A Note on Matt Talbot's Movement from Addiction to Wholeness

The following excerpt is solely about Matt Talbot (St. Katharine Drexel and St. Ignatius are also discussed in the complete article.)

Three pillars, three saints

By Effie Caldarola

February 23, 2017

http://www.catholicnews.com/services/faithalive/2017/faith-alive-2017-no-13-lent-with-the-saints.cfm

"...Venerable Matt Talbot provides an example of someone who used asceticism to help him on his journey from addiction to wholeness. Born into a large family, Talbot lived in poverty-stricken, post-famine Ireland. He began work at age 12, and that's when a soul-consuming alcoholism took root.

At the age of 28, Talbot, with the help of a confessor (and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius!) began his journey of sobriety. His abstinence was accompanied by a radical conversion. A laborer and a union man, he joined the Secular Franciscan Order, gave up another addiction -- smoking -- and began to lead his ordinary life with extraordinary penance and self-sacrifice.

Talbot is at the second rung of a four-step ladder to canonization. A miracle attributed to his intercession could lead to him being declared "Blessed." But in the meantime, thousands believe he has helped them in their struggle with addiction.

All of us are attached to something that impedes spiritual growth. During Lent, fasting from a behavior -- drinking, gossiping, addictive screen time -- that interferes with our relationship with Jesus can lead to conversion. An attribute of Talbot was that people described him, despite his self-denial, as a very happy man..."

Matt Talbot and self-punishment

Within Part 2 of a manuscript being readied for publication, historian Glenn Chesnut addresses the "The Problem of Pain and Suffering," focusing on:

 ”(1) Emmet Fox and New Thought: pain and suffering are caused by wrong thoughts. If we change the way we think, the pain and suffering will disappear. As can be seen, Fox preached many radical New Thought ideas, but he had been born in Ireland, was brought up as a Catholic, and had been trained by the Jesuits. God as Creative Intelligence and the power of Being Itself.

(2) Matt Talbot and self-punishment, the very different path taken by another Irish Catholic, a laboring man in Dublin. Wearing chains around his body, sleeping on a bare wooden plank, and so on. We must atone for our sin and guilt by deliberately inflicting pain and hardship on ourselves before God will forgive us. The self-torture game.

(3) In Ignatian spirituality: pain and suffering exist because life in this fallen world is a war. As a good soldier, you must continue to do your duty and fight for the good down to your last breath, even when surrounded on every side by death and horror. The central Ignatian teaching of the Two Standards (Las Dos Banderas), choosing which of these two battle flags you will follow in the war between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil. Choosing between the way of Pride and the way of Humility. St. Augustine and the two cities: the City of God vs. the Earthly City, surrender of my ego to God vs. trying to play God myself.”

The overall outline of this 247 page manuscript can be viewed at http://www.hindsfoot.org/inProgr.html and worth reading first.

The section that addresses Matt Talbot is found on pages 63-69 at  PDF file or as MS Word DOC file.

Upcoming Addiction Conference in Dublin

Information about this public conference is provided by the links below.  The relics of two former  members of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart, Venerable Matt Talbot (1856-1925) and Fr. John Sullivan SJ (1861-1933), will be presented.

Conference Brochure

Conference Information 1

Conference Information 2

Conference Poster

Matt Talbot Day of Remembrance

[For Roman Catholic websites that post a brief biography of a saint or holy person for a particular day of the year, we may find Venerable Matt Talbot listed for June 18 or June 19, such as the one below. (For a comment about these two dates, see Matt Talbot Remembrance Day Discrepancy)


