The quotes this week come from Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps. Franciscan priest Richard Rohr lifts up the gospel values and transformative wisdom in the 12 Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous. As the season of Advent calls us to “prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths,” I find here honest, authentic, grace-filled help.
–Trish Stefanik, Overlook Retreat House at Dayspring
“When religion does not give people an inner life or a real prayer life, it is missing its primary vocation. Let me sum up, then, the foundational ways that I believe Jesus and the Twelve Steps of A.A. are saying the same thing but with different vocabulary: We suffer to get well. We surrender to win. We die to live. We give it away to keep it. This counterintuitive wisdom will forever be resisted as true, denied, and avoided, until it is forced upon us—by some reality over which we are powerless—and if we are honest, we are all powerless in the presence of full Reality.”
–Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
