Blessed Margaret Family Help Center, Inc

04/04/2026

A Holy and Happy Easter to the clients, benefactors, and friends of BMFHC!

04/02/2026

CLOSING REMARKS
This is the last installment of what will be the germ of a handbook version of The Hook and I. I rushed many postings just so I could get them out so there’s still need to edit this material. I will be posting this on the website in the near future. It is found at: https://www.blmargaret.org
IF YOU FOUND THE CATHOLIC 12-STEPS USEFUL, PLEASE CONSIDER BUYING A COPY FOR YOURSELF OR FOR A LOVED ONE. IT IS AVAILABLE FROM AUTHORHOUSE AT THE FOLLOWING LINK:
https://www.authorhouse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/267606-The-Hook-and-I
THE PRICE HAS BEEN REDUCED TO $22.00 PLUS S&H.
ALL ROYALTIES GO TO OPERATING THE BLESSED MARGARET FAMILY HELP CENTER, INC. SO EVERY PENNY GOES BACK TO HELPING SOULS!
That concludes the Catholic 12-Steps as I’ve been given lights to see it by the Good God. I seriously don’t believe that there is anything new in the way of Catholic spirituality here since the Doctors of the Church have already “mined” the topic. The only nuance here is possibly just putting it all together into one place and the unique way of describing it. The rest of it has already been here for those who looked for it. I’m seriously surprised that someone with better understanding and greater holiness hasn’t already done this since the need has always been there and all the pieces of the puzzle of been available for centuries. Go figure!
Regardless, you’ve read the theoretical stuff now so it’s time for you to write your own story about the battle against your hook. I will be praying for you and I hope that you will give me feedback as to what works and what doesn’t so that the next edition of “The Hook and I” will benefit from your experiences. Even with all the priestly review I’ve had for this book I’m convinced there’s still too much of me in the pages and not enough of Our Lord. You can help me filter it out by providing me with that feedback.
Another hope of mine is that others will build upon my trial program, La Misma Nada, by starting other Catholic support groups for the different hooks as folks achieve success and want to give back to others in performing their own Step 12 apostolates. In this way, we will make some serious inroads in “Restoring All Things in Christ – One Family at a Time” here and around the world. As Catholics we have the truth and it’s high time we took advantage of it for ourselves and for a sick world mired in the depths of sin. Please God, this will be a piece of the triumph of Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart. Who knows?
Two future goals are to fulfill the need for more information on Catholic Culture as well as a guide to courting and vocations for our young people. Even amongst traditionalists there is widespread ignorance and, dare I say, contempt for the need to disassociate ourselves from society’s anti-culture which is typified by how our young people, even our Catholic children, by and large, fornicate their way to the altar and are then surprised at why their marriages are unhappy. I’m sure that even if “The Hook and I” doesn’t raise a lot of hackles, daring to publish what the Church has “always and everywhere” taught that strikes at the heart of our modern society will probably raise a lot of eyebrows to say the least. Still, charity demands that someone do it. It has to be said – somehow, someway. We’ve lost too many generations of souls just blindly doing what the mass media tells them to do on our march to “The Brave New World” and that just has to stop. In any case, I don’t have a timetable for these works yet; Man proposes, God disposes.
As for the Blessed Margaret Center, Our Lord hasn’t revealed what He wants for it. What started as a crisis pregnancy center has certainly transmogrified into an addiction recovery group, that along with education and home schooling resources.
One last thought and I’ll leave you in peace, my dearest friend, and I’m not quite sure how to put it. Through these pages, by my writing them and by your reading them, I hope we’ve both grown closer to Our Beloved by virtue of our hooks. By both of us getting closer to the same Object makes us both grow closer to each other so I feel like I’m finishing a letter to a very close friend. Please rest assured of my continued fraternal affection and continuous prayers for you; I look forward to meeting you on the other side. God bless!