The following narrative about Matt Talbot is from the Ministry with Persons with Disabilities at the Archdiocese of Atlanta, Georgia at http://www.archatl.com/ministries/disabilities/saints/saint_info.php?0=June+19&feast_date=June+19&1=Venerable+Matt+Talbot&full_nam e=Venerable+Matt+Talbot&2=Alcoholics&patronage=Alcoholics. Its writer, Mr, McCoy, states that “a Jesuit Father, Father Edward Dowling helped A.A. to formulate this 12 step program in 1935.” Please note that while Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith and the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, was published in 1939, Bill Wilson, its anonymous author, did not meet Fr. Dowling until 1940 when Bill learned of the similarity between the 12 steps of AA and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. One source, among many, about this meeting can be found at http://www.barefootsworld.net/askbillw.html#24 and http://www.barefootsworld.net/askbillw.html#23]

“Venerable Matt Talbot

Feast day: June 19

(Patron of Struggling and Recovering Addicts and Alcoholics)

 

Matthew Talbot (1856 - 1925) was born in the poverty of Dublin's inner city. He took to drink when still a child, and was considered a hopeless alcoholic by age thirteen. When his wages were spent, he borrowed and scrounged for money. He pawned his clothes and boots to get money for alcohol. He became a thief, once even stealing the violin from a blind street entertainer. The violin was sold to pay for a "Drinks are on me!" pub bill. 

Sixteen years later at age 28, he decided to "kick the habit". His remaining forty-one dry years were lived heroically, attending daily Mass, praying constantly, helping the poor and living the ascetic life-style of Celtic spirituality. A Jesuit priest helped him, giving him a rehabilitation program, which providentially incorporated what was to become the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is not really surprising when one remembers that a Jesuit Father, Father Edward Dowling helped A.A. to formulate this program in 1935. The steps have basis in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits. The priest also gave him a chain to wear wrapped around his waist beneath his clothing. It was a very light but somewhat long chain, much like a clock chain. He wore it as a self-reminder of the fact that he was once enslaved by alcohol, and of his pledge to the Sacred Heart to keep on fighting "the demon". 

Matt also became a Third Order Franciscan in 1890. "Never be too hard on the man who can't give up drink." He told his sister. "It's as hard to give up the drink as it is to raise the dead to life again. But... both are possible and even easy for Our Lord. We have only to depend on him."

Matt Talbot worked in the lumber yards on the docks of Dublin. He was always very poor, partly because he was so generous to people in need. To his neighbors and his fellow workers, he was a cheerful, happy friend. He gave away most of his wages every week to the poor at home and in the Catholic missions abroad. He lived a life of prayer, fasting, and service, trying to model himself on the sixth century Irish Monks. He read Scripture, lives of saints, and -considering his meager schooling- an astounding assortment of books: The Confessions of St. Augustine; writings of St. Francis de Sales, St. Teresa of Avila, and Blessed John Cardinal Newman; papal encyclicals, world history, and social policy. Word by word, he deciphered what they said. What he couldn't understand, Matt laboriously copied onto scraps of paper, and then handed it to a sometimes astonished priest for explanation the next time he went to Confession.

After a life of heroic perseverance, Matt died suddenly while walking to Mass, June 7, 1925. Venerable Matt Talbot's remains were moved to Our Lady of Lourdes church on Sean McDermott Street, Dublin, Ireland in 1972. The tomb has glass panels through which the coffin may be seen. He was declared Venerable by Pope Paul VI in 1975. Addiction treatment programs, retreats, and centers throughout the world now bear his name.

Saint's Prayer

Gentle Matt, I turn to you in my present needs and ask for the help of your prayers. Trusting in you, I am confident your charitable and understanding heart will make my petitions your own. I believe that you are truly powerful in the presence of Divine Mercy. If it be for the glory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the honor of Mary, our Mother and Queen and the deepening of my relationship with them, show that your goodness towards me, in my daily struggles, equals your influence with the Holy Spirit, who is hidden and at home in my Heart. Friend of pity, friend of power, hear, oh hear me in this hour. Gentle Matt, please pray for me. Amen

Special Thanks to: Thanks to The Life of Matt Talbot: A Dublin Laborer by Sir Joseph Glynn and Book of Saints by the Monks of Ramsgate for the basis of this narrative. 

