8th Sunday after Pentecost 22.7.07 Conversion
This corresponding Sunday in a year’s time the World Youth Day will be on in Sydney. There is much excitement and build-up to the event.
The Latin Mass will be represented by the Juventutem movement.
Some traditionalists are sceptical of such events, worrying about such things as irreverence to the eucharist, hosts being left on the ground etc.
While some of the things that happen will be far from ideal, we can still expect good things to come from such an event.
There will be conversions to the faith, and that is always a major priority.
The Church, wisely looking ahead (to 2028) is hoping to hold those conversions and help those presently young to grow old without losing any of the fire.
A conversion is not meant to be a supernova, a brightly exploding star, beautiful for the moment but then darkness.
It is more like the bottom row of bricks on a wall, that can be built on continuously and get better and better with time.
If you are converted at 20 and filled with enthusiasm you should be twice as good at 40 and four times as good at 80.
The good thing about the big events is the expectation is higher and people are more inclined to go beyond their usual cautious responses.
The Pentecostals have been doing this for years with their altar calls. It is not wrong to capitalise on high emotions, if the end result is conversion and salvation.
But we have to make sure that the good resolutions made at such times will stick.
How to do this? The readings today call for a clear grasp of the relationship of the flesh and spirit (epistle), material world and spiritual world (Gospel).
The essence of the matter is that we need to live in the flesh and material world with a totally spiritual understanding.
If the flesh is operating outside of the spirit’s control then our life is out of control.
If we put money (or any material thing) above the life of heaven, then we are in danger of losing our soul.
We can look for help to those who have done it best – the saints. During each week we celebrate saints who have left everything to follow Our Lord. The consistent feature of these saints is the totality of their conversion.
They literally left everything to follow Him. They turned their lives upside down and never looked back.
Many of them were rich, young, of noble birth, looking at very comfortable lives, and they gave it all away to work with the sick and the poor. Or they left their palaces and lived in caves. Many of them gave away their lives either in martyrdom or strenuous service.
Overdoing it, many would say, but not really ‘over’, just doing what Our Lord said.
The rest of us are ‘underdoing’ it!
Conversion calls for a life which maintains that sense of drastic realignment. We cannot just tinker around the edges of things if we have been converted. We have to grasp the new life with our whole being - dive into the pool, not just put our toe in.
This means making significant breaks with patterns of sin. If we have lived in the flesh, addicted to sinful behaviour, we have to break completely with those things, not just reduce them a little bit.
The saints show us the way. Renounce altogether impurity, gluttony, vanity, 7 deadly sins, and seek only Christ.
We don’t all have to be monks and nuns, but we do all have to be holy. We cannot all live in caves, but we can all keep our hearts and minds pure for God alone.
The main point is to grasp the totality of what conversion means. We do not look back to Egypt; only forward to Heaven.
So everytime we hear of World Youth Day, all of us of whatever age can think of conversion, seeking it for others, renewing it for ourselves, living it like the saints.
