The Successful Journey Through Failure

Marya Hayes ponders the determination we need to persevere on the slow journey to sainthood.

It’s a slow journey to becoming a saint. It’s even a slow journey to become Catholic. It’s a slow journey to receive all the sacraments. Sometimes it seems almost too difficult to overcome sin, and grow in our relationship with God. The difficulty and length of the process should not deter us, but it does. It frustrates us, it angers us, and it depresses us. My son is temporarily not interested in going to his faith formation classes. He doesn’t see the point in preparing for and receiving the sacraments. This is often typical of teens going through Confirmation preparation. For those who are not Catholic and going through the RCIA process, they may wonder why it takes so long to be received into the Catholic Church. For sinners trying to overcome repetitive sins, they may become frustrated with their failures. The concern is that any one of these groups might become so discouraged that they give up the journey, or give up the fight to improve. They may feel like it isn’t worth it, or that they are already a lost cause.

As parents, we need to encourage our children to keep pursuing their faith and their relationship with God. Keep putting the carrot in front of them, that they might find something fun or interesting in the process. For my daughter there was a brief period where she considered leaving the Church. She didn’t understand the difference in the gifts that the Catholic Church has to offer compared to other churches. Luckily with good parenting, consistency, and a good faith formation minister/program, she found her way. She even drives to attend Mass on her own when her schedule conflicts with the family Mass schedule.

rocky path into a forest

So how do we know that our hard work or consistency will pay off? What if we ultimately fail? Let me give a statistic that might shed some light on our human condition. It has been found that two in five cigarette smokers try to quit, but fewer than 10% succeed. The question is why? Even in 2018 it was found that 70% of smokers wanted to quit. This is much like the majority of us “wanting” to be good faithful Catholics. Researchers calculated that it takes people “30 attempts to quit smoking and it’s three times higher for daily smokers compared to the occasional smoker.”

If we translate this into other habits that we want to eradicate, we must realize that the occasional sin is going to be easier to remove than a daily sin. It’s going to be an uphill battle, with many failed attempts. We are going to fall down, and when we do, we need a process to return to our progress. For Catholics, this requires repentance, and reconciliation (Confession). Then we may start anew, with a clean slate and renewed spirit. The key to success lies in the number of attempts.

Click to tweet:
We must attempt to be saints with the vigor of an Olympic athlete. #catholicmom

Let’s continue to encourage our children, our friends, and even our enemies to continue to push for a deeper relationship with God, to eradicate sin from their lives, and to strive to better themselves. Of course, this also applies to our own lives. It is by our many attempts that we will ultimately be successful. Wouldn’t it be helpful to know that if you tried X number of times that you would finally overcome? The research has been done. By the grace of the Holy Spirit, through your requests for help from Jesus, Mary, and the saints, and by your persistence, you will be victorious.

Think of Olympic athletes. They practice daily, they suffer, they strive, and they fail. We must attempt to be saints with the vigor of an Olympic athlete. Though the journey may be long and arduous, there are bountiful fruits and rewards along the way as well, and in the end a final reward.