Tag: <span>Conversion</span>

April 22, 2021April 22, 2021

Chariot Chat

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

In the first reading, the Holy Spirit prompted Philip to talk to the Ethiopian eunuch in his chariot; he explained Scripture to him, and the eunuch was baptized. Then, the same Holy Spirit removed Philip mysteriously from the presence of the eunuch.

Sometimes, we may think that we are devoid of the Holy Spirit, if He doesn’t prompt such semi-miraculous marvels in us.

But we must remember, the Spirit will prompt us according to the vocation to which God has called us, often with nudges rather than pushes. Often, when faced with a situation and seeking guidance, all we need to is incline an ear in His direction, and He will provide us with a path. The path may not appear miraculous, but in a sense, it may be said the the Spirit’s promptings within the human soul are always by definition miraculous.

But how do we increase the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in our hearts?

Jesus gives us the sure means in today’s gospel: “The bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.” To increase the life of the Holy Spirit within us, we need not seek extraordinary means–persevering participation in the sacraments and in contemplative prayer will build that life slowly, almost imperceptibly, over time.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to help you in your perseverance, particularly in frequent reception of the sacraments and daily contemplative prayer. Ask Him for the gift of His Holy Spirit, and tell Him that you trust Him always to provide you the guidance you need through the Spirit.

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March 13, 2021February 25, 2021

Turnaround

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Today’s first reading speaks of the hope a soul in the midst of conversion, hope for merciful, reviving, refreshing treatment from the Lord.

Then, in that reading, we come upon curious lines:

He will revive us after two days;
on the third day he will raise us up,
to live in his presence.

What a coincidence! This sounds a little like the Resurrection of Jesus. Then we look again at the reading, and it speaks of God striking down, God rending–but then of God reviving. So, is this a reading about conversion, or is it a foreshadowing of the Passion, death, and Resurrection of Jesus?

The answer: Both. Both are intertwined in the eyes of God. Sometimes we forget the totality with which Jesus took upon Himself our sins–all the sins of humanity, from all time. As He takes those sins upon Himself in Gethsemane, then takes them to Calvary to be killed with them, and then ultimately rises, He goes through a “conversion”–He defeats them and raises mankind to a new purity aimed at profound and exalted union with God.

By contrast, in the gospel, the Pharisee sees no need for conversion. He lives a stellar life, unsullied by the typical sins of mankind. He even gives a significant portion of his income to God. But he makes the mistake that St. Paul warns about throughout the epistles: He thinks to find his salvation and righteousness in compliance with the law, in his own virtue.

Jesus is looking for us to do as the tax collector does in today’s gospel: He recognizes his sin, and he seeks conversion; he begs for God’s mercy. Jesus wants us to enter into His great dynamic of conversion, the one He Himself underwent through His Passion, death, and Resurrection.

So, is Lent about foreseeing and meditating on the mysteries of Holy Week, or is it about personal conversion to the Lord? The answer: It is about both. For God, these two concepts are inextricably united. Jesus’ saving mystery is nothing other than the act of the conversion of mankind to God. And we find our righteousness and salvation, and the strength for our personal conversion, only in the power of His conversion act–in the power of the Cross.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Thank the Lord for going through the humiliation and pain of conversion for you, even though He was sinless. Tell Him that you embrace wholeheartedly His Cross and His offer of conversion even though for you, too, it is a painful process. Ask Him to make your heart a purified, total offering to the Father, like His own.

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March 6, 2021February 19, 2021

Can You Spare Some Change

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

There are two sins that are at particular risk of never finding forgiveness. The first is despair; the second, presumption.

When we despair, we determine for ourselves that we are beyond the reach of Jesus’ salvation. We are in such a bad state, we think, that we cannot be saved. Thus, through a lack of trust in the power of God, we effectively reject our salvation.

When we are presumptuous, we believe that any sins on our part will be forgiven even if we do not repent and convert. God is merciful, we think, so we can remain in our sin without concern.

Despair and presumption display a common characteristic–a very nasty one: Attachment to one’s state of sin. He who despairs and he who is presumptuous both spurn Jesus’ invitation to conversion.

Today’s readings are all about what happens when a sinful soul eschews these two tendencies, and returns full of humility and self-awareness, but also hope and trust, to the Lord.

