So, how’s your Lenten conversion going?
Probably, like a lot of us, not as well as you had hoped. You might have started out with strong intentions, but you’ve flagged in recent weeks. The old zeal just isn’t what it was back in the soul-searching days following Ash Wednesday. The clocks have changed, the weather has changed, and so have we.
But they don’t call it the Gospel for nothing. The “Good News” now is that it’s not too late to prepare our souls for the joy of Easter. With the sorrows and Passion of Holy Week coming, it’s an ideal time to strengthen ourselves by rejuvenating our minds, our attitudes, and our prayers. Within Lent, there’s time to start anew.
In fact Lent is all about renewal, and even though the climax of new life occurs at Easter there are signposts of renewal all along the Lenten road. There is the Feast of the Annunciation, when the angel of God promises new life, Emmanuel, in response to Mary’s fiat; there is Jesus’ revelation to Nicodemus that we must become born again in the Spirit in order to reach the Kingdom of God; and there is the great miracle of Lazarus being raised from the dead, a powerful symbol of Christ’s authority and triumph over sin and death.
To begin again in Lent, it’s important to realize how much Jesus loves us. Lent is not purely a test of our compliance, it’s an opportunity to return His great love in ways we have not explored before. Christ wants us to succeed in loving Him and He goes to great lengths to show us the way to the cross and to resurrection. He’s on our side in the battles we have with ourselves, not watching from a distance and clucking His tongue at us in disappointment. That’s a trick of Satan, not the practice of Our Lord.
“Conversion is nothing more than a deeper discovery of what we already truly desire,” writes Venerable John Henry Newman, the English priest who converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism and was a major figure in the Oxford Movement.
We already know what we desire, even if we haven’t called it by name. We want to be loved. We want the fruits of receiving and giving love, such as peace and a satisfaction with life despite its manifold imperfections.
To draw closer to Christ in mutual love requires our conversion. We can’t get there without it. If we want to make the most of these last weeks of Lent, we’ve got to give something that we’d really rather hold on to. It might be as big as forgiving someone who has done a great wrong to us; it might be as small as making frequent visits to the Blessed Sacrament in the middle of our busy routines.
If you need guidance in finding your path to a Lenten conversion, look close to home first. God Himself knows which path is right for each of us and, with love, He sends the means to effect our conversion, whether we like it or not.
“The best of all penance is that which God sends us,” said Bernard William Cardinal Griffin, speaking in 1952. “Acts of self-denial which we freely choose are precious in the sight of God. But far more precious are those sufferings which we have not chosen and which come to us unasked…To accept God’s will without complaint is the greatest contribution that any Christian can make to the cause of world peace.”
It’s funny, we never think about world peace when we’re faced with suffering, during Lent or at any other time. That’s partly because we’re so wrapped up in ourselves, but it’s also because we don’t understand the mystery of the Body of Christ, and the supernatural relationship among each person on the planet. By drawing closer to Christ in love during Lent, we’re assisting to draw the world closer together. Can you imagine what would happen if every Christian did God’s will? The combined power would supercede all politics, all cultural wars, and all terrorism. The conversion of the world begins with you and with me. So the importance of our Lenten conversion becomes all the more significant.
To make a good end to Lent, let’s go back to the beginning of it. The entire structure of the season is based on Christ’s 40 days in the desert and the three temptations of Satan. Jesus was hungry, tired, lonely and weak. He was in the final stretch and needed rejuvenation, just as we do now. Satan launched his offensive, but the depth of Jesus’ love for His Father, and for us, sustained Our Lord.
Satan offers food to Jesus, knowing His great hunger. The bread symbolizes our own appetites, not only for food and drink, but for all material things including possessions, entertainment, leisure and a comfortable lifestyle. Our appetites for such temptations are never sated. We’re always planning our next activity, our next purchase, our next enjoyment.
Satan then urges Jesus to test God, His Father, by throwing Himself from the heights and trusting God to rescue Him. Here is the great temptation of pride, which leads us into reckless behaviors because we think we deserve more than what God has ordained for our lives. We demand God should agree with what we believe we deserve. The truth is that striving for what we want should always dovetail with striving for what God wants from us.
Finally, Satan promises all the kingdoms of the world to Christ if He will worship the fallen angel. This is the promise of self-divinity, that we can be like gods and rule our own lives and the lives of others. It is the temptation that propels men and women to believe that sin does not exist, that heaven and hell are myths and that true enlightenment comes from within the human mind. Every time we limit our obedience to God, we are practicing self-divinization.
Christ shatters all of Satan’s illusions. By His faithfulness through temptation, we learn that it is God alone Who satisfies all of our appetites; that we must place our trust in His commandments and providence, and not in our own judgment; and that His love and omnipotence has established the one, true Kingdom where eternal life awaits us.
These are the temptations we are still battling today. These are the hurdles on our road to a Lenten conversion. Our hope is in Christ, Whose mercy led Him to establish God’s Kingdom on earth at a great price. He has already won the battle for us, if we would follow His example and teaching. Christ has already overcome what we face right now.
“A man converted is a man who has changed his essential thinking and has aimed his faith in a different direction,” said Antonin Gilbert Sertillanges, OP, a Thomistic theologian and spiritual writer. “Every day, at every hour, we must be converted, that is turned about and turned back towards God from whom the current of life continually turns us away. Conversion means a willingness to see the truth…and conform (ourselves) to it.”
Pray for me, and I will pray for you, as we continue to walk the road to Calvary and the path towards conversion in Christ that He promises will lead to eternal life.