The national Matt Talbot Shrine for the United States is located in Manorville, Long Island.

Data entered by: Ed McCoy on 2011-12-14”

Dublin Jesuits remember the worker in chains

[This article was published a few months before Matt Talbot was declared "Venerable" by Pope Paul VI on October 3, 1975 and St. Oliver Plunkett was canonized by Pope Paul VI on October 10, 1975.]

by Terence J. Sheehy

http://archive.catholicherald.co.uk/article/24th-january-1975/6/dublin-jesuits-remember-the-worker-in-chains

On a hot, drowsy Sunday in June, 1925, a shabbily dressed old man fell dead in a Dublin street. In the mortuary of Jervis Street Hospital the attendant uncovered the frail body of a one-time hopeless alcoholic — a body deeply embedded with penitential chains. It was the corpse of Matt Talbot.

The Irish worker in chains has been beaten by many, many lengths in the race for the first saint to be canonised in Ireland in 700 years. The winner is Oliver Plunkett, 17th century Archbishop of Armagh.

The body of Oliver lies in state in the Benedictine Abbey of Downside. His head is enshrined for veneration in Saint Peter's Church in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland.

Both Matt and Oliver were under stances orders, for the canonisation stakes of 1975, and the almost silent Dublin workman has been beaten by the almost equally silent archbishop.

The spot al which Matt fell in Granby Lane, Dublin, near the Dominican Churchis, in my opinion, one of Ireland's holy places and well worth visiting in this Holy Year of 1975. So is his simple grave in the cemetery of Glasnevin a holy place, and the room in which he lived at 18 Upper Rutland Street.

Call into the Jesuit Fathers in St Francis Xavier's Church in Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin, and they will tell you all about their most illustrious parishioner. He attended daily Mass there at 5 o'clock every morning, after rising from his rough wooden bed of planks, with its wooden pillow, and its covers of half a blanket and an old sack.

Like many Dublin workmen of the twenties he lived mostly on hot cocoa and dry bread. His wages at his death were three pounds a week.

Matt left the Christian Brothers' school at 12 years of age. They have difficulty in remembering his presence at all, as he so frequently played truant. He went to work at 12 years of age.

He was then almost illiterate, but he graduated from reading the Jesuits' "Messenger of the Sacred Heart" to being .deeply read and conversant with the works of Aquinas, of Newman, of Augustine, of St John of the Cross, and with the devotion to the Blessed Virgin of de Montfort.

Occasionally he wrote down favourite quotations from his readings on scraps of paper in an elementary and child-like handwriting. On one of these scraps of paper we read: "The Kingdom of Heaven was promised not to the sensible and the educated but to such as have the spirit of little children."

Matt was a good listener. He seldom spoke, but when he did he really had something to say in the way of spiritual guidance for a friend, or advice on prayer. He was the antithesis of the many loquacious stout drinking Irishmen of today who all too often regard themselves as God's gift to the visiting English tourist.

It is well worth while visiting the Church of St Francis Xavier in Upper Gardiner Street to savour the silence which Matt Talbot found there. Matt also frequented "Adam and Eve's," the Franciscan church on the Liffey Quays opposite the Four Courts, and made "visits" to the Blessed Sacrament in the Carmelite church in Clarendon Street, off Grafton Street, and told his beads in the Pro-Cathedral, and in the Church of Saint Laurence O'Toole.

Those were the days of "visits" and the rosary before we all became sophisticated after Vatican II. These Dublin churches are some of Ireland's holy places and the congregations at morning or evening Mass present one with what Mathew Arnold once described as being made up of "All the pell-mell of all the men and women of Shakespeare's plays."

Matt had a thing about the wrong use of the Holy Name, and blasphemy. from which we could still learn a lesson in the Ireland of today.

