Our Mission
We are a center for experiential education, rooted in the Gospels, encouraging the transformation of human consciousness through contemplation, and equipping people to be instruments of peaceful change in the world.
September 9, 2011
Breathing Under Water:
Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
~ Step Five of the Twelve Steps
As any good therapist will tell you, you cannot heal what you do not acknowledge, and what you do not consciously acknowledge will remain in control of you from within, festering anddestroying you and those around you.
When human beings “admit” to one another “the exact nature of their wrongs,” we invariably have a human and humanizing encounter that deeply enriches both sides—and even changes lives—often forever! It is no longer an exercise to achieve moral purity, or regain God’s love, but in fact a direct encounter with God’s love. It is not about punishing one side but liberating both sides.
This is the way that God seduces us all into the economy of grace—by loving us in spite of ourselves in the very places where we cannot, or will not, or dare not love ourselves. God shocks and stuns us into love. God does not love us if we change; God loves us so that we can change.
From Breathing Underwater: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, pp. 37, 39, 40-42
Starter Prayer:
Breathe through me.
If you are inspired by Fr. Richard's Daily Meditations,
please consider receiving both
Radical Grace, the publication of the CAC
and visiting the CAC Mustard Seed Resource Center!
