A Newness of LIfe

We are now entering the Holy Week. During this intense period, we accompany Jesus Christ and relive in our mind, heart, and body his passion and death, and exult in the joy of his resurrection.

Our faith is put to a strong test during these days. For the Holy Week especially beckons us to respond concretely to Christ’s love for us. He made the supreme sacrifice of dying on the Cross, and all he is asking from us is that his death not be in vain. “Jesus wants nothing from us except our love” (St. Therese of Liseaux).

The Holy Week offers much time for a thorough examination of how we have been living as children of God. Can I truly say, now at this very moment, that Jesus Christ is the center of my life? Is there anything in my life that stands in the way of holiness that I must root out? Am I ready for a fresh conversion, to give my life a new bearing, to begin again? Through these and other self-questions, we may know how we can be more faithful to God.

Whatever is the state of our soul, the resounding call of these days is for conversion: to choose God above anything else, to put our entire life in his hands, to depend on nothing else but his love (Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, Ash Wednesday, February 21, 2007). “The kingdom of God announced by Christ can be entered only by a ‘change of heart’ (metanoia), that is to say through that intimate and total change and renewal of the entire man” (Pope Paul VI, Paenitemini, February 17, 1966).

There is the radical conversion, when one who has strayed far off decides, like the prodigal son, to return to the house of the Father. Conversion overcomes the root of evil, which is sin (cf Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus, March 11, 2007). A sincere and contrite confession washes off all the accumulated dirt of sin, and produces a newness of life in God’s grace. Conversion produces a new self in man (cf Eph 2:24) and reconciles him to God (cf 2 Cor 5:20).

But more often, it is the little conversions that challenge us daily. Imbued with rectitude of intention, we correct ourselves as we move along during the day, controlling our selfish impulses, overcoming love of comfort, or showing more charity in our behavior. These little conversions happen when we decide to help our wife with the kitchen chores instead of watching basketball on television, or to play with our child rather than read the newspaper, or to go out of our way in helping a colleague in the office to finish a task. What would Jesus do if he were right here in my situation, we may ask ourselves.

Day by day the conversions must continue. “Conversion is a matter of the moment. Sanctification is the work of a lifetime” (St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way, 285).

Jesus Christ calls upon us to imitate him all the way. He desires us to die to our own crosses daily, to forget ourselves, and to make our lives an example of self-giving and sacrifice. The change that Jesus Christ wants to see in us is our transformation into his likeness. That we become to others alter Christus, ipse Christus, another Christ, Christ himself.