23 — CONVERSION

Presence of God. — O Lord, who created me for Yourself, grant that with all my strength I may tend toward You, my last end.

Meditation

1 — Today, in the Epistle of the Mass of the season (Ez. 34, 11-16), we read: “Thus says the Lord God: I will seek out my sheep and rescue them from all places where they were scattered in days of cloud and darkness... and I will bring them into their own land and feed them on the mountains of Israel... On rich pastures I will feed them.” This is the program of what the Lord wants to do in favor of our souls in this holy Lenten time, to lead them to a life of greater purification and deeper intimacy with Him. He stretches out His hand to us not only to draw us from dangers, but also to help us climb toward those higher places where He Himself will nourish us.

On your part, the starting point that will make possible the realization of this divine plan is a new conversion: you must gather your powers, your desires, your affections, which so easily are scattered and linger in the valley of what is human, in order to unite them in one bundle and make them all converge in God, your only and last end. In this sense your Lenten conversion must consist in a generous determination to set yourself more decisively on the way toward perfection. In other words, it is a matter of a renewed purpose of holiness. The desire for holiness is the spring of spiritual life; the more intense and real this desire is in you, the more it will impel you to total commitment. In this first week of Lent, seek to reawaken and strengthen your purpose of holiness. If other efforts made in the past have failed or have not fully reached their goal, do not for this reason be discouraged. “Nunc coepi” - I have begun now, indeed I begin now - repeat humbly, and let the experience of your failures make you place in God alone your trust.

2 — St. Thomas teaches that “in the end one must set no measure” (II-II, q. 184, a. 3, c.). Holiness is the end of spiritual life; therefore you must propose it to yourself not in a diminished, reduced form, but in all its breadth. Breadth that speaks to you of intimate union with God, of full conformity to the divine will, so that this may become the sole motive of all your actions; breadth that speaks to you of full invasion of grace, because when the soul has been totally purified of all that is contrary to the will of God, “then the Lord will communicate to it His supernatural being, so that it will seem God Himself, and it will possess what God possesses” (J.C. A. II, 5, 7). Holiness is fullness of love and grace; it is transformation in God through love; it is deification by grace.

To what measure of love and grace must you attain? This depends first on God’s designs upon your soul and then on your collaboration. Now, on your part, the secret for reaching the goal is never to stop, first because, however much you grow in love, you will never be able to love God as much as He is lovable, and then because you do not know to what degree of holiness God calls you. And besides God does not allow Himself to be outdone in generosity, and the more you give yourself to Him in the exercise of intense love, the more He will give Himself to you by grace.

The measure of loving God is to love Him “without measure”; but if you must set no measure in love, neither must you set measure in conversion. “The Lord says: convert to Me with all your heart” (Joel 2, 12): this is the indispensable condition for loving God with all your heart. Rare are the cases in which this total conversion is realized in an instant by a particular stroke of grace; in general one arrives at it only through a prolonged and progressive conversion. And if in conversion, as in all the work of sanctification, the initiative is always God’s who goes before you with His grace, your collaboration is however required; therefore each day you must apply yourself with renewed commitment to “convert to God with all your heart.” Let this be your Lenten program.

Colloquy

“O Lord of the soul and my only Good, why do You not will that as soon as the soul determines to love You and does what is possible to detach itself from all in order to serve You, it may at once have the consolation of seeing itself in possession of true perfect love? But I have spoken badly; I should have said lamenting: why do I not want it? Yes, the fault is mine if I do not arrive immediately at such honor!... If I could perfectly attain Your love, I would have together every other kind of good. But I, O Lord, am so miserly and so slow in giving myself to You that I never resolve to place myself in the dispositions for receiving it... If this treasure is not given to me all at once, it is because I too, O Lord, do not give myself to You wholly.

“O my God, grant me the great grace of resolution and courage to procure this good with all my strength. If I persevere in it, You, who deny no one Your help, will go on strengthening my courage until You make me come out victorious. Yes, O Lord, I need courage because the devil tries to divert me from this way with an infinity of obstacles” (T.G. Life 11, 1-4).

Grant me, O Lord Jesus, through the infinite merits of Your Passion, to convert to You with all my heart. Do not permit me to be discouraged by the continual reawakening of my disordered tendencies and by the unceasing struggle that I must sustain against them. Let me well understand that, if I want to convert myself totally to You, I must never make peace with my weaknesses, with my defects, with my selfishness, with my self-love. Make me understand that all must be sacrificed to Your love and when all I have sacrificed, I must still say: I am an unprofitable servant, O Lord, for everything is nothing in comparison with the love You deserve, O infinitely lovable One!