He was a man of great silence in prayer, and in this respect he had much in common with Our Lady of Knock. She appeared at the little church of Knock in County Mayo in 1879. She appeared in the drizzling rain in a year of famine and utter misery to a hungry people. She said nothing. She was Our lady of Silence.

And yet, one senses that she was moved to appear on the evening of August 21, 1879, to some 20 sane and simple people in a mute message of sympathy and understanding. There was no spoken message as she appeared on the gable wall of the parish church of Knock.

There were three figures — herself, Saint Joseph and Saint John the Evangelist, and on the altar stood the Lamb of God with a cross. The total vision recalled the scene of the Apocalypse in the Gospel according to Saint John.

The late Archbishop of Tuam, like Matt, was a good listener and a man of very few words. As Archbishop of Tuam he was certainly more Tuam than Meum in his conversation, and I can vividly recall how he expressed his sincere belief in Our Lady of Silence of Knock.

Knock should be visited this Holy Year and a leaflet entitled "Pilgrimage to Knock," tells us that it is 138 miles by train from Dublin, 126 miles by bus from Dublin, and 134 miles from Dublin by road. So you pays your money and you takes your choice.

Blessed Oliver Plunkett, now to be the first formally recognised saint in Ireland for over 700 years, will be past the post in the canonisation stakes in October this year. We know that Pope Paul, when he was Mgr Montini, visited Drogheda In 1951 and beheld the head of Oliver in its shrine in Saint Peter's Church.

One wonders if the footsteps of Mgr Montini were directed to Granby Lane, and when the Dublin labourer will have his name added alongside that of Oliver Plunkett in the roll of Ireland's saints.

Oliver, like Matt, had a great devotion to the rosary, and on his way to his martyrdom at Tyburn he gave his rosary beads, his only possession, to his faithful servant James MacKenna who had been in his service for 11 years. These rosary beads are still preserved today by the descendants of James, who ministered to his master in prison.

At the hour of his death on the scaffold at Tyburn, the Archbishop of Armagh made a public declaration of his devotion to Our Lady which deeply moved all those present.

We are told; "He supplicated the Divine Majesty to be propitious to him, through the merits of Christ, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and of all holy Angels and Saints in Paradise, which form of prayer, so simple yet so pious, was remarked by the spectators who never remember to have heard from any other such an express mention of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints."

That was on July 11, 1681, on the charge of fomenting revolt to re-establish "the religion of Rome."

He was born in the parish of Loughcrew, near Oldcastle, Co Meath, in 1625, ordained priest in Rome in 1654, and made Archbishop of Armagh in 1669.

These were years of an Irish Church in chaos and fear after the Cromwellian massacres and persecution. The charge against him was a pure fabrication for political ends to nail a Catholic bishop as a victim. He was killed simply because he was just that — a Catholic bishop.

As a Catholic bishop whose work was to endeavour to restore peace in his time through non-violence he is a splendid example for all of us today.

Because the Dundalk jury of 12 honest Irish Protestants were bound to acquit him, the politicians of Charles II had him tried in London — a trial which was as illegal as it was unjust.

But the elevation to the ranks of the saints of the 17th century Archbishop of Armagh who was always on such good terms with his Protestant fellow countrymen must surely have a lesson for 1975, as have the life of Matt Talbot, and the Apparition of Our Lady of Knock.

Catholic Asceticism and the Twelve Steps

Although Matt Talbot is not mentioned in this article, the word "ascetic" is frequently used in describing Matt, and he may have been exposed to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius since his spiritual advisor was a Jesuit. And as noted by Fr. Morgan Costello, former Vice-Postulator of the Cause of Matt Talbot and author of Matt Talbot: Hope for Addicts (2001), Matt's conversion and recovery from alcoholism incorporated the twelve steps half a century before the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous.

