The Process of Conversion

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Have you ever wanted somebody to love you more? All that God has created was made for man’s good and reveals that they work for man’s good. God wants us to fall in love with Him. Conversion of heart is this love for God in preference to the lies of bodily desires, worldly pressures, and demonic deceptions. The process of conversion is the continual growth in the love of God. The greatest of all love stories and certainly this love is not found and grown to perfection in a day. Even the quickest turns from sin like Saint Paul were just the beginning. We are given our lives to fall in love with God or refuse His love completely. Conversion is a process.

As briefly mentioned in the last post, the purpose of time is conversion. This makes the belief that at one moment in time our lives we are saved is incongruous with what God has made and renders the idea of instant salvation inadequate. Throughout our entire lives, we are given the freedom to choose heaven or hell in each decision, against sin or for sin, and for God or at odds with who we are (His creation). Sin itself is a sort of hell as mentioned in earlier posts. Choosing God’s Will is an entrance into communion with God and therefore bears something significant of Heaven. Time, then, is the opportunity to grow toward or away from God. God Himself entered into time to give man a wide-open door to the path to Heaven in and through time. The fact that time exists necessarily means God has a plan and purpose, since all that God has created was made in some way to serve man. Therefore, throughout all time, we are called to perpetually deeper conversion.

The parable prodigal son pithily and concisely summarizes this process. “the center of which is the merciful father: the fascination of illusory freedom, the abandonment of the father's house; the extreme misery in which the son finds himself after squandering his fortune; his deep humiliation at finding himself obliged to feed swine, and still worse, at wanting to feed on the husks the pigs ate; his reflection on all he has lost; his repentance and decision to declare himself guilty before his father; the journey back; the father's generous welcome; the father's joy - all these are characteristic of the process of conversion. The beautiful robe, the ring, and the festive banquet are symbols of that new life - pure worthy, and joyful - of anyone who returns to God and to the bosom of his family, which is the Church. Only the heart of Christ who knows the depths of his Father's love could reveal to us the abyss of his mercy in so simple and beautiful a way.”.[1] Through the process, the sinner “leaves” communion with God in pursuit of finite goods, discovers their finitude and leaps back into the merciful embrace of God’s love. Forgiveness is the first step of communion with God. In such communion, God will bless us with a steady increase in perfection as with life in His love.

In conclusion, assent to the concept of procedural conversion allows room for mercy with self and others. We must cooperate with God’s grace as much as possible if we continue to grow in His love and in loving Him. Yet, what does it take to fall in love? As God helps us we grow in the ability to love God when we are purified of our sin, brought to greater knowledge of God, and enveloped in the infinity of His love. “Only by the road of conversion that we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven” now (both already and not yet to the fullest extent) and after death[2].  Through conversion, we pass from death to life.[3] In this great love story, We accept everything God gives us for everything He gives helps us through the process and thus is for our good whether sweet consolations and joy or bitter sorrow and suffering (cf. Exodus). All was made to draw us deeper in love and conversion to God.

 FN:

  1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1439.
  2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1470.
  3. Ibid.
Lord, I have this thorn in the flesh,
yet in your mercy, I find no distress.
Broken and alone this world makes me feel,
yet in the silence I know you can heal.
I am a created entity, not a person.

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