CONVERSION

CONVERSION

Metanoia

Conversion of heart or metanoia is an interior repentance, a radical reorientation of our whole life, and a return to God with all our heart, an end to sin or a turning away from evil (cf CCC 1431). Metanoia is not simply repentance, but a radical change of direction from a negative fundamental option towards God. This entails the desire and resolution to change one’s life with hope in God’s mercy and trust in the help of his grace.

In the New Testament the term metanoia does not have root from any profane context, but from a religious one, as it comes from the Old Testament. It involves the participation of the whole being. The prophets stressed very much the importance of the conversion as the necessary way to salvation (Jeremiah, Deutero-Isaiah, Ezekiel). In the New Testament John the Baptist calls to repentance as preparation for the coming of the Messiah. But Jesus further deepens its concept. The mercy of God for the salvation of humanity is freely offered through him. Human beings’ conversion, which is a total acceptance of Jesus in faith source of transformation of one’s life, is the condition for the reception of this salvation. In John, conversion is expressed under the category of crisis and ‘walking in the light’. In the Letter to the Hebrews, the author calls for a second conversion to which all Christians are called in order to deepen the discipleship of Christ.

Conversion is always a response to God’s call to open oneself to God’s self-communication through Christ in the Holy Spirit. This ‘new’ relationship with God is the source of true human freedom and fulfillment. To this call, human beings remain free to answer. But to those who answer positively, the result is a progressive journey of freedom from sinfulness. The Kingdom of God, freely offered out of pure mercy, can finally come into our hearts and make us able to love and to give ourselves freely to others, till our complete self-denial. It is the Pauline ‘life in the Spirit’.

It is in discovering the greatness of God’s love that our heart is shaken by horror because of our sins or choices of being separated from him. The discovery of the unconditional love of God for us human beings is not so automatic or simple as one may think, at least, concretely. The main obstacle to conversion is indeed the attitude of self-righteousness and the hardening of human hearts towards God, as said already in the Old Testament and stressed also in the Gospels. We all know that God his love and loves us, but our choices often deny what we think of. Every time we choose knowing that something is against what God has revealed to us through Christ under the guide of the Church means that:

1. we do not believe in the fact that God’s commandments are for our real good (cf. also the account of the original sin in Gen, where Adam and Eve think possible of a God who can hide something for their happiness to them),

2. We are so proud to put what we may understand as being good for us prior to what Christ through others or the Church may tell us (Adam and Eve put the serpent’s version of the truth prior to God’s love).

Therefore, our journey towards God is basically itself a journey of metanoia, of change of mind, from one in which we are proudly the only ones to decide of ourselves to another in which we humbly acknowledge our weakness and our need of Christ and the Church, not only as revealers (respectively as source and mediation) of the truth about ourselves, but also as respectively source and mediation of reconciliation with God, with others, the creation and within ourselves.

This journey is continuously put at risk by our concupiscence and attraction to the created goods which, when misused, can lead us far away from God. The discussion about the fundamental option and the warnings about it by the pope tell us that it is not only by a conscious refusal of God that we may find us in a state of sin and therefore of condemnation. Because of the unity of human being, repeated sins, though not mortal ones, and lack of sincere will of amending oneself (impenitence) can lead to a state of sin too. Rationalization is the most common way how we stop practically listening to God, because by it we find all justifications in order to decide on our own independently from God’s revelation.

This journey is not only a journey to final salvation, but also a journey towards the fulfillment of one’s life in this earthly life, in which we are called to purify our feelings, will and knowledge from our sins and from our sinful inheritance. Jesus assured us that nothing will prevent us from being saved, provided that we constantly choose him (cf. Rom 8:38-39). For this, we need to acquire a continuous attitude of metanoia as an attitude of humility and faith in Christ and in the mediations he has chosen to offer us.

Conversion is experienced or accomplished in daily life by the gesture of reconciliation, concern for the poor, the exercise and defense of justice and right, the admission of faults to one’s brother, fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience, spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering and endurance of persecution and the daily carrying of one’s cross.

