February 2, 2011
Conversion of Mary Magdalene, c. 1547, Paolo Veronese (b. 1528, Verona, d. 1588, Venezia), Oil on canvas, National Gallery, London
Today’s reading from the Prologue of the Rule of St. Benedict:
For the loving Lord says: “I will not the death of the sinner, but that he should be converted and live.” (Ez. 33:11)
Father Placidus Kempf, O.S.B. (RIP) mentions that we can’t convert from our evil ways unless we understand some fundamental spiritual truths. He writes:
The first of these is — we are ignorant of ourselves. Many of us are not only ignorant of a great part of our character, but we often imagine ourselves to be quite different from what we are.
The image that came to mind reading this is a crowd of blind people wearing sunglasses, carrying white canes and each holding on to his seeing-eye dog. We all share this characteristic of personality to some extent. Married people are fortunate because our spouses generally give us hearty doses of reality that help us improve our vision and smarten us up about our character.
He goes on to say:
How completely we misunderstood ourselves, how different we really are from what we had thought ourselves to be! We think we are patience personified until our feelings are crossed; we are hurt — and we explode. What revelations have not been made of our interior by illness, by bodily and mental suffering!
We must have a true knowledge of ourselves if we hope to make any progress in perfection. We cannot make any serious attempt to conquer our sins till we know what they are. Hence our first duty in conversion is to have a look inside. No one can do this work for us.
Painful work this is, but so rewarding. The sacrament of Penance is the place where, if we have a good confessor and go often, we receive so many graces to enlighten our minds and hearts. We learn what virtues to work on; people, places, and things to avoid; and good habits to develop.
Father Placidus gives us really good news, too:
Secondly there is nothing in us that is of itself bad. Jesus assumed our nature in its entirety. We cannot imagine that he assumed anything that was inherently evil, or that He created and placed in it what was evil. Analyze the soul of the greatest sinner and of the greatest saint and you will not find in the sinner any single element that is not in the saint.
Compare the soul of Mary Magdalen or St. Augustine before and after their conversion. There was nothing lacking after their conversion that was not there before. They destroyed nothing by their conversion, but were in full possession of all their powers. There was much in Mary Magdalen that she had, perhaps, never dreamed of till she came to Our Lord. He revealed to her true self-development, and she found under His guidance that in her everything was to be used in a fuller way than she had ever imagined possible. From Jesus she learned that holiness is not the emptying of life but the filling of it by the right use of all her powers.
About 10 or so years ago a popular bumper sticker read, “Jesus is the answer”. Sometime I’d like to write more about that, but for now in the age of “positive self image” and “self-development”, and in light of these thoughts on conversion, I just want to say that we find our greatest value in Christ, not on the psychiatrist’s couch or in the psychologist’s armchair. How much money is wasted today on “feeling good about ourselves” when imitating Christ is the best medicine ever? True conversion is possible the more we let in the light of Christ.
Want to subscribe to posts by email? Visit the third box in the sidebar.
R. Now and forever!
(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.
