Conversion, Penance and Renewal in the Holy Spirit
By Father Brendan Williams
I always thought that there was something missing in Lent-that is something
other than sugar in coffee, dessert with dinner, meat on Fridays. We
were asked to take on penances, abstain from our favorite goodies and
spend more time praying. Then we had to deal with withdrawal symp-toms
others' and our own. Once during Lent I went on my knees and begged
a coworker to go back on cigarettes, he had become so miserable without
them. For many of us Lent becomes a convenient weight-loss time, when
we secretly revel in the shedding of inches and pounds. Of course we
claim that it is all done for the greater glory of God. An acquaintance
of years back told me that he really looked forward to Lent and his
abstaining from alcohol: It gave his liver a rest.
What was missing in this picture? Perhaps the immediate response would
be, lack of proper motivation. We are supposed to undertake penances
as a loving expression of interior conversion. Acts of self-denial are
an effort to detach ourselves from the attractions of the world, the
flesh and the devil. Our dream then is to be liberated, as a soaring
eagle defies the law of gravity, to live a life of virtue without the
constraints of flesh and mammon. Purification of motive is an essential
element that keeps our sights focused on the greater prize of union
with God. Jesus warns us not to lose sight of this, in the Sermon on
the Mount: "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order
to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in
heaven" (Mtt. 6:1). In fact Jesus applies this principle to all
acts penance-prayer, fasting and almsgiving (Mtt. 6:1 - 18). In doing
so Jesus roundly castigated the hypocrites who seek an earthly reward.
There is, however, another element that we need to examine: the link
between conversion and penance. Acts of penance cannot be separated
from internal conversion to the transforming power of God that comes
to us through Jesus in the Holy Spirit. The Catechism of the Catholic
Church explains: Jesus' call to conversion and penance, like that of
the prophets before him, does not aim first at outward works, "sackcloth
and ashes," fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of
the heart, interior conversion. Without this such penances remain sterile
and false; however, inte-rior conversion urges expression in visible
signs, gestures and works of penance (par. 1430).
Adult conversion is a deliberate decision, powered by grace, to renounce
all allegiances that are not of God and to embrace the Lordship of Christ
in everything that we are and do. It is the free and convincing surrender
of our will to the will of our Father in Heaven in imitation of Jesus.
"My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish
his work" (Jn. 4:34). Humble, obedient surrender to the divine
will is at the heart of all worship. In the Book of Ecclesiastes we
read: Guard your step when you go to the house of God. Let your approach
be obedience, rather than the fools' offering of sacrifice; for they
know not how to keep from doing evil (Eccl. 4:17). This theme is echoed
in Psalm 40:7: Sacrifice and offering you do not want; but ears open
to obedi-ence you gave me. Holocausts and sin-offerings you do not require.
This verse would be applied to Jesus in the Letter to the Hebrews (5:8-9)
to describe His mentality. Jesus clearly proclaimed that our relationship
to Him is intimately connected with our obedient surrender to the will
of His Heavenly Father: But to the one who had told him this, Jesus
replied, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? "And
pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my
broth-ers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother
and sister and mother "(Mtt. 12:48-50).
It is in obedience that Jesus reconciles humanity that was made destitute
by disobedience: For just as by the one man's disobedience the many
were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made
righteous (Rom. 5:8). It is in loving obedience to Christ and to his
word that we find the rock on which to build our spiritual lives (Matt.
7:24). In St. John's Gospel we are assured that it is in this self-surrender
to (belief in) Christ that we receive the fullness of life in the Holy
Spirit. On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus
was standing there, he cried out, "Let anyone who is thirsty come
to me, and let the one who believes in me drink As the scripture has
said, 'Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water."'
Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive;
for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified
(Jn. 7:37-39).
The call to holiness is a life-long journey that will be complete only
when we embrace the Bea-tific Vision in Heaven and are perpetually absorbed
in the Holy Trinity. What begins with Bap-tism continues in a day-to-day
surrender that incorporates struggle and victory, failures and for-giveness,
milestones and new beginnings. The Catechism explains further: Interior
repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a
conversion to God with all our heart, an end to sin, a turning away
from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed.
At the same time it entails the desire and resolution to change one's
life, with hope in God's mercy and trust in the help of his grace. This
conversion of heart is accomplished by a salutary pain and sad-ness
which the Fathers called animi cruciatus (affliction of spirit) and
compunctio cordis (repen-tance of heart) (Par.1431).
We are offered the fullness of life, yet we struggle. We want the freedom
of the Spirit yet we are afraid to let go. We yearn for the power of
God in our lives, yet we are reluctant to surrender control. We despise
our helplessness, yet when the Holy Spirit rattles the cages of our
comfort zones we retort and "kick against the goad" (Acts
26:14). This has been the struggle of the human heart from the very
beginning. Jesus encountered it in his native Nazareth when he began
his public ministry in the power of the Spirit (Lk.4:22ff). Throughout
His public life Jesus painfully experienced the lack of faith and stubborn
blindness of His own people, which had its painful consequences in the
past and would continue to close the doors to God's mercy and love now
and in the future.
Yes, there is struggle today, but there is good news: The Holy Spirit
is with us as our Com-forter, our Consoler, our Advocate who pleads
our cause. If we walk with him through life's des-ert, we will never
be alone; we will never know discouragement. This is after all what
makes the complete picture: a Lenten journey anointed and blessed by
the Holy Spirit every step of the way.
In this Year of the Holy Spirit let us remember that Jesus began His
earthly life and His public life in the Holy Spirit. The Church was
born in the Holy Spirit who is "the Lord and giver of life."
It is in His love and consolation that we enter Lent's desert. It is
in His sanctifying power that we die to self and experience the new
life of Easter. Jesus did not venture into the desert until He was empowered
by the Holy Spirit: Neither should we.
A very blessed journey to a new dimension of overflowing Life to all!
The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright (c) 1993 and 1989 by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
This article may be reprinted for personal use.