Therefore, the sacrament of Reconciliation is expression of a journey of conversion as a response to the initiative of divine grace and love, by which we move closer and closer to God by improving our ethical standard of life, and vice versa. The sacrament of reconciliation is the ordinary way of obtaining forgiveness and remission of grave sins committed after baptism. In the revised ‘Order of Penance’ (1973) we see how the stress is not only in the repentance from one’s sins, but also in the true contrition and resolution to change one’s life according to the motion of the Holy Spirit. Conversion and sacrament of reconciliation however, do not involve only the relationship between a person and God, but have a communitarian and even ‘environmental’ aspect, that is reconciliation with his people and his creation. Sin affects the community as much as conversion enriches it in grace. Therefore, the ‘Order of Penance’ no 8 states: “the whole Church as priestly people participate in the work of reconciliation entrusted to it”. Hence, conversion and reconciliation bring back unity and communion with God and the Church. As John Paul II says in Reconciliatio et Penitentia, the minister is judge in a tribunal of mercy and healer of human weaknesses and sinfulness (RP 31).

The distinction between the three levels of conversion that I suggest is based on Lonergan’s understanding of conversion. According to him, human beings have a basic call to self-transcendence, and conversion is the way they move into different modalities of self-transcendence that allow them to reach the final goal.

Intellectual conversion (or cognitive as called by others) – The person starts looking at the reality in a different way. He or she understands that grasping it is not just seeing it, but also “experiencing, understanding, judging, and believing” (Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology, 238), which are the four levels of intentional consciousness. The person therefore does not rely only on what he or she perceives, but also on the community’s judgment or evaluation or experience. He or she becomes aware of different levels of meanings, of the difference between perception and objective truth. Basically it means that the person becomes aware of the fact that his or her perception of reality is not the objective truth, though called to search for the truth. Therefore, he or she becomes more critical about his or her own experiences. Together with this negative dimension, there is the positive one whereby the person now looks for meanings, for the truth, not only for perceptions and feelings.

Moral conversion – “Moral conversion changes the criterion of one’s decisions and choices from satisfaction to values” (Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology, 240). When there is to choose between what gives satisfaction and what is valuable, the person chooses the latter in case of conflict. It is a dynamic conversion as the possession of the right criteria of evaluation of the values is acquired with time, with a more and more openness to what is truly and objectively good and a greater and greater ability to discern what is not good in the self, in the culture, and in history. This happens by an increased openness to the Holy Spirit’s action in us. The person therefore becomes an authentic decision-making. Nevertheless, this conversion can be uncritical or critical. In the first case, the person really makes a change in his or her life, but not as fruit of a conscious decision. It may simply be an acceptance of a set of values given by a certain community or source. It generally happens in the adolescence, when one becomes able to distinguish between a value and ‘what is good for me’. But in an environment of pluralistic values and pseudo-values, either one undergoes a critical moral conversion or he or she risks to get lost and not to reach an authentic living. Here, the intellectual conversion comes in. For an uncritical moral conversion the intellectual conversion is not necessary, because as said the acquisition of values as prior to satisfaction can be an automatic process of human maturity. But for a critical moral conversion, the person is consciously aware of the call to transcendence. Therefore, the values he or she will look for will be in agreement with the objectively right meanings of the reality. Values need truth to be objective values and therefore to lead people to their self-transcendence.

Theological conversion (or religious conversion) – It is when a person is totally grasped by ultimate concern or love of and for God. It is a falling in love unconditionally, leading to surrender to the transcendent, and a gracious being-in-wholeness. In here, the person is dynamically taken up by grace, as he or she becomes more and more able to consciously embrace the values accepted in faith from Christ and the Church. At this level, the fruits of intellectual and moral conversion are taken up and finally fulfilled into true joy and love.

To be clarified is that though the religious conversion is the sublimation of all the previous stages, the movements of the grace is present from the beginning. Therefore, from the causal point of view, God comes always first.

It is the conversion to the faith, to God as requested by Jesus (Mk 1:15, Acts 2:38).

Rev. Fr. Joseph Nyamunga Mubiru, SSA
P.O.BOX 15318 Code 00509,
LANGA'ATA-NAIROBI (E.A),
Office : +254-020-230-806
Cellphone:+254-722-585-329