The non-alcoholic author of the following article was a close friend and spiritual advisor to Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. (JB)

Catholic Asceticism and the Twelve Steps
N.C.C.A. "BLUE BOOK" AN ANTHOLOGY

Reverend Edward Dowling, S.J.
The Queen's Work, St. Louis, Missouri
Brooklyn, 1953

I think that if our positions were reversed, you would feel as I do -- grateful to be the focus of good will. I think that is true of anybody who speaks at an A.A. gathering, or about A.A.

I am sensible, as you are, of God's closeness to human humility. I am sensible, also, of how close human humility can come to humiliation, and I know how close that can come to an alcoholic. I think that in addition to my confidence in the closeness of God to one suffering from alcoholism, I would like to invoke our Lord's promise that where two or three gather together in His Name, there He will be in their midst.

First of all, asceticism comes from the Greek word meaning the same as exercise, or better, to practice gymnastics. The concept of exercise is to loosen up the muscles to prepare them for vigorous activity. Applied to spiritual matters, it means to loosen up the faculties of the mind or soul, to prepare them for better activity. Physical exercise is gymnastics, setting-up exercises, preparing me to take steps. In the same way, asceticism is preliminary, a preparation for me to use the powers of my soul.

Christian asceticism is contained, of course, in the Gospel. All the teachings of Our Lord boil down to the cardinal ideas; one negative, the denial of self; the other positive, the imitation of and union with Christ.

One of the many different systematized forms of Christian exercises is the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. There are many others, and all are efforts to apply to one's life those two principal ideas of denial of self and an affirmation of Christ. "Spiritual Exercises" indicate, of course, that the thing to be exercised is the spirit. The word "exercise" indicates a releasing of the faculties or powers of the soul.

St. Ignatius starts with a presumption that our power of faculties are bound by sinful tendencies and addictions to the wrong things. The Spiritual Exercises, therefore, work on the soul in both a negative and positive way. The first section, the consideration of my sins and of their effects in hell, is the negative part. It aims by self-denial to release our wills from our binding addictions, to enable the will to desire and to choose rationally.

The second part of the Spiritual Exercises, start in with a consideration of the Incarnation and going through the Passion and Resurrection, is an effort to see how Christ would handle various situations.

A priest alcoholic, who has written with discernment on the Spiritual Exercises, first pointed out to me the similarity between them and the twelve steps of A.A. Bill, the founder of A.A. recognized that those twelve steps are pretty much the releasing of myself from the things that prevent my will's choosing God as I understand Him.

Twelve Steps and the Spiritual Exercises

The first seven or eight steps of A.A. are quite specific as to what should be done in order to release the will from addiction to evil. On the positive side, the twelve steps are very general. Bill once stated: "It is a firm principal with us that, so far as A.A. goes, each member has the absolute right to seek God as he will." On another occasion he declared that A.A. was not concerned about the particular way a man works out his dependence on God. That depends on him and on God, mostly on God. The alcoholic's business, as expressed in the eleventh step, is to find out what God wants and to ask for strength to carry that out.

Like the Spiritual Exercises, like Christian asceticism in general, the twelve steps are not speculative ideas. They are practical steps. May I suggest some of the parallels between the Spiritual Exercises and the twelve steps.

The Foundation

The first three of the twelve steps correspond roughly with the foundation of the Spiritual Exercises. In the foundation we see man as creature. It recognizes the dependence of man on God because of the rather abstract, relatively unknown fact, creation. A.A. bases dependence on a rather concrete specific type of experience, drunkenness. The Ignatian foundation indicates that everything else shall be chosen or rejected in the light of the purpose that grows out of this dependence, i.e., sharing Him for all eternity by doing His will on earth.

The A.A. third step directs that one's life and one's will be directed by the influence of God. In it the alcoholic determines to turn his life and his will over to the care of God as he understands Him. This emphasis on the will indicates that the alcoholic should direct himself by his will rather than by the feelings that have enmeshed him. The focal importance of the will is a characteristic of the Spiritual Exercises.

