Accountability and its necessity

Every year around the beginning, we hear about the infamous "new year's resolutions"/the pagan version of lent based only on self. They are infamous because the average resolution is employed for a week maybe two. These are often centered around the average American winter and post-holiday season accrument of unnecessary weight, and the opportunity of using the feeling of a new year to inspire determination. Without having someone to encourage us through the times, we forget why we are doing something difficult when something appealing is so much easier. The truth of the matter is without help we cannot extricate ourselves from sinfulness let alone obesity. Still, we are called to greatness, not comfort. This is why we need the community to guide us on our way to heaven by pointing out insufficient or misguided tendencies, giving encouragement, and accepting the sacrifice of our friends.

There is a saying that if we keep trying the same method and expect a different result, this is insanity. As humans, we can have inordinate desires. It is precisely these that cause us in the effort of trying to do good, doing good, and/or obtaining a good to either cause harm or bring harm upon ourselves. In the TV show, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., a conversation of the like takes place when AIDA asks Daisy what is wrong with giving people what they want. Daisy responds, "because giving people what they want is not always good for them". This is why exposing these desires for what they are before someone who really cares can be so positive.  We are to encourage, correct, and be as God to our fellow man. We, by virtue of our tendency to choose sin over God, are all but destined to error, weakness, and sin. However, God does not end the story there. If we are to extricate ourselves from these tendencies, we cannot do what got us into them for the slave cannot fight the master expect victory.

The greatest enemy of the spiritual life is discouragement. Satan aims to trip us up. Our enemies have experienced liars and we find ourselves believing them. However, the greatest disinfectant is light. Exposing and refuting these lies together as men and women of faith is one of the greatest ways to do this. We were made for Community. It is through authentic brotherhood or sisterhood that we come to truly recognize the depth of our deceit as we realize we were not created for the things we struggle to live without. Still, we can be tempted to despair seeing exactly how great and complete our slavery to sin is. This too can be a trap (this is a good song to think analogically about sin that requires external help) in itself which is what makes having someone to keep us in recollection of God's infinite love for us and our dignity. Neither does a saint comes from isolation nor can anyone make it to heaven on their own strength. Such is the essential necessity of discipleship.

Accepting help where it is needed is never easy. In fact, accepting that we are forgiven is the hardest thing about being forgiven. Sometimes God calls or our friends to be generous. However, not just in the general sense of the term but in all senses. Sometimes this means having an awkward conversation, other times just being compassionate and listening, and as much possible always being charitable. It is important to be humble i.e. to recognize we need help and receive it when it comes. We are all worth it. There is nothing our true friends will do for us that we would not do for them. Because laying down one's life for their friends is the greatest form of love(John 15:13; cf. Romans 14:7). There is a reason they do all they can for us because they want our good. This is the highest form of friendship. We need this form of friendship! Of course, we must first have a friendship with Jesus to understand exactly how this type of friendship works. We must find friends like these if we are to be saints because countless saints before us did.

In conclusion, each and every one of us is called to lifelong Catholic missionary discipleship through God's love. If we are to maximize those coming to heaven with us, then we must first begin with our friends. We need the witness of saints, the love of God, the support of a friend, and an intense prayer life if we are to be free to help each other get to heaven. There are fewer greater blessings than realizing we are not alone in our strife, someone sees us beyond our failures, and that we are a part of something bigger than the armies of our enemies. We need someone to be a sign of heaven's reality for us, reminding us we are fighting for something beyond our wildest dreams, reminding us we matter, reminding us that we are worth the pains and death of Christ, and most of all that there is someone who has our back even when we don't think we deserve it. A soldier is only as good as the soldier next to them. Even from the beginning, God said, "it is not good for man to be alone"(Genesis 2:18).Who do/will you have?

We believe lies so believable,

our problems seem so unsolvable.

We fight always what seems to be the world.

Let find an ally to warm us from the cold.

The stakes are high and always have been.

A desperate battle against sin.

The greatest pains lie within.

Send someone Lord to keep us from sin.

Few greater blessings are there

than a friend who is always here.

How can we know them if we don't know You

who has always seen our hearts and still loved them so true?

"A FAITHFUL FRIEND IS A STURDY SHELTER: 

HE THAT HAS FOUND ONE HAS FOUND A TREASURE." (Sirach 6:14)