How to "Accompany"

Francis I keeps yapping about "accompaniment."

Nice word and sentiment.  But as this essay reminds us, there's more to the story.

...in his sermon for the Easter Vigil, Augustine told his listeners to avoid the company of sinners. Our desire for approval and acceptance feeds a powerful temptation to imitate their sinful ways. As he put it, “on this threshing floor, in truth, grain can degenerate into chaff.” As the episode of the pear tree and the American problem with recidivist crime make clear, the young are particularly vulnerable to the corruption of those with whom they spend time....

...Christian accompaniment begins not with celebrating how wonderful we are. “Pride” about ourselves is the language of politicians and other flatterers seeking to curry favor with people they hardly know.  The whole point of Christianity is the renewal and repentance of sinners – which is to say all of us – and our preparation for eternal life.

The Psalmist indeed says we are wonderfully made, but that wonder, that divine spark (as it was once called) can only really be known when whatever brokenness, whatever sin, has been fully confronted and amended. Otherwise, encounters with Christ amount to little more than a thin sentimentality.

As the Eucharistic Confession prior to communion in the Byzantine rite says, quoting St. Paul in 1 Timothy, Christ came to save sinners, “of whom I am the first.” Sin means that the wonder of our created selves is difficult to apprehend. But strip away sin, including the sin of Pride, and a beautiful creature comes into sight.

Pray that that 'beautiful creature' is both you and the ones you 'accompany' to Christ.