Question #5: “The most difficult thing about the teachings on addictions is this: How can actions that we previously thought were not sinful, make us idolatrous and unloving? This is a real stretch for me!”
Of all May’s marvelous teachings on addiction, none is more important than this: we cannot overcome addiction by ourself. Naked willpower is a sure source of defeat. Only openness to God’s grace offers the possibility of eliminating addiction. There is no escaping this hard and fast reality. The combination of our generous cooperation with God’s grace is the only way to freedom from the addiction.
Here are a few helpful statements from May on the difficult topic of grace:
- Grace is God’s love in the concrete.
- Grace is God’s love that fills our total being.
- We live in a sea of God’s loving mercy that is God’s grace.
- Even when our choices are destructive such as our addictions, God’s love and grace never stop. God always pursues us without conditions or limits.
- God’s grace always is embracing us in a way that is absolute, permanent and victorious.
The fact that withdrawal from addiction is only possible with God’s grace does not mean we simply wait for it to happen. It means that our action comes with recognition that God is in control. We are an active participant but God’s grace will determine the consequences. Both May and Teresa have helpful guidance on how we cooperate with God’s grace in breaking free of the bondage of addiction.
May and the saintly and motherly Carmelite agree that one of the great difficulties we all face is this. God wants everything. The only way we can approach that gift of self is one step at a time. Therefore, we need to address the addiction that has risen to the forefront of our consciousness. We must set up a plan to attack the number one addiction, the one whose behavior is most troublesome. Most likely, we have been trying to avoid the issue for a long time. Now is the moment of grace. It demands action. Down deep, we know we need to change. Equally down deep, we absolutely do not want to change. The struggle is on.
May’s Insight
May is emphatic that, in the end, freedom from addiction is the result of God’s grace and our cooperation. His teaching on willingness and willfulness brings some clarity to this process.
Willingness, for May, means advancing toward the deeper Mystery of life. We acknowledge that there is a reality beyond our self, a surrender that moves outside of ourselves. We accept that we seem separate yet are called to union with the Mystery that is the foundation of reality. Willingness calls us to participate in the reality that is beyond our control. On the other hand, willfulness centers on self-mastery. It seeks to put the focus on controlling and influencing reality to preserve the attention and control on oneself.
For May, willingness alone is the pathway that can free us from addiction. Willfulness is a guaranteed loser that prolongs the drudgery of addiction’s captivity.
Like the three virtues of Teresa’s Program, willingness seeks to make space for God in our heart. God is always seeking to awaken our hearts to his loving presence. Our major problem is our addictions. They keep the heart full with God’s creatures, not God. This draws the passion of the heart away from God. Willingness engages us in the unending struggle to choose God over God’s creatures with a maturing conviction and commitment. The relentless call of the Spirit implores us to empty our heart for God. This demands willingness over the self-centered approach of willfulness.
It is clear. God’s grace is in this struggle between our egoism and God’s loving call. By ourselves, we are not capable of the necessary total surrender. Yet, in the faithfulness to the struggle to create space for God, there is a wonderous gift. We gradually grow in our awareness of our absolute dependence on God. Therefore, in the end, the grace is found in true faithfulness to the struggle. The struggle keeps us alive as we await the gift of the abundance of God’s love that is contemplation.
Teresa’s Plan of Attack
Teresa points out that the demands on our generosity are being stretched beyond our limits. The struggle seems endless and hopeless. On God’s part, it is a gentle, consistent and determined invitation to love and freedom. This gift is found in Teresa’s Program, centering on the three virtues of charity, detachment and humility. It offers a twofold outlet. First, it gives us a way out of the paralysis of seeming helplessness. Secondly, it presents an encounter with God’s invitation to love and freedom. This is God’s love in the concrete which is grace.
There is indeed a struggle. It is a search for the passage way to the deepest recesses of our heart. Here we encounter a singular hunger, the hunger for God. Here we will find the only source for peace and true happiness. This is why our addictions are so destructive. They keep us from the true peace and happiness which is God.
This process of substituting the creature for the Creator is totally and undeniably contrary to everything our heart was made for. It makes us lapse into the deceptive lie of the addiction. This lie of the addiction truly draws us away from God. It makes us idolatrous and unloving. This produces the crippling bondage of our addiction. Teresa tells us a life committed to becoming more loving, a life of placing all creatures in their proper place by detachment and a life of accepting, in humility, the truth about God and ourselves, is what is necessary. It alone will free us from idolatry and the demise of love. It opens the way to freedom, peace and happiness now, and eternal life and love, in the future.
Tereasa expressed it in these words: “Everything I have advised you about in this book is directed toward the complete gift of ourselves to the Creator, the surrender of our will to his and the detachment from creatures …Unless we give our wills entirely to the Lord so that in everything pertaining to us, he might do what conforms to his will, we will never be allowed to drink from this fount. Drinking from it is perfect contemplation.” (Way pf Perfection.32.9)
St. Paul’s statement is never more appropriate than in the battle against addiction. “My grace is sufficient for you for power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9)
As we approach that surrender generated by God’s grace, we need to recognize two things. The first is a growing awareness of how feeble our love is for both God and our neighbor. Secondly, we need to stay in the struggle seeking to be more humble, more detached, and more loving by our faithfulness to prayer. Both of these items are expressions of the approach to life that is rooted in willingness. This way of behaving leads to our liberation from our addictions. This will prepare us for God’s purifying and transforming gift of contemplation.
Question #5: “The most difficult thing about the teachings on addictions is this: How can actions that we previously thought were not sinful, make us idolatrous and unloving? This is a real stretch for me!”
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