The Hook and I describes a 12-Step Recovery Program using traditional Catholic spirituality in an integrated approach that restores the entire 12-step recovery concept to its original Catholic roots in order to attack addictions by addressing the weaknesses of the soul, especially against "The Hook"

04/02/2026

STEP 12: PERFORM THE WORKS OF MERCY
You have arrived at the point of putting Step 12 into practice you should consider yourself highly blessed. You have persevered through the war against your hook and God has favored you with the graces to turn your life around: you are no longer a slave to your passions but it is your passions that are a slave to your will. Of course, you can’t rest on your laurels and become complacent. To help you to keep everything in perspective and to help you to continuously grow in the sanctity that is required to KEEP the line to your hook severed (and as short as possible), we have Step 12, stated below:
12. I will perform the works of mercy. I will especially perform those works that impact souls who suffer with my addiction. I will perform good works to give glory to God, the salvation of my own soul, and for the good of my neighbor.
BEARING FRUIT
By “fruit”, we are talking of performing good works: the practicing of virtue, especially charity, as well as the works of mercy. In Step 11 we talked about how our relationship with God was meant to change from being just “adopted sons” to becoming lovers of God so Step 11 is really about the “fruit” given back to God. In Step 12 we are going to talk about performing the works of mercy: of performing acts that are “fruitful” for souls – both our neighbor’s and our own.
Moving along with our discussion, it would be convenient for us if, once we’ve beaten our hook, we could just kick back and cruise into Heaven but this isn’t the case. Why? Because God has invested in you and He now expects His payback. Church History tells the story of several unfortunates who lived very holy lives – until the end when they became reprobates and undid much of their good works if not even lose their souls. What we have begun well, we need to end well. Do not think that God will not or cannot punish us also if we don’t persevere or are ungrateful for the graces we receive. He can very easily withdraw them and we will then easily fall prey to our hooks, “Like a dog that returns to its vomit.” (Prov xxvi.11) Do you remember way back in the beginning of this book that I told you that the purpose of the Catholic 12-Steps was NOT just to beat your hook? I told you that if that’s all you wanted to do you could do that with anybody’s 12-Step program. You could possibly beat your hook but you’d probably lose your soul anyway, right? No, the purpose of the Catholic 12-Steps is to make you a saint. The Good God has invested many graces in you and He expects a healthy Return On Investment (ROI).
ROI:
God being God, He is frugal with the graces that He gives. He doesn’t waste them and puts exactly the right amount and exactly the right kind where they will do the most good. He is the Wise Investor. He knows which “stocks” to invest in so as to maximize His return. He has wisely invested in you, dear friend, as opposed to someone else because He knew that in you He would maximize His ROI. How does He get this return? He gets it in three ways from the victory of our struggle against our hook:
• He receives glory
• We save our souls
• We help our neighbor save his soul
•
The holiness of our lives and the fact that we are no longer who we were manifests God’s grace and mercy for everyone who knew the “old man” and how much the “new man” differs from him. It is clear to all (including ourselves) that this transformation in us bears the mark of the hand of God and nothing less. It is obvious that He is a loving God who has bestowed great graces upon a soul that He cares deeply for. The transformation has been nothing short of miraculous and this miracle can only be attributed to a God of great power and majesty. In addition, who could not be humbled by this gift of His merciful love that He has bestowed upon our unworthy selves.

03/31/2026

STEP 11B: MEDITATION:
MEDITATION IS THE CORNERSTONE TO STRONG INTERIOR LIFE.
Space here precludes me from an in-depth discussion on Catholic Meditation so you will have to refer to The Hook and I for the detailed discussions of two practical means to do your meditations.
One method is based upon the techniques practiced by the early monks and the second is recommended by Dom Chautard. I have my own preferred way of meditating but I leave it to you, with the guidance of your spiritual director, to determine which one is best for you. Take your pick.
Just practice it daily and make it a mandatory part of your daily routine.
By the end of Step 11B, you should have a strong desire to strengthen your interior life and to want to begin doing your own meditations.
THE INTERIOR LIFE (PREREQUISITE FOR SANCTITY):
Benefits of the Interior Life:
• Interior life the foundation of sanctity in the active worker
o It protects the soul against the dangers of the exterior ministry
o It renews his strength
o It multiplies his energies and merits
o It gives him joy and consolation
o It refines his purity of intention
o It is a firm defense against discouragement
• The Interior life is the condition of all fruitfulness in active works
o The interior life draws down God’s blessing
o It makes the apostle capable of sanctifying others by example
o Supernatural radiation made possible by the interior life
o It makes the Gospel-worker truly eloquent
o Results of the interior life are deep and lasting
o The formation of shock troops, Spiritual direction…

