Where would you go if someone asked you, "Where can I find what Christ is like?" Would you refer them to the Rule? Would you refer them to lives of Saints? Would you invite them to our monastery and say, "here’s the place to discover what Christ is like."

Yet this is exactly what the document on the Church says about religious life. That the church expects that the religious would more and more reveal Jesus. Within our daily life we would reveal his prayer life, his charity, his gentle life style, his meekness and humble of heart, etc. Then in the document on the missions it says it’s very important to have monastic communities in areas of mission because they are witness to the life of Christ and they do it precisely by their conversion.

The call of life which we vow is conversatio morum, ongoing conversion, it’s at the heart of this question. Really it is a kind of intensification of what the whole church does every year in the Paschal mystery, we renew our baptismal vows. We say we reject sin and we want to live as children of God, we say we reject all evil and that we turn away from the allurements of sin and that we reject Satan and all his works.

So where do we find the spirit of conversion in the Rule that will help and guide us all the time? The easiest chapter for that is really Chapter 4. In that chapter we have the whole series of Christ-like behaviors, almost all of the items are taken from Scripture in which we are called to deny self, practice the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, to walk humbly, to be gentle and thoughtful, etc. It intensifies spiritual life, it’s all there. So we can pick any one section to increase and intensify our work of conversion.

But there are obstacles to conversion that our tradition also tells us about. One can be taken from the apothem of the Father. A young monk decided to join the monks and he sold everything but he kept some money to take care of his expenses. He came to Anthony and he told him what he did. Anthony told him to go to the village and buy some meat and tie it to your naked body and come back. So he did. On the way back the dogs chased him and tore at him and the birds dived at him. So he was all beat up but he made it. Anthony asked him, "Did you do what I told you?" He said, "Yes, I did." Anthony told him, "Anyone who holds back when they come to religious life will be tortured by Satan like you were." That’s one question, how are we looking at our conversion to come to know Jesus and to be united with him?

The second one is in the tradition also, especially by Cassian. He talks about acedia. Aascedia is that whole range of dispositions that basically says that spiritual life is boring. It means laziness, it means certain kind of spiritual idleness, it means a certain kind of boredom with things spiritual. It’s very hard for the Lord to touch the person’s heart because they are dead to the inspirations. Yet that is precisely the call that we have. That the Lord is asking as he draws us to monastic life and the real epitome of conversion is really what Jesus says in John’s gospel. The relationship between the Father and the Son is the model for conversion, that is, Father loves me so that I may be in you and you may be in me. So it’s Christ living in us, we living in Christ, is the effective end of conversion. That makes us then witnesses and makes visible Christ in the world.

So the call to really manifest Christ, the place we are called to reveal Jesus is right here in our own life.