Knitting a Conundrum

Particularly appropriate is Jesus' exhortation, recorded by the Evangelist Mark: "Repent and believe in the Gospel" (Mark 1:15). The sincere desire for God leads us to reject evil and to do good. This conversion of the heart is above all a free gift of God, who created us for himself and has redeemed us in Jesus Christ: Our happiness consists in remaining in him (cf. John 15:3). For this reason, he himself anticipates our desire with his grace and supports our efforts of conversion.

But what does conversion really mean? Conversion means to seek God, to walk with God, to follow docilely the teachings of his Son, Jesus Christ; to be converted is not an effort to fulfill oneself, because the human being is not the architect of his own destiny. We have not made ourselves. Therefore, self-fulfillment is a contradiction and is too little for us. We have a higher destiny.

We could say that conversion consists precisely in not considering ourselves "creators" of ourselves, thus discovering the truth, because we are not authors of ourselves. Conversion consists in accepting freely and with love that we depend totally on God, our true Creator, that we depend on love. This is not dependence but liberty.

---Pope Benedict XVI, 2007

Seeking God is not particularly popular in this time and era. A lot of people practice "spirituality" designed to make themselves feel good about themselves, but that have little to connect themselves to God...instead it is often about being self-empowered, self-fulfilled, self-contained.

Yet to truly become transformed into the people we ought to be, the basis is not "Me," but "Thee," the relationship with the Other, God. And that cannot happen without conversion, turning away from ME to listening to God.

It is all about relationship, to love as we have been loved, to prepare ourselves for the coming of the Bridegroom who loves us above his own life. Through love, we can learn to be salt and light and leaven to a sad and hurt world, or rejecting that love, we can go down into a maelstrom of hate and anger and bitterness.

The spousal relationship is the metaphor God has long used to describe his relationship with us. Rejected, he comes seeking for us. Loving us, he allows us to return to him. He seeks us in the desert of our lives, and if we listen to his beguiling voice, he will turn us from being broken and lost into loved and transformed.

But we must listen. We must turn to him. God says of the lost soul, "Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. " (Hosea 2:14), but she must respond. God does not make us into puppets, doing whatever he says. He wants the response of our heart, and if we give it, we will have peace and joy, and be made into something we never expected.

That is being converted.

Now is the time to look at how willingly we are willing to let God convert us, how willing are we to let God into our lives, to see the areas we are keeping him at arm's length, and realizing what we are doing, open up our heart more fully to our Beloved.

Labels: Conversion, Lenten meditations, Spiritual Growth