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People have said that conversion (to Catholicism) is a lifelong process. The Catechism and other sources indicate that persons can be converted well before death.
I realize that learning is a lifelong process.
Can you please comment on these issues.
Don
{ Can you comment on 1.) converting to the faith and 2.) learning the faith as a lifelong process? }
Eric replied:
Dave,
You have to define your terms first.
What do you mean by "conversion"?
Once someone is baptized, confirmed, and eucharized into the Catholic faith, there is a certain sense that they have "converted", in that they are fully initiated. But conversion to Christ, (which we expect conversion to Catholicism would be) is, in another sense, "not a one-time experience but rather a lifetime transformation that is caught up in savoring the mystery revealed in Christ."
"In this life, conversion is a goal which is never fully attained: on the path which the disciple is called to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, conversion is a lifelong task."
In speaking of conversion, the New Testament uses the word metanoia, which means a change of mentality. It is not simply a matter of thinking differently in an intellectual sense, but of revising the reasons behind one’s actions in the light of the Gospel. In this regard, Saint Paul speaks of:
This means that true conversion needs to be prepared and nurtured though the prayerful reading of Sacred Scripture and the practice of the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist. Conversion leads to fraternal communion, because it enables us to understand that Christ is the head of the Church, his Mystical Body; it urges solidarity, because it makes us aware that whatever we do for others, especially for the poorest, we do for Christ himself. Conversion, therefore, fosters a new life, in which there is no separation between faith and works in our daily response to the universal call to holiness. In order to speak of conversion, the gap between faith and life must be bridged. Where this gap exists, Christians are such only in name. To be true disciples of the Lord, believers must bear witness to their faith, and “witnesses testify not only with words, but also with their lives”.(68)
We must keep in mind the words of Jesus:
“Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
Openness to the Father’s will supposes a total self-giving, including even the gift of one’s life:
2608 From the Sermon on the Mount onwards, Jesus insists on conversion of heart: reconciliation with one's brother before presenting an offering on the altar, love of enemies, and prayer for persecutors, prayer to the Father in secret, not heaping up empty phrases, prayerful forgiveness from the depths of the heart, purity of heart, and seeking the Kingdom before all else. (cf. Matthew 5:23-24, 44-45; 6:7, 14-15, 21, 25, 33) This filial conversion is entirely directed to the Father.
2784 The free gift of adoption requires on our part continual conversion and new life. Praying to our Father should develop in us two fundamental dispositions:
First, the desire to become like him: though created in his image, we are restored to his likeness by grace; and we must respond to this grace.
— We must remember . . . and know that when we call God "our Father" we ought to behave as sons of God. (St. Cyprian, De Dom. orat. 11:PL 4:526B)
— You cannot call the God of all kindness your Father if you preserve a cruel and inhuman heart; for in this case you no longer have in you the marks of the heavenly Father's kindness. (St. John Chrysostom, De orat Dom. 3:PG 51,44)
— We must contemplate the beauty of the Father without ceasing and adorn our own souls accordingly. (St. Gregory Of Nyssa, De orat. Dom. 2:PG 44,1148B)
Lucas Pollice puts it this way:
Faith is an ongoing process, not just a one-time event of “coming to faith.” Our hearts and minds must be open to God and His salvation each and every day so that He will be able to accomplish His work within us. Faith is the beginning of eternal life that will be fulfilled when we one day enjoy the fullness of God’s presence in heaven. This openness, this “obedience of faith” to all that God has revealed to us through Christ, is the disposition we ought to have throughout our lives. Life, for man, is a journey of faith and ongoing conversion in which we turn away from sin and toward God. We come to know that transcendent God who draws us into relationship with Himself through a continuous opening of our hearts and minds to Him, and all that He desires for us and desires to give us.
Through the obedience of faith—the complete submission of our hearts and minds to God—we completely surrender and open ourselves to His revelation so that we may become holy and pleasing in His sight and accomplish His works. We give ourselves wholly and entirely to Him. It is a total submission; it is holding nothing back. We give Him our reason, our intellect, our will, who we are and what we do. We allow Him to guide us and to help us live the way that He wants us to live. This surrendering of ourselves to God through faith is the complete gift of ourselves to Him who has already pledged to us a total gift of Himself through Christ Jesus.
Catechesis aims therefore at developing understanding of the mystery of Christ in the light of God’s word, so that the whole of a person’s humanity is impregnated by that word. Changed by the working of grace into a new creature, the Christian thus sets himself to follow Christ and learns more and more within the Church to think like Him, to judge like Him, to act in conformity with His commandments, and to hope as He invites us to.
To put it more precisely: within the whole process of evangelization, the aim of catechesis is to be the teaching and maturation stage, that is to say, the period in which the Christian, having accepted by faith the person of Jesus Christ as the one Lord and having given Him complete adherence by sincere conversion of heart, endeavors to know better this Jesus to whom he has entrusted himself: to know His “mystery,” the kingdom of God proclaimed by Him, the requirements and promises contained in His Gospel message, and the paths that He has laid down for anyone who wishes to follow Him.
It is true that being a Christian means saying “yes” to Jesus Christ, but let us remember that this “yes” has two levels:
It consists in surrendering to the word of God and relying on it, but it also means,
at a later stage, endeavoring to know better — and better the profound meaning of this word.
Of course, there is also the facet which, I think, you allude to that involves learning more about the faith and becoming perhaps more secure and more deeply rooted in it. Someone who joins the Church as an adult experiences, hopefully, growth into their Catholic faith after they become Catholic.
Does this adequately address your question?
Eric Ewanco
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