By Fr. Roy Cimagala *
WE have to be wary of the conditions nowadays that would
tend to desensitize us from our constant need for penance and
conversion. This, I believe, is the message Christ wanted to impart to
us when he said, “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if
the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
they would long ago have repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.”
(Lk 10,13)
We cannot deny that there now are many elements that would
lead us to be self-absorbed and self-centered, to be just concerned
about the here and now and forget about the hereafter, to be stuck
with the material and temporal and ignore the spiritual and eternal.
Even worse, there are now moves toward outright irreligiosity,
directly contradicting God’s laws by legalizing immoral actions like
abortion, etc.
We need to have a drastic revival of our spirit of penance
and conversion. Our spirit of penance and conversion is in crisis
nowadays because our idea of what is good and evil is now reduced to
our personal preferences, or at best to what can be termed as our
social, political, cultural or even ideological consensus.
In short, we are not anymore referring things to God but to
ourselves. This is what is called the post-modern thinking which views
“realities as plural and subjective and dependent on the individual’s
worldview.”
It proclaims that there can be diverse interpretations of
truth. It rejects sharp distinctions and global, absolute and
universal truths. It sees truth as highly individualistic and
subjective, as absolutely bound by culture, time, place and all sorts
of conditionings.
We need to go back to God by first acknowledging our
sinfulness. That we are all sinners and in need of conversion should
come as no surprise to us. We just have to be realistic in handling
this lifetime predicament of ours, making use of all the means that,
thanks to God, have also been made available in abundance.
There’s confession, for one, and the Holy Eucharist,
spiritual direction, regular examinations of conscience, indulgences,
etc.
There’s just one interesting thing that, I believe, is worth
bringing up at this point in time. And that is that conversion should
not just be a matter of a moment, but should rather be a stable state
of mind and heart.
St. John Paul II’s encyclical, “Dives in misericordia” (Rich
in mercy), has some relevant words about this point. “Authentic
knowledge of the God of mercy, the God of tender love,” the saintly
Pope said, “is a constant and inexhaustible source of conversion, not
only as a momentary interior act but also as a permanent attitude, as
a state of mind.”
He continues: “Those who come to know God in this way, who
‘see’ Him in this way, can live only in a state of being continually
converted to Him. They live, therefore in ‘status conversionis;’ and
it is this state of conversion which marks out the most profound
element of the pilgrimage of every man and woman on earth in ‘status
viatoris.’” (13)
It would be good to go slowly on these words if only to feel
at home with this wonderful truth of divine mercy as well as our
lifetime need for it. Let’s hope and pray that we can manage to
conform our attitudes and core beliefs along these lines expressed by
St. John Paul.
