The Fruit of the Proclamation of the Kingdom: Repentance and Ongoing Conversion
The fruit of the third luminous mystery is the spiritual program of our entire lives as Catholic Christians: to repent and be converted, one day at a time. As Fr. Thomas Dubay pointed out in his treasure-of-a-book, Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer, the first recorded words of Christ’s public ministry were a call to conversion: “Be converted, and believe in the gospel” (Mk 1:15).
Would you expect these words to be the first words spoken to you by a stranger?! A trademark of Jesus was His way of surprising people, because He spoke not with human authority but with divine authority, not with human wisdom but with divine wisdom. In present-day Canada – in which the capital social transgression is to be guilty of offending others – we’re often uncomfortable with the idea that something is the matter with us. This makes the prophetic preaching of Christ even more necessary for us today – not less – lest we exclude ourselves from the eternal riches of His kingdom.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:3). This first of the beatitudes sums up the radical interior conversion demanded by the gospel. What is the essence of this spiritual transformation? Fr. Dubay describes perfectly the spiritual condition from which we must be freed:
“Perhaps the most all-embracing trait of the original wound you and I have suffered from our first parents is an omnipresent egocentrism. We experience this I-centeredness every day until hopefully we come closer to saintliness in our lives. Before that blessed time arrives, each of us must admit: Yes, my thoughts and desires and inclinations are spontaneously focused not on others but on myself: my conveniences, my pleasures, my preferences, my possessions, my prospects, my plans, my sufferings, my desires, my aspirations, my reputation, my freedom. Anyone who reflects a bit, and is honest, knows that this is true.” [1]
The radical conversion that Jesus is calling us to is a turning away from our pervasive self-centeredness and a turning towards selfless love for what is objectively true, good, and beautiful. We must love the truth about reality more than we love ourselves, with our subjective, egotistical desires. This is why Jesus says, “Be converted, and believe in the gospel” and not “Believe in the gospel, and be converted.” We will only believe in the words of Christ in the measure that our hearts are open to believing, and this openness requires a love for truth above the confines of our narrow-minded selves.
We have to be little and humble to receive the words of Christ: open to instruction, open to new ways of seeing reality and relating to God and neighbour. Thus, our divine Teacher says to us, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mk 10:15). In an age that glorifies self-autonomy and our self-definitions of reality, this littleness and humility is often viewed as a threat to our freedom and flourishing. In reality, however, authentic freedom lies in slavery to Christ, who alone can free us from slavery to the Evil One and the tyranny of our self-centred desires. We are free in the measure that we have the power to live in accord with what is objectively true, good, and beautiful; and this is the freedom Christ gives to those who give themselves entirely to Him.
In order to free ourselves from the shackles of our self-centeredness, we need to spend time at the Lord’s feet each day, listening to His voice. We do this by meditating on the Sacred Scriptures in the silence of personal prayer, digesting the Word of God in our minds and allowing it to nourish our hearts with the truth it imparts. So many competing voices and narratives surround us … How much time do we spend each day listening to pop culture music, the news, TV, movies, YouTube videos, or social media? The time we spend listening to Christ must exceed the time we spend listening to the world, if we hope to be liberated from that world and its falsehoods. May the Holy Spirit teach us how to make time for sacred silence and speak to us in that silence, that by responding to His promptings with repentance and ongoing conversion, we may find our citizenship in His eternal kingdom.
[1] Thomas Dubay, Conversion/Deep Prayer (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 22.
