Accountability...

"But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good,treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. Avoid such people....as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses,so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith; but they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men."
--Timothy, 3, 1-9.

Spiritual progress...

"Spiritual progress tends toward ever more intimate union with Christ. This union is called "mystical" because it participates in the mystery of Christ through the sacraments--'the holy mysteries'--and, in him, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God calls us to this intimate union with him, even if the special graces or extraordinary signs of this mystical life are granted only to some for the sake of manifesting the gratuitous gift given to all."
"The way of perfection passes by the way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails the ascesis and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes."
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2014-15.

"He who climbs never stops going from beginning to beginning, through beginnings that have no end. He never stops desiring what he already knows..."
--St. Gregory of Nyssa, Hom. in Cant. 8:p. 44, 941C

Perseverence....

"Who do you think these are that are all dressed in white? These are the ones who have survived the great period of trial;they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
--Revelation, 7:14.

This we believe....

In the liturgy of the Mass we express our faith in the real presence of Christ under the species of bread and wine...The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsists. Christ is present whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1377-1378).

Let us look at what St. Ambrose tells us about this conversion...
"Be convinced that this is not what nature has formed, but what the blessing has consecrated. The power of the blessing prevails over that of nature, because by the blessing nature itself is changed...Could not Christ's word, which can make from nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before? It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature" (De myst. 9,50 52:PL 16, 405-407; Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 347).

On mortification and resignation of will....

"Mortify yourself then cheerfully, and in proportion as you are prevented from doing the good you desire, do all the more ardently that which you do not desire...for God in his infinite goodness sometimes sees fit to test our courage and love by depriving us of the things which it seems to us would be advantageous to our souls; and if He finds us very earnest in their pursuit, yet humble, tranquil and resigned to do without them if He wishes us to, He will give us more blessings than we should have had in the possession of what we craved."
--St. Frances De Sales (The Imitation)