Twelve-Step Spirituality: Week 2
Summary: Sunday, June 5-Friday, June 10, 2016
Step Six: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step Seven: Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings. (Sunday)
Step Eight: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step Nine: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. (Monday)
Step Ten: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. (Tuesday)
Step Eleven: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out. (Wednesday)
Step Twelve: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. (Thursday)
“How privileged we are to understand so well the divine paradox that strength rises from weakness, that humiliation goes before resurrection; that pain is not only the price but the very touchstone of spiritual rebirth.” —Bill Wilson (Friday)
Practice: Litany of the Holy Spirit
When we come to the end of our rope and hit rock bottom, we are not dashed but fall into God’s hands. It is here at our lowest that we discover our true source of power, the indwelling Holy Spirit. Many years ago, during a hermitage in Arizona, I had a particularly strong sense of the Holy Spirit, the One who is fully available to all of us “if we but knew the gift of God” (John 4:10). I slowly composed this prayer—imagining many names and movements of the Spirit—to awaken and strengthen this Presence within you. Recite it whenever you are losing faith in God or in yourself.
Pure Gift of God
Indwelling Presence
Promise of the Father
Life of Jesus
Pledge and Guarantee
Defense Attorney
Inner Anointing
Homing Device
Stable Witness
Peacemaker
Always Already Awareness
Compassionate Observer
God Compass
Inner Breath
Mutual Yearning
Hidden Love of God
Implanted Hope
Seething Desire
Fire of Life and Love
Truth Speaker
Flowing Stream
Wind of Change
Descending Dove
Cloud of Unknowing
Uncreated Grace
Filled Emptiness
Deepest Level of Our Longing
Sacred Wounding
Holy Healing
Will of God
Great Compassion
Inherent Victory
You who pray in us, through us, with us, for us, and in spite of us.
Amen, Alleluia!
Gateway to Silence:
Thy will be done.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 2009), 168-169.
For Further Study:
Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
Richard Rohr, Emotional Sobriety: Rewiring Our Programs for “Happiness” (DVD, CD, MP3 download)
Richard Rohr, How Do We Breathe Under Water? The Gospel and 12-Step Spirituality (DVD, CD, MP3 download)
