Why have you already skipped the diet?

By this time of the month, you have probably already had time to break some of the resolutions you had set at the end of the year: you have skipped your diet, you have stopped going to the gym, you have not read that book that was waiting for you on the shelf or you have started smoking again. It is of no concern except if you are one of those people who, even so, believe they are consistent with their actions and would swear, without hesitation, to be people of integrity.  

Human weaknesses and unfulfilled purposes

What can I say, I don't trust myself a bit. I skipped the diet the day after I started it with a formidable Three Kings cake; the book continues to stare at me from the shelf while I make scroll Although I haven't smoked for years, I know deep down that I'm still a smoker and at the slightest change... I haven't even joined the gym. I'm not proud of it, but I don't flagellate myself either. That's the way I am, that's the way I'll stay, I'll never change. 

Following the famous song by Alaska and the human weakness, I am struck by this wave of supertañonismo led by the same people who turned the «Who Cares?» theme into an anthem. It seemed that they were singing against a morally oppressive society, but no, because now many of them are the ones pointing fingers and whispering behind their backs. And they do it not only with that minority who call themselves practicing Catholics, but even with those who dare to acknowledge that they believe in God, even if only in their own way.

Artists of the most diverse nature, scientists, politicians or sportsmen who publicly manifest their beliefs are not to be trusted by the new censors in charge of preserving the new morals and good customs. In these four decades, puritanism has not disappeared, only who exercises it has changed. To prove it, look for the lyrics of this classic of the movida madrileña to see if it could not be sung now, verse by verse, by Hakuna in the very Puerta del Sol against the new censors. If Tierno Galván would raise his head!

Hypocrisy

Falling into the same fault we criticize others for is a great lesson of life that should help us to reduce polarization, to realize that the other is not an enemy, but a brother or sister, weak like me, and capable of screwing up. Pope Francis said to the prisoners: «Every time I enter a prison, I ask myself: «Why them and not me? We all have the possibility of making mistakes: all of us. In one way or another, we have made mistakes», and he affirmed that »pointing the finger at those who have made mistakes cannot be an excuse to hide one's own contradictions«.

This is what the Pharisees have historically done, be they of whatever religion, ideology or political current they may be, hide their own contradictions. And then come the scandals: democrats who act with their backs to the people, defenders of feminism caught distributing women like cards, politicians with proletarian discourse turned into capitalists, pastors who act as wolves, experts in male violence denounced for abuses, champions of law and peace who use force without legitimacy... And so on and so forth. 

Acknowledgment of sin, humility and need for God

That is why I have little confidence in those who trust themselves too much, because either they do not know themselves or they are blatantly lying to us. Unfortunately, human beings are programmed to follow self-confident leaders and this is what populisms, sects and all messianisms live on, which, in the end, end up destroying their followers because they are based on a lie. 

In the face of Truth, which is Christ, no human being, no matter how holy he may be, passes the test. We are all weak, inconsistent, capable of making mistakes in seeking the good or of seeking evil directly. St. Paul explains like no one else this typically human contradiction when he says: «I do not do the good that I desire, but I do the evil that I do not desire.

And if what I do not desire is precisely what I do, it is not I who does it, but the sin that dwells in me». Believing in that sin that dwells in each one of us does not exculpate us nor does it mean throwing in the towel and not trying to get up after every fall, because God always offers us a new opportunity to straighten our course, but it should put us on alert so that we do not walk through the world blindly as do the ideologies that deny sin and believe that man has a solution on his own. We need God to be authentically free and not slaves of sin!

So now you know why you have skipped the diet. Don't worry, it's normal. Maybe it's a sign for you to have mercy on those who fall from the top because, one day, you're going to take a big hit.