One way to help start a new habit is to ask a family member or friend to help us with accountability. For example, when someone starts a new fitness routine, having a trusted friend join in, remind and encourage them to follow through on their commitment can help not only begin, but sustain a new habit over the long term.
My fitness students have realized that if they are going to miss classes, they should let me know — as I will follow up with them to make sure they are okay if I don’t hear from them. Generally they like knowing that I miss them and it helps keep them accountable to their routine.
Maybe you haven’t thought about accountability in your spiritual life, but family members and spiritual friends travel on the journey with us and hopefully encourage us keep God and the Sacraments a priority in our lives. This accountability is important to growing in holiness and it is truly a gift that other people actively care about the state of our souls.
Accountability can take many forms. For example, my husband and I pray the Rosary together a few days a week and we make sure that happens as it is very special to us. We have some relatives who are Catholic, but who are not currently active in their faith, so when we feel prompted by the Holy Spirit, we invite them to Mass and try to lovingly encourage them to renew their commitment to the weekly obligation (and gift!) of Mass. Weekly bible study helps keep me accountable to studying scripture.
Parish and diocesan friends are important supporters on our spiritual journey and even small things can help us grow in faith in big ways. For example, I have a friend who has invited me to daily Mass with her at a downtown parish a couple times a month. We enjoy lunch afterward, encourage each other, laugh and pray. The more we get to know each other the more we can help each other stay committed to growing in our faith.
Thanks to the spiritual friends, I’ve attended retreats, pilgrimages, prayer groups, Christian music concerts, scripture study and more that I would never have experienced. Even if we can be a light to just one person by sharing our faith and encouraging them to grow closer to Jesus, we can make a big impact.
We know that God can use any means to reach us, to move us in a new direction or help us get back on track if we stray from out commitment to Him. He can use the people in our lives to do this and I can’t even count the number of times I have said that God worked through a person to get me to do something, to hear his voice, or to start a new spiritual practice.
So let us pray wholeheartedly for the wisdom, listen to the Holy Spirit guiding us and respond with bold action to help ourselves, and each other, be accountable to what the Church is calling us to do as Catholics. From Thessalonians 5:11, “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing.”