03/31/2026

Titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary as Found in Her Litany
Holy Mary Holy Mother of God Holy Virgin of virgins Queen of angels
Mirror of justice Mother of Christ Virgin most prudent Queen of patriarchs
Seat of wisdom Mother of divine grace Virgin most venerable Queen of prophets
Cause of our joy Mother most pure Virgin most renowned Queen of Apostles
Spiritual vessel Mother most chaste Virgin most powerful Queen of martyrs
Vessel of honor Mother inviolate Virgin most merciful Queen of confessors
Singular vessel of devotion Mother undefiled Virgin most faithful Queen of virgins
Mystical rose Mother most amiable Queen of all saints
Tower of David Mother most admirable Queen conceived without original sin
Tower of ivory Mother of good counsel Queen assumed into heaven
House of gold Mother of our Creator Queen of the most holy Rosary
Ark of the covenant Mother of our Savior Queen of peace
Gate of heaven
Morning Star
Health of the sick
Refuge of sinners
Comforter of the afflicted
Help of Christians
Quite a few different names, huh? Now, I’ve taken each of the main titles, Mother, Virgin, and Queen and applied it to the left, middle, or right of the top main angle of the diamond, so the “Virgin” facets are to the left, the “Mother” facets are in the center, and the “Queen” facets are to the right. I’ve filled the bottom cone-shaped facets with one of her other titles. You can see that in each of the smaller facets within the major title section is one of her sub-titles from the litany using the major title as the beginning word in that section so that in the “Mother” section we have a “Mother of God”, “Mother of divine grace”, “Mother most pure”, etc. The same goes in the “Virgin” and “Queen” sections as well. I’ve repeated doing this in the sketch until I ran out of sides that I could fit text into but I think you get the idea. We could continue assigning a different title of Mary’s into each of the facets of her diamond but I’m sure that since there are titles we can only guess at, we’d run out of diamond facets before we ran out of Marian titles. Now, I want you to just imagine a diamond that’s not constrained by the laws of physics. This shouldn’t be hard to do since she’s a “spiritual diamond” so we can always add sides to match whatever new titles come to mind. There are no limits to the facets we can add, only limits to our understanding of her and that is the point of this entire exercise.
Let us wrap up our discussion of the Blessed Virgin before we close out our commentary on the First Tier Prayers. If you come away from Step 11A with only one point ingrained in your mind, I hope that it is that you, too, are convinced that your success or failure against your hook lies in your daily success or failure at praying to Mary, Virgin, Mother, and Queen, through her favorite prayer, her Most Holy Rosary.

03/30/2026

THE MANY FACETS OF MARY:
One can almost never say enough about the potency and value of praying to the Queen of Heaven. Whole volumes have been written about Our Lady, and many by some of the greatest saints. Even they don’t fully gauge the depth of her mysteries. This eludes mortal man for no one has ever been able to completely and fully comprehend the Blessed Virgin; we are just too limited in our abilities. I think part of the problem is that we tend to see things in two-dimensions, or flat, whereas she is truly multi-dimensional. In this respect, she is more like a diamond, which, when properly cut has a large number of angles sides, or facets, each beautiful to behold. In fact, the crystalline structure of the diamond gives it facets within facets. What do I mean by that? If you’ll look at the picture I have of a rather large diamond sparkling against a blue backdrop, I want you to observe that the bottom is a bit longer than the top and it comes to a point at a rather sharp angle. A bit above halfway up there appears a circular part where the angle changes abruptly and towards the very top there is another change in the angle of the outline to form the top. Each of these large divisions form the major facets that describe the diamond overall. Now, you will observe that these major facets are further subdivided into smaller angles that show up as changes in the shades of white and blue in the picture. These are the smaller facets of the diamond that have been cut along the lines of the crystal structure of the diamond that fit into the major facets. They further divide or refine these major facets. Therefore, I hope you can see that this most precious and hardest of natural minerals is composed of facets within facets; it is multidimensional.
Now let’s take this short explanation of a diamond (I hope the gemologists out there aren’t cringing too badly with my oversimplification of diamond structure) and compare it to the Blessed Virgin Mary since we are going to make use of her own facets within facets in our struggle against the hook. First of all, she mirrors this same facets within facets nature of her Son, Jesus Christ, so we will need to examine Him for a moment first simply because it is important to see that, like the diamond, she is a reflection of the Light that shines upon her.
So, we know that Christ is God, Who is not a single Person in one God but three Persons in one God; Jesus being one of them. He is not the Father and He is not the Holy Ghost but He is God so He is one of three Facets, if you will, in God. Next, He is also Prophet, Priest, and King so He has three other facets within His own nature, or facet, within the Blessed Trinity. You can think of these three as the major angular changes of the diamond that I described above. Each of these facets of Our Lord provides spiritual fruit for our souls because they say something new and unique about Him when we regard any one particular facet. Meditating upon Christ the King, you can examine this facet as Christ the King of my own heart or Christ the King of the World or Christ the King as Head of the Mystical Body. See? None of these facets of Our Lord explain Him in total detail but each provides a luster or brilliance, if you will, that reflects meaningful light into our souls.
Let’s now turn to Mary and explore a bit of her own facets within facets nature. She is not God, of course, but she does have a relationship to each member of that same Blessed Trinity. To the Father, she is a Daughter. To the Son she is a Mother and to the Holy Ghost, she is a Spouse. But she is more so than that. To each of them she is a Virgin. So she is the Virgin Daughter to the Father. She is the Virgin Mother to the Son. Likewise, she is the Virgin Spouse of the Holy Ghost. In addition, she is also the Queen of Heaven and Earth. I hope you’re beginning to see just how complex Mary actually is. But we’re not done. Within each of these titles, Mary has additional facets that emphasize various qualities of hers or needs of ours. Although I don’t remember seeing it in the literature, I hope you will agree with me that in this regard, Our Lady is indeed a diamond, a most beautiful sparkling diamond cut to absolute perfection. She, too, is an excellent reflector of the Light and her love is hard enough to cut through the glass of the hardest heart. She also has great durability because she never tires of praying for each of her children all the way to “the hour of our death.” The most important part of our metaphor, however, carries us back to the facets within facets of the diamond. When you turn a diamond in your hand and you will see all light brilliantly reflected. Doing so, however, means that you catch only one facet of the diamond head-on at any given time. Turn it again and you can focus on a different one. You can almost continually turn it to focus on one facet and never get back to the first one; there are that many different facets to it. The same goes with Mary.