The souls in today’s readings are ready to change. Hoping for something brand new, they detach themselves from their current state of sinfulness.

Lent is all about this detachment, this conversion. Conversion is not an achievement, but rather a grace, one that we do well to request in prayer immersed in self-awareness and trust in God’s ability to change us.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus for the grace of a wholly renewed conversion during this lent. Ask Him to jar you out of your haze of complacency, out of any presumption you may be experiencing, and on to a new level of union with Him.

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February 20, 2021February 4, 2021

The Great Physician

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

In today’s first reading, God is not reproving His people for their sins, as He sometimes does. Rather, He is offering them hope as He calls them to conversion–hope for full restoration.

And it will come to light that this hope has a name: It is Jesus Christ. Jesus, the great Physician whom we see in today’s gospel.

It is beautiful to abandon our sins wholly, over and over again, in the sacrament of confession, thus exposing our wounds to this great Physician and allowing Him to do the work that He came to do.

Of course, the placement of these readings in Lent is no accident–it is the season of conversion.

It is interesting to reflect that, in addition to our sins, we have our simple human weaknesses. Maybe we struggle with attention span. Perhaps we don’t have as much energy for the day as we would like, or the kind of mental abilities we would like for planning and analyzing. These weaknesses can discourage us sometimes as much as our sins. People can be cruel by forming judgements of us only based on our weaknesses.

Jesus didn’t come to make us different from what we are; He didn’t come to make us good at everything. But what He does promise is that He loves us as we are, as His Father has created us. He loves us with our strengths, and with our weaknesses.

And we know that this love transforms us to participate in the divine nature itself, without taking away the particularities of our human nature, or of our own individual nature.

In the act of loving us, Jesus makes our strengths twice as valuable, and our weaknesses unimportant, as frustrating as they may sometimes be. His love itself transforms the value that we bring to the welfare of others into something beyond measure.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Consider the weaknesses that most frustrate you. Tell Jesus that you give them to Him, and ask Him to make your life valuable for His Kingdom in spite of them–with full trust and confidence that He will do so, beyond your imaginings. Then, ask Him forgiveness for the ways you neglect and offend Him in sin, and trust there too that the great Physician heals you.

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February 4, 2021January 22, 2021

Party Invitation: We Must RSVP

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

The first reading from the letter to the Hebrews contrasts the experience of God in the Old Testament, which was at times terrifying, and the experience of God after Christ’s redemption, which is one of glorious rejoicing. The latter has superseded the former because, as the reading says, of “the sprinkled Blood that speaks more eloquently
than that of Abel.”

Still, we see in the Gospel that the Christian era hasn’t turned the awe-inspiring God whose sight terrified Moses into anything close to a milquetoast divinity. Jesus does not send the twelve out two by two to preach affirmation, but rather repentance. And if any town does not accept their message, they are to shake that town’s dust off their feet as a testimony against it.

Jesus’s good news about the Kingdom of God, and His own sacrifice, is a new lease on life, and opens us to an intimate, joyous, fearless relationship with our awesome God. But throughout the gospels, His response to those who do not welcome this message is not, “There, there, it does not matter. I understand that you have issues.” Rather, He meets those who reject His message with stern warnings.

Jesus’ life, death, and Resurrection have utterly revolutionized the possibilities for our relationship with God, and our access to Him. His act is one of colossal mercy. But this mercy is not to be confused with indifference to human choices, or removal of all their consequences.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Pray ardently for “sinners,” that is, those who defy God, that He may penetrate the wall of their obstinacy and show them the immense treasure that they are missing. Ask Him to convert the sinner, rouse the indifferent, strengthen the weak, and enlighten the confused. Ask Him to leverage the simple gift of yourself and your life as a token allowing Him to exert influence over the freedom of your brothers and sisters.

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January 25, 2021January 15, 2021

Flash of Light

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

How envious we may feel of the early communities visited by St. Paul, who benefitted from such a holy and zealous apostle, an apostle who spoke the truth fearlessly, without inhibitions.

We can also feel envious of Paul himself, who so fully embodied Jesus’ instruction in today’s gospel: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” Perhaps we wish we were as courageous, direct, and uninhibited as Paul.

But today’s first reading helps us remember that Paul wasn’t always Paul. He was Saul the persecutor of Christians, until Jesus Himself took initiative in his life and completely turned it around. It is Jesus’ action in his life, not his own action, that defines Paul.