Moral Inventory - Confession

In the Spiritual Exercises, the next thing is the contemplation of sin; sin in the angels, in our first parents, in others, in myself, and sin in its effects. And of course, right along the line there you have the fourth step of A.A., a fearless, thorough moral inventory of one's sins. The parallelism is rather striking.

To a priest who asked Bill how long it took him to write those twelve steps he said that it took twenty minutes. If it were twenty weeks, you could suspect improvisation. Twenty minutes sounds reasonable under the theory of divine help.

After a moral inventory of one's life, all spiritual exercises, Catholic anyway, demand the confession of sins. It is specifically required in the Spiritual Exercises. In the A.A. fifth step, you have that general confession admitting my sins to myself, to God, and to another human being.

Reatus Culpae and Reatus Poenae

There are two liabilities when we commit a sin: one, reatus culpae, the guilt of the sin; the other reatus poenae, the obligation of restitution. The A.A. sixth and seventh steps cover the guilt of the sin, and the eighth and ninth steps the obligation of restitution.

I think the sixth step is the one which divides the men from the boys in A.A. It is love of the cross. The sixth step says that one is not almost, but entirely ready, not merely willing, but ready. The difference is between wanting and willing to have God remove all these defects of character. You have here, if you look into it, not the willingness of Simon Cyrene to suffer, but the great desire or love, similar to what Chesterton calls "Christ's love affair with the cross."

The seventh step implements that desire by humbly asking God to remove these defects. The alcoholic sees one defect go as a bottle of beer is taken away. And so, that continuing detachment which goes along in any ascetical life holds true in A.A. As one grows in A.A., the problems seem to get bigger, the strength bigger, and the dividends greater.

Then comes the reatus poenae, the obligation of restitution or penance. God's forgiveness is sought in the sixth and seventh steps. In the eight and ninth steps one makes restitution. In the eighth step the alcoholic makes a list of those people he has offended and whose bills he hasn't paid. In the ninth step he pays off these obligations, if he can do so without hurting people more.

The Positive Side

The eleventh and twelfth steps give a rather limited parallel to the positive asceticism of Christianity. The eleventh step bids one by prayer and meditation to study to improve his conscious grasp of God, asking Him only for two things, knowledge of His will and the power to carry it out. Now, that is a true and accurate description of the positive aspects of Christian asceticism as well as of the second, third, and forth weeks of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.

Then, the twelfth step. Having had a spiritual exercise or awakening as a result of these steps, we carry this message to other alcoholics and practice these principles in all our other affairs. In our apostolic work we should be an instrument in God's hands. The A.A. steps before this twelfth step are to improve by instrumental contact with God this dependence of work for others on my growth toward Christ-like sanity and sanctity has significance to an alcoholic priest. Often such a one will say, "If I could only get a little work, I feel that I could stay sober." Gradually he finds out that if he approaches sobriety through work, the work isn't going to come and the sobriety may not come either. But, as soon as he says, "Once I become sober, work will come," the hope of success is much greater.

No Humility Without Humiliation

A.A. has helped me as a person and as a priest. A.A. has made my optimism greater. My hopelessness starts much later. Like anyone who has watched A.A. achieve its goals, I have seen dreams walk. You and I know that in the depths of humiliation we are in a natural area, and, rightly handled, especially is the inner spirit of that sixth step, I think we can almost expect the automatic fulfillment of God's promise to assist the humble. Where there is good will, there is almost an iron connection between humiliation and humility and God's help.

A.A. helps the priest in other matters than alcoholism, as the twelfth step indicates. I had a little exercise which will illustrate this point. It is a very small thing in itself, but I feel that it is a clear example of how A.A. work can help personally even a non-alcoholic priest.

Learning Not To Think About It

To obtain a greatly needed help which prayer alone didn't seem to bring, I thought of giving up smoking. I had failed to give it up, even though in retreat after retreat I had tried various plans to break off the habit. None of them seemed to work for long.

