Christian ConversionOn going conversion is the way of the life for Christian faith. Continuously answering the God's call found in the person and the message of Jesus means to bring about a world community of harmony, peace and justice.
The process of making sense of the life’s big questions and the formation and testing of beliefs does not happen in a vacuum. It happens in a world mediated by meaning. Forming beliefs is an action of human consciousness in a cosmic process that is not fully predictable but never-the-less intelligible. It is a world in which experiencing, understanding and judging is a creative process of meaning-making. Meanings evolve and human prospects advance. Bernard Lonergan proposes that there is a fourfold intentionality involved when human beings attempt to come to the truth of their experience. He calls this the transcendental method of human consciousness. It is the way of conversion. In truth-seeking, Lonergan claims, there are four imperatives are at work: attentiveness, intelligence; reasonableness and responsibility.
Intellectual conversion is experiencing, understanding, and judging in the pursuit of what is discovered to be truly meaningful.
Moral conversion is experiencing, understanding, and judging what is true, and good, and valuable and then making decisions to act responsibly in accordance with that which is true, good, and valued. For it is by people’s and community’s choices, actions and loves that they are known. Religious conversion is experiencing, understanding, judging that begets knowing, choosing, acting and loving in the realm of ultimate concern and the unrestricted love of God. Faith is the personal act of valuing and deciding which is experienced as a gift from the Divine. |
The knower anticipates fulfilment in knowing what is real;
the chooser anticipates fulfilment in choosing the truly valuable over the merely self-satisfying; the actor anticipates the authenticity and integrity of living their capacity for truth and goodness; the lover anticipates the fulfillment of making an unconditional gift of the self to the other. With thanks to Geoff Briodie. Melbourne Lonergan Circle
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The Way of the Cross - Religious Conversion
"Religious conversion is that interior change whereby the ordinary cares are placed in the larger context of transcendental meaning and value, whether that meaning and value is experienced in personal or transpersonal terms."
Gregson, Vernon, Ed. The Desires of the Human Heart, New York: Paulist 1988, p. 97
Religious conversion is the turning around that resets our consciousness in term of unrestricted love. When we are religiously converted, our hearts, the centre of ourselves, open to embrace whatever is good, noble, true, humanising. If so, religious conversion is a yes to the mystery of God, … the infinite goodness that whispers in our limitless questioning… [Religious conversion] …is an orientation of our consciousness to the love that gives a good conscience, a joy and peace that stablise all our other knowings and loves.”
Lardner Carmody, Denise, “The Desire for Transcendence: Religious Conversion” in Gregson, Vernon, Ed. The Desires of the Human Heart, New York: Paulist 1988, pp. 57-73, p. 62
The way of the cross is the way of Christian conversion. Every follower must take the road that knows the pain and the suffering of the world. It cannot be ignored. It is where attentiveness to the truth of life begins. The wood of the cross is our connection with the earthiness of the human existence. It recalls the suffering that must be known and the pain that must be carried. It also describes the redemption that is the blessing of every follower of Jesus. Daily each of us must take up our cross. (Matt. 16:24). In bearing our cross, we are associated with Him, conformed to Him, and one with Him.
'Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.' Matthew 11:28-30
c/f B. Lonergan, S.J., De Verbo Incarnato (Romae: Pontifica Universitas Gregoriana, 1961). Pp. 502-536. see also Eugene E. Grollmes, S.J. The Law of the Cross https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=3294 Downloaded 1 August 2021
Gregson, Vernon, Ed. The Desires of the Human Heart, New York: Paulist 1988, p. 97
Religious conversion is the turning around that resets our consciousness in term of unrestricted love. When we are religiously converted, our hearts, the centre of ourselves, open to embrace whatever is good, noble, true, humanising. If so, religious conversion is a yes to the mystery of God, … the infinite goodness that whispers in our limitless questioning… [Religious conversion] …is an orientation of our consciousness to the love that gives a good conscience, a joy and peace that stablise all our other knowings and loves.”
Lardner Carmody, Denise, “The Desire for Transcendence: Religious Conversion” in Gregson, Vernon, Ed. The Desires of the Human Heart, New York: Paulist 1988, pp. 57-73, p. 62
The way of the cross is the way of Christian conversion. Every follower must take the road that knows the pain and the suffering of the world. It cannot be ignored. It is where attentiveness to the truth of life begins. The wood of the cross is our connection with the earthiness of the human existence. It recalls the suffering that must be known and the pain that must be carried. It also describes the redemption that is the blessing of every follower of Jesus. Daily each of us must take up our cross. (Matt. 16:24). In bearing our cross, we are associated with Him, conformed to Him, and one with Him.
'Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.' Matthew 11:28-30
c/f B. Lonergan, S.J., De Verbo Incarnato (Romae: Pontifica Universitas Gregoriana, 1961). Pp. 502-536. see also Eugene E. Grollmes, S.J. The Law of the Cross https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=3294 Downloaded 1 August 2021
“Where is God?”
This is not a question of despair; but one of hope. The challenges we face, as individuals and as a society, are invitations to journey together as pilgrims towards a deeper life in the Kingdom. They are invitations to conversion and conversion never really happens in one fell swoop but is really a life-long process.
We all must remember that we are members of one humanity, called together by Christ as surely as we are each personally called. The key to keeping this in the forefront of our minds and hearts is remembering that God is with us now, in this very moment. “Our time is now, with the challenges and opportunities of today, even though we might wish the situation were different. It is in the here and now that the grace of God that sustains the mission of the Church is made manifest.” The call to conversion is now.
Brent Gordon, SJ Jesuit Superior General’s New Book Helps Us Ask, “Where is God?” | The Jesuit Post Jul 30, 2021
This is not a question of despair; but one of hope. The challenges we face, as individuals and as a society, are invitations to journey together as pilgrims towards a deeper life in the Kingdom. They are invitations to conversion and conversion never really happens in one fell swoop but is really a life-long process.
We all must remember that we are members of one humanity, called together by Christ as surely as we are each personally called. The key to keeping this in the forefront of our minds and hearts is remembering that God is with us now, in this very moment. “Our time is now, with the challenges and opportunities of today, even though we might wish the situation were different. It is in the here and now that the grace of God that sustains the mission of the Church is made manifest.” The call to conversion is now.
Brent Gordon, SJ Jesuit Superior General’s New Book Helps Us Ask, “Where is God?” | The Jesuit Post Jul 30, 2021