We are called to evangelize, to tell the world about Jesus. We can feel like we’re not carrying our weight in this regard, and we may be right. But the solution is not to begin parroting the actions of St. Paul. The solution is to beg Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit to take hold of our lives and fill us with the wisdom and boldness to proclaim the Gospel to every creature. Only through their action will we become the sort of apostles we would like to be.

Then, we can pray also that God send more and more apostles like Paul into this jaded world of ours, to bring souls back to Him.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Confidently, without shame, ask Jesus to make you a better apostle. Ask Him to fill you so completely with His joy and with love for Him that you feel truly and deeply compelled to share Him further, like St. Paul.

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November 17, 2020December 12, 2020

Turnaround

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Today’s readings are all about repentance.

The message of the first reading is clear: A half-hearted living of the Christian life is the lowest form of nakedness, blindness, and poverty; this form of Christianity is a hell on earth that finds its fulfillment in eternity. We are called to wake up from mediocrity and attachment to worldliness and give our whole hearts to Christ and His people.

Marvelously, this is precisely what Zacchaeus does in the Gospel passage. Joy comes to his house as he reckless divests himself of all his ill-gotten gains and gives to the poor, his heart detached from his worldliness by the encounter with Christ’s merciful grace.

We are called to be causes of Zacchaeus events through our prayer for sinners and our witness of Christian life. And we have a short time to do it. There is no freedom experienced by the human person like the radical freedom experienced by the person liberated from worldly attachments.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask the Lord to help open your eyes to the opportunities in your life to bring souls closer to Him. Also, resolve with Him to offer all your Masses, prayers, and all the ample sufferings this life provides for the conversion of sinners.

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October 21, 2020September 28, 2020

Saving Mission

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Today’s readings combine in an interesting manner. In the first reading, in talking about his own special mission and how much he appreciates it, St. Paul illuminates not only the providential nature of his own calling, but the providential nature of the history of salvation. Paul clearly sees the entire unfolding of the Old Testament–patriarchs, prophets, kings, etc.–leading up to the culminating moment of salvation in Christ. But the drama doesn’t end there. After Christ, each Christian has a pre-planned role to play as well, and if indeed St. Paul is gifted with great clarity regarding his own, that of each Christian is no less clear in God’s eyes. And, while Paul’s role is particularly foundational for the Church as it forms the Gospel’s bridge to the gentiles, each Christian’s role is similarly critical because it involves a special call to help bring others–specific others, in God’s heart and mind–to their eternal salvation.

This is the service to which Jesus refers in the Gospel. There is a beautiful reference to God’s mercy for those who fail to live up to their calling due to ignorance. But make no mistake: The service that St. Paul performed, and which we too are called to perform, is deadly serious. There are no higher stakes than the eternal welfare of those for whom Jesus poured out His blood. These may be our children if we are married, our flock if we are priests, the recipients of our message if we are missionaries, but importantly–for all of us–those for whom we pray and offer the sacrifice of our daily gift of self to God in this broken world.

Not one of us here on earth, no matter what our circumstances, is deprived of the supreme means and supreme duty of prayer, self-giving, and sacrifice offered in union with the cross of Christ for the enlightenment of those who do not know Him, the strength of those too weak to follow Him, the rousing of the indifferent to enthusiasm for Christ, and the conversion of sinners.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Meditate on the mission of St. Paul. Preaching, missions, writing–the founding of the Church among the gentiles. Consider also, though, that perhaps 90% of his time was consumed in mundane and arduous tasks such as travel. He could have focused on this, rather than the enormity of privilege which was his calling in Christ. Now consider your own calling. Perhaps you think it inglorious by comparison. But is it possible that you undervalue it due to a lack of the eyes of faith? Ask Jesus to inflame your heart with passion for His mission of bringing persons back to Him, and a sense of gratitude for the privilege of cooperating with Him in it.

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October 20, 2020September 28, 2020

On Board for Launch

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

There is a rocket-like thrust in all of Scripture. Scripture is not a philosophy book about the nature of what is. It is a guide for a participation in a massive launch. A launch that takes us from time into eternity.