Then, thinking of A.A., I realized that I had seen men in that same boat who couldn't give up drinking. I realized that A.A. does not directly cause a man to quit drinking, but rather it causes him to quit thinking about drinking. Well, it seemed easier to give up thinking about smoking; but I didn't think I could do even that. I thought of A.A. novices saying, "I can't do it all my life. I can't do it all day. I can do it for maybe ten minutes." Inspired by the humble example of A.A. men, I said at that point to myself, "I won't try to quit smoking but I will, with God's help, postpone the thought of smoking for three minutes." That is a humiliating admission for a priest who tells others to give up much harder things.

From A.A. I learned to respect the little suffering of denying self the thought of a smoke and to pool that suffering with the sufferings of Christ, in the spirit of the sixth step. At that moment, like a breath of fresh air, came the thought of the widow and her mite and the importance which love can give to unimportant things. With humiliation came humility, and with humility came God's promised help. It is three or four years since I thought of myself smoking, and I have learned that you can't smoke if you don't think about smoking.

That is a little instance from among hundreds of the applications of A.A. principles. I have watched the most difficult personal situations which a priest faces yield to the A.A. twelve steps approach, even though no alcoholism was involved. Of course, Christ and His Passion came in encouragingly through the third and eleventh steps.

The remainder of this article (that addresses "Priest Membership in AA") can be found at http://silkworth.net/religion_clergy/01038.html

Keeping New Year's Resolutions with the Help of Jesus

As we begin a new calendar year and perhaps have made resolutions, we include this article about making and keeping such resolutions from an Ignatian perspective. We do so since Matt Talbot was influenced in his conversion and recovery by such priests, as his friend, Fr. James Walsh, S.J., and because this article notes quitting addictive behavior and stresses the importance of reforming or changing our desires through the process of getting to know Jesus and falling in love with him, which Matt did. The source of this article is found at http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Advent/New-Year-Resolutions.html



Making and Keeping New Year's Resolutions:
A New Beginning, with a New Relationship with Jesus

