion is simply a blind prejudice. Note that the faults and human limitations of AA members do not preclude God or a Higher Power working through them to help others. Might not the same be true of the Church?
We Catholics are well aware of our sins; that is why we pray at every Mass, "Look not on our sins but on the faith of your Church. Twelve-step recovery and the New Age New Age beliefs likewise do not logically cohere with AA spirituality because New Age religion hinges on the self -liberation of the "god within" through one's own efforts and esoteric knowledge.
For New Agers, the basic human problem is not sin whether original or actual but ignorance of one's true divinity. Salvation comes from the self. Swami Vivekananda once declared, "The Hindu refuses to call you sinners.
Ye are the children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth, sinners? It is a sin to call a man a sinner. It is a standing libel on human nature. AA's Big Book states frankly that the alcoholic had to "quit playing God" because "it didn't work.
On this crucial point, there is a profound divergence between AA and the New Age. The incongruity is even more manifest when we examine the New Age belief in salvation through the working out of one's own karma over many lifetimes.
For a finite being estranged from God, self-salvation is impossible, no matter how many opportunities are given. Further, reincarnation does not explain the origin of evil.
If there was no origin, evil is an eternal, fatalistic necessity built into the very nature of things and even into the nature of God, if "God" is an impersonal All. But only the Hindu dares to worship him in the evil. How few have dared to worship death, or Kali! Let us worship death! But is it really? Such a God would be beyond good and evil altogether. AA speaks of a loving God, but love is necessarily a personal attribute.
An impersonal deity could no more "love" than could a gas or a calculator. Only the doctrine of the Trinity—one God in three Persons—forgives a basis for saying of him, "God is love" 1 John Lewis noted that good and evil increase at compound interest. We affirm that it will, in good time. A finite being, estranged from God and powerless to save himself, would run up an ever-increasing debt of bad karma, unless the debt of justice could be satisfied by another.
That is Christ did on Calvary. In Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Wilson acknowledged that "in some cases we cannot make restitution at all. Only God in human form can make perfect amends and reconcile in his own body both justice and merciful love. A final drawback to the New Age worldview is that it sees the human body as a mere garment to be cast off for successive bodies, until the cycle of death and rebirth is ended through union with the impersonal Absolute.
This contradicts AA's emphasis on conceiving of man as composed of body and soul. Belief in the resurrection more nearly corresponds to a genuinely "holistic" understanding of human nature than does the doctrine of reincarnation.
Here also the New Age is not logically compatible with the implications of step spirituality. Only Catholic Christianity properly acknowledges God's love and holiness as well as man's fallen but still redeemable nature. Eastern religions not sufficient Other religions fall short in this regard. Eastern religions do not clearly distinguish between the creature and the Creator and hence cannot logically accommodate any idea of salvation "from outside.
Family Background and Childhood History. The child will then as an adult follow that path, either by becoming an alcoholic or addict, or by marrying one. There is usually a pattern of abuse, sometimes physical, more often verbal; there can be non-verbal abuse shown as a lack of love.
Hitting a Bottom. The bottom that every alcoholic or addict hits is the beginning of recovery. You can see many stories of alcoholics and addicts hitting a bottom in this web search. Once one accepts the God-given grace for recovery, one becomes receptive to the grace given for conversion.
One more point: the descent to the bottom and the ascent to recovery for alcoholics and addicts are steep, like a V-shaped curve. For co-dependents and those suffering from process addictions food, work, people , the curve is shallower, U-shaped. The bottom is less well-defined but it is still there.
And a bunch of people sitting around a table. What the …! A couple of guys are saying Hello, come on in…. Later my first step to sobriety. I came back to that church and went to Mass for the first time in many years. Mary Josep h. I am so sad and depressed. Is this my calling? She must be doing volunteer work like me. She looks great, lost a lot o weight since high school. We talk. I go to a strange parish for this, call up the priest and make an appointment.
Venerable Matt Talbot by: Terry Nelson. Member Login Donate 0 Items. Substituting the cup that sanctifies for the cup that stupefies. View More Posts. Marian Meditations.
We pray, through the intercession of co-patrons, for the following:. For continued growth of the Calix Society For deceased members of the Calix Society For all those who struggle with addiction For all those who are in recovery from addiction. Submit your prayer intentions here. Prayer Intention Form Let us know the intention you would like to submit to the Calix Society's prayer list.
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