03/28/2026

STEP 11: INCREASE MY SANCTITY THROUGH PRAYER
Step 11 is divided into two parts, depending on where you are in the Catholic 12-Steps. It is all about your prayer life. When you start out, you are just beginning to develop good habits of prayer so things are kept at a simple level. This is Step 11A. Later on, as you begin to gain mastery over yourself, you need to start doing more in-depth praying or meditation and this is Step 11B.
11. I will increase my sanctity by regular and fervent prayer. I will especially develop a great love for the Rosary and the Blessed Virgin. I will develop my own list of personal patron saints and I will pray to them regularly. I will start to meditate on the truths that I am reading about so that my interior life will be sufficiently strong for the combat that I am in
STEP 11A: PRAYER
• We are talking about personal prayer, whether you’re praying by yourself or with others like with your family. We are not speaking about public prayer as in the Holy Mass.
• Moved to just after Step 7 because you will soon be starting the most difficult part of the entire Catholic 12-Steps and that is Steps 8, 9, and 10: the Combat Steps.
• Purpose is to maximize the graces you are receiving with the Combat Steps and to maximize the graces you receive from your repeated good actions in accomplishing the other steps as well.
• However, your sanctity is the real objective and not just severing the line to your hook, having a solid foundation on which to build your prayer life is crucial to developing your sanctity.
• Adding regularity and order to your life. As you begin to form habits of prayer now, before you start the Combat Steps, you need to get your will used to being in charge.
If you cannot say the three simple prayers daily that I task you with in the First Tier, you’re going to have an extremely difficult time getting the body to submit to the will in things that are contrary to what the body wants. You need to start now to develop the habit of forming regular patterns for your prayer life.
WHAT IS PRAYER?:
The lifting up of our minds and hearts to God. This “lifting up” on the basic level is just communication between two parties but it is really an act of love. It is a heart-to-heart conversation between two persons (in this case, one of the persons is a Divine Person). It should ultimately be an intimate spiritual union between two lovers and the lovers are your soul and God. That’s where we want to take our prayer life – raising it to the point of spiritual union between your soul and God.
Reasons for praying:
1) Adoration, which expresses our love and loyalty to God
2) Thanksgiving, thanking God for what He has given and/or done for us
3) Expiation, to beg pardon for our sins and to obtain remission of the punishment for those sins
4) Petition, to ask for graces and blessings for ourselves and for others.
God always hears our prayers IF we pray properly and that’s the key. We will not obtain what we pray for if we have not properly prayed or if what we pray for is not good for our souls:
God does not grant prayers that are not good for our souls.
The best guarantee for getting your prayers answered is to humbly pray with an attitude of submission to God’s will for you; that if it is bad for your soul or against His will, you don’t want it.
Pray with attention
• It’s understood that you will pray while you are doing other things at times but don’t do other things when it’s time to pray.
• Set aside times, places, and circumstances to minimize the distractions while you are praying
• Distractions are going to crop up in the middle of your prayers. Your mind will wander with
• Fighting off distractions is one more cross that Our Beloved will use to gauge just what is the extent of your love for Him. Know that they are going to happen.
• From now on, expect that the Lord is going to be constantly testing you with trials and tribulations.
• Struggle against them as best you can. Refocus your efforts, pick up the thread where you left off, and continue on when this happens.
• Doing a few prayers well is vastly better than doing lots of prayers poorly – start slowly
The second point on how to pray is to do so with conviction, the conviction that we are completely helpless and totally dependent on God to do anything good, especially to obtain the graces to overcome the temptations of our hook. Pray with humility.
Pray with great desire. Really and truly want what you are praying for. Half-hearted prayers are met with half-hearted responses.
Pray with loving trust in the goodness of God. He knows what His children need and greatly desires to give us what we correctly ask for:
Pray with perseverance. Don’t be surprised when your prayers are not answered immediately. Again, this is frequently a test to see just how badly we want something and to test our faith.
Unite your prayers with the mortifications that you will begin to perform in Step 9 as an effective (and frequently necessary) “one-two punch” in order to get your prayers answered. Sometimes it takes the “violence” of mortification against one’s own concupiscence in order to get certain favors from God

