Prayers lifts up those struggling with alcoholism, says priest

INDIANAPOLIS — Confident in the power of Jesus to satisfy every thirst, Father Bryan Eyman has been lifting up in prayer those people struggling with alcoholism and entrusting them to the Mother of God, the Inexhaustible Cup, for nearly 20 years.

Father Eyman attributes his healing ministry with alcoholics, which began in 1988, when he was pastor at St. John the Baptist Parish in Minneapolis, to his mother.

“She was an employee in one of the first alcohol treatment centers in in the world,” he said. She worked with Sister Mary Ignatia Gavin at Rosary Hill Solarium at St. Vincent Charity Hospital in Cleveland. Sister Ignatia, along with Dr. Bob Smith, founded Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). The nun was a family friend and Father Eyman recalled being an altar server as a boy at her funeral.

Father Eyman began with AA by being available “to listen to the 4th and 5th steps” of the program, which is when members tell another person about their addiction and then seek to make amends for the harm they may have caused, he said. He noted then, as now, the shortage of priests to help Catholics move through the 12-step recovery program.

Father Eyman continued with AA when he was transferred to St. Andrew Parish, now Holy Transfiguration Parish, in Mentor-on-the-Lake, Ohio. There, he also welcomed a local AA group that was seeking a larger meeting space.

“I thought Sister Ignatia would haunt me if I said no,” he said.

In the late 1990s, his ministry with alcoholics took an unexpected and more prayerful turn. It was the advent of the internet and one of his first online searches produced a Russian icon of the Theotokos, the Inexhaustible Cup, Healer of Alcoholics. The icon came with an Eastern Christian Marian prayer service — an Akathist — that was translated from Russian into English.

He read about the miraculous healing associated with the icon. In late 19th-century Russia, a hopeless alcoholic, debilitated by his addiction, had a dream in which he was instructed to go to a particular monastery and ask for this icon. Upon praying before the icon, he was healed of his alcoholism. Many other people were healed of their alcoholism before this icon after him. However, with the start of communism, the monastery was closed and a family hid the icon for safekeeping. It re-emerged after the fall of communism, and the prayer service linked with this devotion restarted.

Moved by the story and sensing a call to action, in 1999, Father Eyman began praying the Akathist at his parish before the AA meetings; AA members were invited to come, if they felt so inclined.

He continued the prayer service when he moved to St. Mary Parish in Marblehead, Ohio, and at St. Athanasius the Great in Indianapolis, where he serves currently.

Attendance varies from month to month, from four people to 25 people, but swells to about 100 for the prayer service that marks the feast of the icon, May 5, he said. The service includes praying for people struggling with alcoholism by name, and requests from people to include their loved ones continue to grow.

“We get names from all over and we only use first names,” Father Eyman said. “For me, it’s not a matter of the number but the commitment to prayer to benefit people we may never meet. We just try to be faithful in doing it, with confidence that Christ is the Inexhaustible Cup and he will bring about the healing, if we are open to it.”

 Father Eyman said some people have received complete healing from the prayer service.
“In at least four cases, they have lost the craving for alcohol,” he said. Others, even from different religions, have found the prayer “very moving and encouraging as they walked through the steps” of AA and “began to seek healing from alcoholism from the Theotokos.”

Father Eyman said the spiritual component to recovering from addiction “is very important for people to connect with, especially in the Catholic tradition (where) there is forgiveness.”

“When we repent and decide to change and pour that reality out to another person, that’s when healing can begin,” he said.

“Our spiritual life and sacramental life as Catholics can be tied in with our physical well-being and (we can) help people make that connection and see that inner dependency. That’s why I look at it as an important ministry for our church,” he said. “It’s basically people in need of God.”

“There is that sense that I have fallen but I can still get up,” he continued. “And if I fall again I can still get up. That is a very potent thing we can share. It’s not a magic act. Even the miraculous cures are unusual, but the day-to-day cure that takes place is where, for me, the real miracle begins to happen.”

Father Eyman said he would like more priests to pray the service in their parishes. The impact of alcohol abuse on individuals and families is grave and “it runs the gamut,” from “prayerful priests to outright atheists,” he said.

Last month, during Alcohol Awareness Month, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism cited alcohol as the third leading cause of preventable death in the country, after tobacco and poor nutrition, killing about 88,000 people per year.

To submit the names of people in need of such prayer, email Father Eyman at [email protected]. 


 
Caption 1: Father Bryan Eyman poses with the icon of the Theotokos, the Inexhaustible Cup, Healer of Alcoholics, after a prayer service at his parish, St. Athanasius the Great, April 11. The prayers are offered for those struggling with alcoholism. The next prayer service is May 23. (Photo: Father John Russell)

Caption 2: Father Bryan Eyman incenses the icon of the Theotokos, the Inexhaustible Cup, Healer of Alcoholics, during a prayer service at St. Athanasius the Great April 11. (Photo: Father John Russell)
 
As published in Horizons, May 6, 2018.
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