There is arguably no more prevalent theme in Jesus’ preaching than our eternal destiny: What favors it, and what puts it at risk. Today’s gospel follows this theme, essentially warning us not to be like servants who fall asleep on the job–getting cozy and comfy in our reality in time. But rather, always ready for eternity–always focusing what we do, think, love, and in fact, what we are, on that horizon. And he emphasizes something bracing and beautiful about the reality of entering eternity: It comes in a single, abrupt moment, like the Master knocking on the door upon His return.

This eternal horizon is the backdrop of St. Paul’s, well, congratulations, if you will, of the Ephesians–gentiles–for entering into the covenant of God’s people Thanks to the unifying, expansive saving act of Christ, the gentiles are no longer outsiders. They’re part of God’s “in” crowd.

Especially in today’s polarized political context, we may be accustomed to thinking about people in terms of “us” and “them,” not so differently from the way Israelites may have in the Old Testament. Against the horizon of eternity, it is not the will of the great Unifier, Jesus Christ, that any of the “them” should be lost.

If we are concerned for our own eternal destiny–and we should be, because it depends on the choices of our freedom–should we not be concerned for that of the “them”? How much time/energy do we spend praying and sacrificing for the eternal salvation of persons, perhaps especially those we may consider inimical to God’s saving message?

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Use your imagination and/or capacity for analysis to conjure a clear image of what you consider the “them” in your life. Place them in your heart on a paten, and offer them to Jesus Christ on the cross, asking Him, by His all-powerful sacrifice, to inject miraculous grace into their hearts so that they may discover and embrace Him.

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August 12, 2020July 21, 2020

It’s Either/Or

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

In the 1960s and 1970s, it seemed the Church was replete with theologians excited to invent–convinced, it appeared, that their hour was the hour of innovation. The thirst for innovation seemed in some cases to surpass the thirst for truth.

One of the brand new theological trends of that time, which unfortunately remains prevalent to this very day among even good and noble souls, is the notion that maybe, just maybe–read: probably, likely–all or at least most people in the end are saved.

This supposition flies in the face of the prior one-thousand-nine-hundred-something years of tradition in the Church and the unanimous teaching of the saints. It also flies in the face of the Gospel itself, where Jesus unequivocally states that those who walk the broad road that leads to damnation are many (cf. Mt. 7:13).

Such theology rejects the message of the first reading wholesale, or relegates it completely to Old Testament times. Yet, this first reading is a very tame precursor to the terrible separation of the sheep from the goats at Final Judgement, about which Jesus explicitly speaks (Mt. 25: 31-46).

And in today’s Gospel, He talks about treating those who commit offenses and fail to listen to the Church as outcasts, indicating further that whatever the Church binds or looses on earth is likewise bound or loosed in Heaven.

That God allows souls to be condemned is of course as mysterious as it is certain–but a sort of understanding can be reached if we accept that God values human freedom more than He does human salvation. He would rather allow persons to walk to their own perdition than remove from them their freedom by forcing salvation on them when they have rejected it.

But who in his right mind would reject God’s mercy and eternal life, in the end, if given the choice?

This too, while mysterious, can be understood in a way when we realize that, by and large, people don’t reject God’s mercy and love–they reject the prospect of their own transformation. In the end, only saints stand in the presence of God. Standing before Him without full alignment to Him would in fact be a fate more painful than Hell. Reaching sainthood, whether on earth or in purgatory, is a deeply painful process of detachment, and while the end result is exaltation, the process feels like one is being turned inside out.

And many, many reject the prospect of this process–quietly but explicitly, in the recesses of their hearts–and lose God as the inevitable result. There is no middle ground.

But hearken to the second-to-last statement in today’s Gospel! “If two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.”

Per the message of St. Faustina, the Church must come together as never before and pray and sacrifice for the conversion of sinners. And in line with today’s Gospel, Our Lord assured this saint that prayer for the conversion of sinners is always answered.

Heavenly Father, by the infinite power of the sacrifice of your Son, penetrate deeply into the hearts of sinners, and convert them to yourself! I give you my freedom as a small token; leverage it as you did the self-gift of the Blessed Virgin Mary to pry open the hardened hearts of sinners and show them compellingly what they are missing! Lead them to Yourself!

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Him to what lengths He would go–in fact, went–to open the door for sinners to walk through to their salvation. Contemplate the degree of His sacrifice for the eternal fulfillment of human persons. And ask Him what role He would like you to play to help them put one foot in front of the other and walk through that door.

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