03/26/2026

STEP 10: BUILDING THE CATHOLIC CULTURE WITHIN YOU

CATHOLIC CULTURE PHASE I, GOOD CATHOLIC READING:

BIBLE
Douay-Rheims version, especially the Haydock Bible. It's expensive and in two volumes but the text is a faithful rendering into English of the Vulgate and has extensive commentaries. Modern translations have distortions in them so I don’t recommend them.
Missal of the 1962 or earlier Mass. Used ones can be obtained at yard sales, used bookstores, or antique stores for 5 or 10 dollars. The epistle and gospel readings can go a long way to fill in your understanding of scripture if the cost of a Haydock Bible is out of your price range.
The Church Year by Fr. Leonard Goffine. Covers the readings of the year as well as providing an excellent introduction to the lives of the saints.
CATHOLIC DOGMA
• Catechism of the Council of Trent
• Dogmatic Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent
• Baltimore Catechism (A, B, C, & D)
• My Catholic Faith - this can be also be obtained used. It currently runs in the $35 range but I bought a used one for five bucks.
SPIRITUALITY
• Preparation for Death by St. Alphonsus - anything written by him.
• Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross – anything by him as well.
• True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis-Marie de Montfort - anything by him.
• The Interior Castle or The Mansions by St. Teresa of Avila.
• Dialogues by St. Catherine of Siena
• The Story of a Soul by St. Therese of the Child Jesus.
• The Three Ways of the Spiritual Life by Garrigou-Lagrange - anything by him.
• The Imitation of Christ - attributed to Thomas a Kempis.
• The Soul of the Apostolate by Dom Chautard - do NO Works of Mercy without reading this.
• Legion of Mary Handbook by Frank Duff (editions up the late 1950's)
• Humility of Heart by Fr. Cajetan Mary da Bergamo
CATHOLIC SOCIAL DOCTRINE
The encyclicals of the popes up through Pius XII. The following list is by far from exhaustive, Leo XIII wrote enough encyclicals on his own to fill a thick book. A single example from several popes are given below
• Bl. Pius IX: Syllabus of Errors
• Leo XIII: Mirari Vos
• St. Pius X: Pascendi
• Pius XII: Casti Conubii
CC PHASE II, OTHER GOOD CATHOLIC THINGS:
GOOD LITERATURE:
Good Literature
Classics:
• The Ancient Period:
o The Histories by Herodotus.
o The Anabasis by Xenophon.
o Plutarch’s Lives.
o Homer’ Iliad and Odyssey.
o Virgil’s Aeneid.
o Avoid Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It is entirely too sensual.
o Children’s Versions:
 The Children’s Homer by Padraic Colum is a very readable version that includes both the Odyssey and the Iliad. I suggest an older edition as the illustrations avoid much of the nudity characteristic of the Greeks. If you only read three ancients books, this is the first one you should get.
 Mythology by Edith Hamilton is very well done and will give you an understanding of how the Greeks and Romans approached the supernatural.
 Famous Men of Egypt, Famous Men of Greece, & Famous Men of Rome by John Haaren and AB Poland are fantastic retellings from history and mythology. “…Greece” and “…Rome” are the other two “must reads”.
• Apostolic:
o The Didache.
o The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. For a pagan stoic he has some interesting things to say. Compare his philosophy to George Washington’s.
o Two Lives of Charlemagne
o Song of Roland
o Poem of the Cid
• Medieval:
o Dante’s Divine Comedy. Read all three parts, not just Purgatorio. This is Catholic thought mixed in with Renaissance Italian politics. The Cliff’s Notes wouldn’t be a bad thing to read alongside it to help explain some of the characters and symbolism, though.
o Marco Polo’s Travels.
o I don’t suggest Canterbury Tales by Chaucer unless you are very careful. Although set up as a series of tales told during a religious pilgrimage there are a number of tales that are too sensual. It is a good introduction to Olde Englishe, however. Again, get the Cliff’s Notes and skim each one for whether or not it passes muster before you choose to read that it.
• Reformation:
o Shakespeare. I really enjoy The Old Bard. Controversies aside over whether he actually wrote his works or not, there is a great number of Catholic references in many of his works. Good stuff.
 MacBeth
 Julius Caesar
 Hamlet
 King Lear
 Coriolanus
 Henry V