Why should I make any New Year's Resolutions? I never keep them. Almost all of us have had the experience of wanting to begin a new year resolving to improve, to do some things better than we have before. It is natural to have hope, to want to believe we aren't stuck in the ways we currently behave, and yet, all of us have the experience that we haven't done too well with our past resolutions. In fact, at this time of the year, the newspaper cartoons almost always point out the humorous side of our trying to make resolutions that don't seem to have a chance of succeeding. Why do our resolutions so often fail? So often our good intentions fail and fail quickly. There are many reasons, of course, and some of them relate to how realistic our resolving is, but sometimes, we resolve to end addictive behavior without really giving it a chance. Most of the time, most of our resolutions are our best attempts at just having stronger will power. Though there are outstanding examples of heroic virtue, and some people really do quit addictive behavior "cold turkey," there are far too many examples of failure. One instinct deep in Ignatian Spirituality is the sense that, while it is good to develop stronger will power and self-control, real change in our lives actually happens most reliably when it comes from our deepest desires. Ignatius knew, from his own experience, just as we often discover in therapy, in spiritual direction, upon reflection on our own experience, that usually do what we want to do. We rarely do what we don't want to do. The secret to change is to reform our desires - discovering what our deepest desires are and trying to change or re-form them. This was no self-help process for Ignatius and many of the Saints. It was the process of getting to know Jesus and falling in love with him. Once we fall in love with someone, all our desiring changes. Don't I already know Jesus? Don't I already have a relationship with him? Often this sounds too simple to us. Don't I already know Jesus? Haven't I already fallen in love with him? Of course, hearing the invitation at the beginning of this new year to examine our relationships with Jesus, and let them be renewed this upcoming year, begins with the freedom to acknowledge that there is room for growth here. And, it starts with something of an attraction, a small desire, even a bit of curiosity that wonders, "What more can I discover? How might my heart be more captured by Jesus?" Love always directs our hearts. But, there are other spirits, too. At times we discover the sad reality that falling out of love changes our hearts dramatically, too. Once we lose that affection, that attraction, that draw, then trouble begins. Whereas before we experienced a wonderful energy that wants to spend as much time as we can with someone we love, and wants to do anything we can for the one we love, now we experience a coolness, an emptiness, a distance, and unfortunately, at times, the other starts to annoy us. Sometimes we say, "it just happened," but upon reflection, we realize sadly that there was sin involved. We made some bad choices, some selfish choices. We stopped contributing to the relationship. What isn't growing is usually dying. And, of course, sin is contagious and we live in a culture that doesn't support self-less loving. There are the messages: What about me? What about my needs? We tend to keep score. There are bad spirits among us that seem determined to make loving difficult, that seem to prevent wounds from healing, that seem to promote division, highlight differences and ultimately lead to war. This whole pattern, which we have understood as "Original Sin" has described for us what we is overcome by Jesus' coming, and by his life, death, resurrection and gift of the Spirit. Jesus destroyed sin and death's power over us. Re-connecting with him this new year is re-connecting with his power to free our hearts to love again. How do we get to know and fall in love with Jesus? Getting to get to know Jesus in a new way, at a deeper level is just like getting to know anyone. We begin by spending more time with a person. We pay attention to them. We get to know their story more completely. Eventually, we become more and more curious and more and more fascinated by how the person acts, what motivates that person, how he or she thinks. Of course, the key here is not only to learn more about Jesus, but to come to really know him, to experience a relationship. It is easy to imagine that Jesus knows me. It is more difficult to imagine that I am in a relationship with Jesus, and we know each other and there is something special about this relationship. For example, some of us will get to know Jesus and become really fascinated by his mother and father and that will shape our sense of who he is and our relationship with him. Some of us will come to love the way he chooses and interacts with his disciples. Many of us will learn a great deal about Jesus from how he tells stories and reveals things about God and about the Kingdom of God. Still others of us will become engaged by how Jesus interacts with and heals sinners and sick people. Perhaps we will identify with this or that story which will characterize our particular relationship with him. What about my resolutions? While we are getting to get to know the Lord the things we may have been tempted to resolve begin to change. We may still need to lose weight and exercise more, but what will inevitably rise to the surface are patterns that are like his. Attraction so naturally leads to imitation. The more we fall in love with this wonderful Lord and his powerful way of loving and surrendering his life to the plan of the Father, that he be Servant for us, the more we will open our hearts to ask the Father to use us, to be servants, too. Then our desiring starts to be transformed. We will gradually and more deeply begin to ask for the graces we need - which is a more humble place to begin that making bold promises. We'll ask our Lord to purify our desiring. We ask to for the grace to be drawn into the pattern of Jesus' loving and forgiving. We ask for the desire to surrender more, to let go of our own needs more completely so that we can give ourselves to the needs of others first. We will begin to see the people closest to us with Jesus' eyes, with Jesus' heart. Our love for them won't depend upon how much they please us or even how much they reciprocate our love. That isn't the way Jesus loves us. Jesus loves us because we are sinners. Jesus loves us because we need forgiving and healing. Jesus loves us because we need loving. Gradually, our resolutions get freer and more about self-donation. We say, "Lord, these are my desires and I am asking you for the grace to live them." Gradually, the other spirits lose their power, their attraction. As Jesus confronts and contradicts the values of our culture in us and around us, the sillier all that kind of desiring becomes. We don't change our way of consuming and change our way of seeing our role in the world or hear the cry of the poor day after day by strengthening our will power. Our life style and our choices really become transformed when we become people who know, beyond anything else, that we are loved unconditionally by our God. When we become lovers of Jesus, we will naturally love the way he loves. When we become followers of Jesus this will be a blessed new year, indeed. And those who are sinners among us, the poor around the world, and those who suffer the tragic effects of sin, division and war, will experience the difference.