A few years ago, I became aware of a parish who’d lost a high school student to overdose. While talking to parents in the area, I learned that this was the third death in a six-month period of time in their Catholic high school due to the effects of drugs and alcohol.
I decided to approach the priest of that parish to see if there was anything that I could do. As a mom who has faced the addiction of an adult child before, I know how isolating this disease can be and thought that sharing my experience might be a way to bring this stigmatized subject out into the light.
The priest’s reaction took me by surprise. “It’s really good what you are doing.” He said. “When I find a relevant place for your topic, I will let you know.” I was dumbfounded.
I’d never really considered it to be ‘my topic.’ It is an epidemic problem that claims the lives of people every day. For me this isn’t about selling a book. It never was. It was about offering a lifeline to those who were afraid to reach out for help. I understand that fear. I was that person once. I am still waiting to hear from that priest.
As someone who routinely speaks about addiction and recovery with an emphasis on the 12-steps and Ignatian Spirituality, I tend to forget how few people understand that addiction is a spiritual problem. Because they don’t understand the problem, they see this as an issue that is separate from the church.
This lack of understanding around addiction is so frustrating to me. Every time someone learns how spiritual the 12-steps are and learn how the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola parallel them, they are thrilled to have stumbled upon such a life-giving universally useful tool. The most common comment that I get is “These steps can be used for every aspect of my life.”
Young adults love the spirituality of the 12-steps. They are often the ones who are the most open-minded when I speak to groups. It makes sense to them in the world they find themselves trying to navigate. The loss of life from addictions and suicide is something they know because it has touched most of them.
Yet this is a group that tends to fall away from the church. One young lady was lamenting the fact that the church was distant in these real life situations and she said, “If the church would just be relevant to the problems we face in the world, I might see a need to go back to it.”
The irony of her statement being almost identical to the one that I heard from the priest hit me hard. Merriam Webster defines relevance as, “the quality or state of being closely connected or appropriate.”
If I consider what should be relevant to the church I look to Jesus for the answer: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He [Jesus] said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. ‘ This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matthew 22:35-40
Ignatius offers us clear instruction on what should be our guiding principle; our North Star when he began the exercises with the First Principle and Foundation: The goal of our life is to live with God forever. God, who loves us, gave us life. Our own response of love allows God’s life to flow into us without limit. All the things in this world are gifts of God, presented to us so that we can know God more easily and make a return of love more readily.
There can be a big divide in this world. We must listen to the voices of the young people. They have a lot to teach us. While it is important to know our faith, we must also live it. To know how loved we are by God, helps us make a return of love more readily. If I follow Jesus lead, I look to see who is hurting in the world and that is where I help. That is what is relevant to me.