Paolo Veronese, The Conversion of Mary Magdalene[1]
Today’s Mass readings are the very heart of the Lenten journey. Let us stop for a moment and feel the soothing effect of the words of the Prophet Hosea:
Come, let us return to the LORD,
it is he who has rent, but he will heal us;
he has struck us, but he will bind our wounds.
He will revive us after two days;
on the third day he will raise us up,
to live in his presence.
Let us know, let us strive to know the LORD;
as certain as the dawn is his coming,
and his judgment shines forth like the light of day!
He will come to us like the rain,
like spring rain that waters the earth.”What can I do with you, Ephraim?
What can I do with you, Judah?
Your piety is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that early passes away.
For this reason I smote them through the prophets,
I slew them by the words of my mouth; For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice,
and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Yes, our devotion is like a passing morning cloud or dew that passes away quickly, but God’s love and mercy are constant and firm. That is why year after year, Mother Church reminds her children to devote themselves to conversion through the practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving or charity towards those who are most in need.
Conversion
When I think of conversion, I often bring to mind Fulton Sheen’s words who said that from a psychological point of view “every conversion starts with a crisis, moral or spiritual. The moral crisis begins with a moment or situation involving some kind of suffering¾physical, emotional or spiritual; with a dialectic, a tension, a pull, a duality, a conflict.” We feel on the one hand a sense of helplessness, and on the other “an equally certain conviction that God alone can supply what the individual asks.”[1]
Sheen speaks of a “creative despair”: ‘despair’ because we recognize our spiritual disease, and ‘creative’ because we know that only the Divine Physician can heal us. But if the crisis of conversion is rather spiritual and we realize that we have been only on the surface of sanctity or perfection, this crisis begins at the moment when we recognize that we have tremendous potentialities not yet exercised or that we yearn for something more profound. And this growing sense of dissatisfaction “is accompanied by a passionate craving for surrender, sacrifice and abandonment to God’s will. The shift from mediocrity to love maybe occasioned through the example of a saint, the inspiration of a spiritual book or the desire to escape from mere symbols to divine reality”.[2]
“Conversion is the introduction of a new Spirit… is a metanoia… a change of character,” the becoming of a new person.[3] That is exactly what we ask for in today’s liturgy with Psalm 51:
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me…
My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.
Humiliation
Today’s gospel reminds us that “the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” This humiliation is our conversion but only if inspired by the love of God. Let us fulfil our Lenten duties with a spirit of humility, a crushed spirit so the main fruit of conversion will be the introduction of God’s Spirit in us, a shift from mediocrity to love.
Have a fruitful Lent.
God bless you,
Fr. Marcelo Javier Navarro Muñoz, IVE
Author: The Contribution of Cornelio Fabro to Fundamental Theology. Reason and Faith, Cambridge Scholars Publishing: https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-9315-2
Poesía Sacra, Quemar las Naves, and Desde Fossanova, IVE Press: https://ivepress.org/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conversion_of_Mary_Magdalene, accessed March 22, 2025.
[1] See Fulton Sheen, The Priest is Not his Own, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), p. 106.
[2] Idem, pp. 106-107.
[3] Idem, p. 107.
