Making Disciples: Building Toward Conversion
Part Nine: Once someone has encountered Jesus, the need to change, repent and convert becomes clear.
Editor's Note: This column is part of a yearlong series on evangelization, breaking down what often feels like a tall order into real, practical, actionable steps towards intentional accompaniment.
I remember my Baptism. I was five years old.
It was March 29, 1997. The Easter Vigil in the old St. Ann Church in Coppell, Texas.
My grandparents drove up for it. My aunt drove up to be my godmother. My dad’s best friend flew in to be my godfather.
It was going to be a day that changed everything — at least, that’s what Sister Ruth had promised me.
I wore a nice little tuxedo, and I remember the white gown I had to throw over it mid-Mass.
I remember leaning my head over the baptismal font, situated neatly in the middle of St. Ann’s congregation, and Monsignor Broderick baptizing me in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
As I was ushered away, I turned around to watch my mom be baptized next, and I remember thinking, “Was that it? Did I really just change like Sister Ruth said I would?”
I certainly didn’t feel any different, but I trusted that something monumental had happened inside of me.
What a grace! Not every five-year-old would respond like that — believing something spectacular happened even though they didn’t feel it happen.
My Baptism was my first conversion, the moment I was made a member of Christ.
If you’ve been baptized, then you've also received what the Church calls your first conversion (see CCC 1427). Whether you remember this moment or not (and whether you felt anything or not), you received the gift of new life that Christ gives in Baptism. What a grace!
Second Conversion
But our faith journey doesn’t stop with our Baptism.
The Church calls us to a second conversion — a lifelong process of ever-deepening repentance and spiritual renewal (see CCC 1428). As one of the four original doctors of the Church, St. Ambrose, once taught: “There are water and tears: the water of Baptism and the tears of repentance.”
Repentance is much more than a feeling of regret for our sins. It’s also much more than a visit to the confessional (though both those things are great and necessary). According to the Catholic Church:
Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed. At the same time, it entails the desire and resolution to change one's life, with hope in God's mercy and trust in the help of his grace (CCC 1431, emphasis mine).
Repentance is a “radical reorientation” of our lives, a complete shift in how we think about reality. It’s a turning from sin and turning to God. It’s a change in desire — a genuine affection for Godly things and real distaste for evil things.
It’s spiritual maturation.
And this is a process. Maturation is always a process.
In a world of quick fixes and Amazon clicks, we want one-and-done solutions. But genuine repentance is not an Amazon click. Oh, if only.
Encounters Lead to Deeper Conversion
As the Church teaches, “It is in discovering the greatness of God's love that our heart is shaken by the horror and weight of sin and begins to fear offending God by sin and being separated from him.” In other words, it’s by encountering God that we launch into our second conversion.
When we encounter God’s greatness, we encounter the need to change our lives.
I remember the moment that kicked off my second conversion.
It was January 3, 2015. Saturday night at the SEEK Conference in the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee.
I was front row for Father Mike’s famous talk, “The Hour That Will Change Your Life.” Adoration immediately followed.
Jesus in the Eucharist processed through the entire conference center, and then he came right to me.
And as I looked up at him, I knew. I knew he was there. I knew he saw me. I knew he loved me. I knew how great he was.
And I knew I needed to amend my life.
The years that followed were marked by my very slow inching closer to Jesus. Two steps forward, one step back. One step forward, two steps back. And it’s still a slow process of me inching ever closer to him.
If I had someone intentionally accompanying me, I’m sure I would have made quicker progress, but the Lord has been patient and gentle with me.
As we intentionally accompany someone and lead them to encounter God, we, too, should be patient and gentle as we lead our friend to a second conversion (or a first conversion if they haven’t been baptized!!)
Put another way, our job when it comes to intentional accompaniment is to help someone develop an unshakeable commitment to Christ.
This means helping them continue developing the spiritual practices of a disciple of Christ, but it also means helping them confront their shortcomings as they realize the need to amend their life. Maybe that’s by being an accountability partner for them, or maybe that’s by helping them find a counselor to confront their trauma. It could be as simple as asking them how things are going whenever you meet up for coffee. Our accompaniment will look different for every person, because every person has a unique set of struggles and sins, but our job will always be to remain present, gentle and steadfast in what the Church holds to be true.
No Turning Back
You’re either married or you’re not married. There’s no such thing as being “kind of married.” In a similar way, someone is either in a lifelong relationship with Jesus or not.
Our second conversion is the process of fortifying a lifelong relationship with Jesus, one in which there’s no turning back.
As we accompany someone, we're leading them to this commitment — a wholehearted decision to become like Jesus wherever they are, with whoever they are with, and doing whatever work they are doing.
As I explore in my new book, All Your Heart: How to Live for Christ Without Holding Back, this second conversion must be threefold: it must encompass the intellect, the will and the heart. It must include an intellectual buy-in to the Catholic faith, a firm decision of the will to follow what the Church teaches and an active engagement with the person of Christ through prayer and sacrificial love.
But our work doesn't stop at helping someone experience those three things. It's not enough to undergo a change of heart. One must go and help others experience that change of heart. More on that in my next column!
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Making Disciples is an ambitious, yearlong series of columns meant to equip readers with the formation, both theological and practical, to go and make disciples as Jesus himself commanded in Matthew 28. Through these columns, we hope Denver Catholic readers will join us in preaching the Gospel, so that in Jesus Christ all might be rescued and have abundant life, for the glory of the Father.