• Modern
• Short Stories by Tolstoy. You can read War and Peace if you want to but his short stories are more easily digested, for my tastes.
• The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky
• TS Eliot
• Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton. Anything by GK is good. I particularly like his very subtle and effective reasoning in this work.
• The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. The widely popular movies skim or skip over much of the Catholic symbolism that Tolkien injected into this series. I’m amazed at how popular Catholic Truth is to the general public as long as they don’t know that it’s Catholic.
• The Screwtape Letters and Chronicles of Narnia Series by C.S. Lewis.
• Anything by Hillaire Belloc.
Good Music
• Gregorian Chant: The rich collection of liturgical chant that is the Church’s treasure still provides peacefulness to the spirits of even anti-Catholics.
• Classical: Beethoven and Dvorak are my favorites
• Folk: Since I started playing the mountain dulcimer I have learned to appreciate the simple lifestyle of the mountain folk
• Ethnic: Having Irish, German, and French ancestry in my family, I find these types natural for me to enjoy.
GOOD THINKING/PHILOSOPHY
Good Thinking
Suggested Philosophers:
• •Aristotle.
• •Plato.
• •Socrates.
• •St. Augustine.
• •St. Thomas Aquinas.
Enemies:
• •Rousseau (Enlightenment)
• •Kant (Relativism)
• •Marx (Communism)

03/25/2026

THE COUNTERATTACK
I want to warn you about The Counterattack.
THREE SOURCES OF TEMPTATION:
• Satan
• The world
• Our own bodies
• When we are fighting our own hooks, we are principally fighting against our own bodies. We are fighting ourselves
• the spiritual man against the carnal man
• the carnal man who is the dominant one
From Step 8 you saw how vast an array of NOS you are confronting; probably in almost any direction you turn you see at least one of them.
• Really is an unfair fight from a purely natural perspective
• Therefore we are fighting our hooks on the supernatural perspective so that we can even the odds out more in our favor
• We have our bodies and the world -- that’s two of our three antagonists
Where’s Satan?
• We are so weak that the simple tag-team of the first two sources of temptations is enough to keep most of us permanently hooked.
• As long as we are fully occupied by facing our own natures and our NOS, he won’t get involved
• Satan won’t be interested in getting into the fray until he sees that he’s losing the war and it takes time for him to notice.
• This means that there’s a time delay between when you started the Catholic 12-Steps and when he gets involved.
• Only then does he show up.
• This permits us to make a good initial beginning at defeating the hook.
• This is fortunate because we desperately need the consolation of some sweet victories to build up our confidence so that we do more than just think about overcoming ourselves.
• Because God wants you to succeed and He knows exactly what we need when we need it.
• He’s lavished you with many graces
o Grace to run aground
o Grace to make an Act of the Will to Succeed
o Grace to say the Nothingness Itself prayer
o Say the Rosary daily
o Grace to go to Confession
o Attend Mass frequently
o Grace to frequent the sacraments
• The Counterattack will also be the first real test of our will to overcome the hook.
• What to do?
o First of all, humbly accept the defeat
o admit that it was your own personal weakness in your will
o you being the limiting factor in the flow of barnacles of grace (such as lack of devotion on your part)
o your limited hull to properly accept the graces that God has sent you
o Return to the state of grace as soon as you possibly can
o Renew your Act of the Will to Succeed – “As God is my witness…”,
o Renew and increase your efforts
 your mortification,
 Avoid the NOS that caused the defeat
 NEVER GIVE UP!
 PERSEVERE, PERSEVERE, PERSEVERE!!!!