More than 2,000 years ago, a man by the name of Saul was going to Damascus. He was thinking of one thing only: persecute the followers of a man named Jesus, find them, arrest them, jail them and put them to death. He was very good at his mission for he was a determined a focused man. But something happened on that road to Damascus. A bright and intense light suddenly struck Saul. It was such that Saul became temporarily blind. And he fell to ground. He heard a voice speak to him that said, “Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me?” And Saul replied “who are you?” And the voice replied “I am Jesus the Nazorean whom you are persecuting.”
That man Saul we all know today as St. Paul, one of the great apostle of our faith. His story is one of the most memorable and timeless story of change and transformation. From a persecutor of the faith to a preacher of the faith in Jesus, from being Saul the Pharisee to becoming St. Paul the missionary Apostle, from being a sinner to a saint. What happened to him is what should happen to each one of us. We all have to undergo our own road to Damascus, we all need to have our conversion moments.
What is conversion? Conversion is a deep experience of transformation of the mind, will and heart toward God. In St. Paul we find that experience. First, his conversion began with God and ended with God. It was God who made the first move and invited him to undergo conversion. God, in Jesus, reached out to him revealing himself to St. Paul as the one he is persecuting. Every conversion begins with the Lord extending his forgiving hand to us. We can refuse it and say “no” or we can accept it and say “yes.” Every conversion is always by and through God’s amazing Grace.
Second, conversion needs a deep change. Not a temporary and momentary change. For St. Paul, it he needed to become blind and fall to the ground. Only by becoming blind can a new set of eyes, a new way of seeing and understanding can replace his old ways and old life. His change was not only in name, Saul to Paul, but in his mind, will and heart. He needed to be humbled so God can enter his life and transform him in the deepest part of his person.
Third, conversion is a never-ending story. It must be followed by constant and faithful changes, smaller transformations at important moments in our life. As overcoming sin and human weakness is a continuing struggle, so too must our conversion be. Repentance is a unique and constant way that we express our conversion. It requires that we accept our human condition of weakness, frailty and failures. A story might help. A teacher of Grade 5 students in Religion asked her students:
If all good people are like the matamis na mangga (unripe, green mangoes) and all the bad people are like the maasim na mangga (ripe, sweet mango), what kind of mangga are you? One student said he was like a sweet, ripe mango for he was obedient to his parents. Another answered saying he is like the unripe, sour mango for he was the headache of his parents. But one girl said: I’m not really a sweet mango all the time, nor, Am I like the sour green Mango always. “Ako’y manibalang na mangga!”
Genuine conversion takes place when we come to accept the wise observation of Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, “There is a crack in everything God has made.” Conversion cannot take place if we deny our imperfection. It doesn’t mean that everything God created is bad. It just means we are not perfect. If we were, we would have no need for God in our lives. We must acknowledge our weaknesses and accept our tendency towards transgressions. All the saints became saints because they accepted their own weaknesses. Such acceptance is the foundation of conversion and healing.
The problem of experiencing real conversion is basically a problem of not letting God be who He is. Conversion does not happen in our lives because we have done what Adam and Eve did. We want to be god ourselves. We depend only on our own will power to change ourselves. We believe that by our self-discipline alone we can get rid of our sinful habits. We have relied alone on our own inner strength to control our sinful inclinations. But how many times have we seen that no matter how much repression of oneself we do to get rid of our sinful habits, no matter how much will power we exert, no matter how much inner strength and personal discipline we apply, we fall into the same sin again and again. We continue doing the same sinful habits. The same sinful inclinations we have vowed to eradicate continue to control us. When the Israelites were in the desert they realized that they were powerless unless they depended on God for everything. When they allowed God to be God, everything went well. But whenever they tried to complain against God, take upon themselves the identity of God and depend on their own power, disaster would always follow them.
We have to do what St. Paul did if we want to be converted to Christ. We have to dismantle our pretenses of self-sufficiency and self-righteousness. Genuine conversion from a sinful life can take place if we allow God to be God. Do you have a weakness that for so long a time you have tried to overcome yet have not been successful? Do you have a sinful habit which you have been trying to get rid of? Why don’t you fall down on your knees and ask God to take it away from you.
Conversion is not a “do-it-yourself” project. We allow ourselves to be wounded by our weaknesses, be humbled by our limitations and brought down on bended knees by our sinfulness. Our conversion must be “made in heaven” and not “made by our human hands.” The moment of conversion begins when we can say to ourselves these words:” I would like to be perfect. But I know that I am not perfect. Sometimes I am weak and thoughtless. But look: sometimes I can be strong and generous … I am not a bad person. I am a person who often does bad things. And if that is good enough for God, it should be good enough for me.” Only then, can we understand that conversion is nothing more than seeing ourselves, other people in our family, our work, especially the difficult ones, in a new way, in a new light. The way Jesus sees all of us.
