Because we are in Lent I wanted to focus on our need for conversion. Since we make the vow of conversion it means that this is really the center of our life in a certain sense, at least in the dynamic sense. Since none of us can ever say in this world, A I have been completely converted@ it= s with us our whole life. The truth about me is that I= m a sinner, but I am a forgiven sinner. I’m a sinner in a state of forgiveness. I’m a sinner in the process of conversion. As long as I= m on earth there will be no other holiness because grace does not relate to us in any other way. We are always called to turn from our center to God= s center, from the man of the flesh, the old man, to the man of grace. So for instance St. Anthony said that every morning he gets up and he starts again. And Abba Poiman who on his death bed when the monks gathered around him and were praising him for his blessed and very virtuous life he turned to them and said, A I am still a beginner and I have barely started.@ When he said that he wept.

So this tells us a number of things. First of all it tells us that it takes time for us to really unfold as human beings. That time is really one of the benefits that God has given us precisely so that we would unfold and mature and also be converted. So we need time.

Benedict in the Rule quoting Scripture of course, tells us that we’ve been given the respite of time precisely that we may repent. We have heard we pray often the Psalm 94 and 95 often for Office and what do we pray? We pray that today if you hear his voice harden not your heart. We can be sure then that Jesus came to save sinners and therefore we have to learn how to stand in our struggle between sin and transformation because it= s the core place where things are happening. Where God is drawing us to transform us. The danger we have is that we can harden our heart not so much in sinfulness as such, but in the attitude that we are righteous. That we’re not so bad. I didn’t kill anybody, etc., therefore not really listen and not really pay attention to how God is calling us. Where is our difficulty. Our difficulty is that we= re well talented. We have skills and so we can become self-sufficient, or self-absorbed. So what happens with that is that we isolate ourselves from grace and from others. It= s easier to live in this hardened state of self-righteousness then it is to stand in this conversion center between the me that is on the way and the me that needs God in his mercy called grace.

So the Lord wants to disturb us. He wants always to disturb us. Not because he wants us to suffer, but rather, to open us up. So we must always quiet down and try to listen to where and how, and under what circumstances the Lord is now disturbing my life. Because God is the most active person in the universe and his love will not let us be mediocre. So he disturbs us. The purpose of that is precisely to make our defenses and our securities collapse as we pray in one of our Evening Prayers that the strong holds of our selfishness and sinfulness may collapse and crumble. The purpose is that new life may come into our life. So we fulfill that gospel passage there= s more joy in heaven by the conversion of one sinner than all those who do not need to be converted to who need repentance.

This is obviously a hard thing for us. It’s a lot easier for us to be distracted. It’s a lot easier for us to not center ourselves in the place where God is working on us. If we don= t stay there then we= re in trouble. Because the fact is if we stand outside this moment we’re standing in a certain sense outside of God’s active love toward us. So we may be content in our exterior mode but actually we’re laying the foundation for either greater self-sufficiency or for a certain amount of discontent in the depths of our being. We cannot stand before God in any other way but at this center between our conversion and the offerings of grace. If we continue to stand in there and allowing the Lord to disturb us what’s going to happen? God will notice when we move toward him and he and his love will move toward us. And that result is called grace. Because repentance is really a deeper surrendering to God, a more urgent opening to the urgent intervention that God is trying to perform in us. So this is the real place where the transformation takes place. We need to take to heart and make our own the prayer of Jeremiah: Make us come back to you, Yahweh, and we will come back.