THOUGHTS on CONVERSION: Changing the Way that I SEE Things

 

 Vision: Practicing a life of conversion as a Secular Franciscan depends on vision, the vision to make the changes that help me to conform myself to Christ, in the manner of Francis, going “from Gospel to life and life to the Gospel” (OFS Rule, 4). The Holy Spirit is never absent from me, and even when I am sometimes absent-minded when it comes to the Holy Spirit, a nifty nudge is never overlong in arriving. 

While spending a few days in Maine at the end of September, I was rummaging around a large hardware store (one of my favorite past-times) without any particular purpose. I was reorganizing the priorities on my home-improvement project list when all of a sudden I dropped into what, in my seven years of experience as a Local Fraternity Formation Director, I have come to describe as a delightful “formation funk.” It happened at the end of an aisle where a display was devoted to employment opportunities and employee profiles.  On the most plain of white pages in this display was printed some simple wisdom:

 If you want to make small changes, change the way you DO things.

If you want to make big changes, change the way you SEE things. 

This, of course, has nothing to do with the vast array of tools or the myriad construction materials or the army of household products and stuff amongst which these words of wisdom had been thrust up. It has to do with people — in this case people who abandon all this stuff at the end of the day, people who animate the environment where all this stuff is gradually distributed, hopefully to accomplish good things. It has to do with people in relationship.

 So, my mind turned to relationship; and to the accomplishment of “good” things; to seeing; and, after a breather, to doing. 

Relationship 

Drawing on its Augustinian tradition, the foundation of Franciscanism is relationship. Francis was captivated by relationship. He understood that 

· God Himself exists as an ineffable Love-relationship in three Persons — Father, Son, Holy Spirit — without beginning, without end;

· the Trinitarian Love-relationship sought to share Itself, as Love must, and commanded in a word a work of art called the Universe, with all of its diverse elements in collective kinship (see OFS Rule, 18);

· human individuals, made in the image and likeness of God, were the pinnacle of the art work and the sublime focus and expression of the sharing of Love;

· the Son, the second Person of the Trinity, entered the Universe in obscurity and abject poverty in an act of cosmic completion as the incomparable Jesus Christ, both fully God and fully human, accomplishing the most intimate bond with God’s most precious creature (recall Francis’ reverence for the Incarnation, celebrated in the living crèche at Greccio);

· since humankind, in a misguided use of free will, had betrayed God and forfeited the privilege of sharing full union with Him in Love, Christ, although sinless, chose to renew that privilege, using his fully divine bearing to assume the entire burden of sin (past, present, future) and submitting his fully human bearing to the infinite extremes of humiliation and physical suffering by torture and martyrdom. 

Francis recognized that our relationship with God is the paradigm for the manner in which I must relate to every element of the Universe, and most especially to my fellow beings, who are made in God’s image and likeness. 

{ 

The Accomplishment of “Good” Things 

Is this portrayal of relationship with our personal God the way that I “see” things? If it is, then only God is truly “good” (cf. Luke 18: 19). There are no expressions of God’s goodness that are more vivid than the prayer that St. Francis appended to The Praises to Be Said at All the Hours: 

All powerful, most Holy, most High and Supreme God, sovereign Good, All Good, every Good, You Who alone are Good, it is to You that we must give all praise, all glory, all thanks, all honor, all blessing, to You we must refer all good always. Amen. 

Do I refer all of the good that I accomplish to God? Think for a moment about philanthropy in general. The word “charity” really gets thrown around, doesn’t it, and there are certainly many charitable organizations whose motives for the expression of charity have absolutely nothing to do with this personal God just described. In fact, the members of at least one of these popular charities swear blood oaths of secrecy as a fraternity of indifferentism that serves, in essence, to belittle Christ. Yet they are applauded for doing good. There is no more diabolical paradox. Charity is not a human invention. My God, the God described above with whom I am in constant personal relationship, is its Essence and its Author, and it is “to [Him] that [I] must refer all good always.” All good must be referred back to its Author: from my appreciation of and care for Creation; to every act of love which I direct at another human being regardless of who they are; to using, as a responsible steward, whatever material possessions and skills I have been given in my station in life for the glory of God (see OFS Rule, 11). No good thought, word, or deed will bear fruit for eternal life unless God is consciously glorified in the process (“. . . the brothers and sisters strive for perfect charity in their own secular state” — OFS Rule, 2).

{ 

Seeing 

“Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me.” And many rebuked him . . . But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me.” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.” He . . . came to Jesus . . . [Who] said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see!” (Mark 10: 47b - 49, 51) 

So, as I call in in my persistence, and as Christ calls me to Him as He did to the blind Bartimaeus, I take courage and say: “Master, I want to see!” 

When I consider the capacity for comprehension, perception, and understanding, I realize that even a blind person has the ability to “see.” And that brings me back to the very first word of this article — vision. 

Focused vision depends upon a number of things, not the least of which is grace. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) speaks of habitual grace (“the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God’s call” — CCC, 2000) and actual graces (“which refer to God’s interventions, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the course of the work of sanctification” — CCC, 2000). Following upon the sanctifying grace that Francis received at Baptism (“an habitual gift,” as CCC, 2000, calls it), many actual graces were also at work. For example, Francis was once given the grace to change the way that he “saw” a leper; the scorned leper became the image of the humiliated and repulsive Christ as He hung on the cross, an image that stirred the strongest of emotions in Francis (see OFS Rule, 13). If I study the early sources, I can appreciate that Francis’ experience with actual graces was not unlike what I experience — sometimes the insight comes in an “Aha!” moment, sometimes it is a more subtle (and often annoying) process in which insight is arrived at by fits and starts. Regardless, I begin, like Francis, to change the way that I “see” things. 

Francis’ story is the very embodiment of the assertion that changing the way I see things can lead to big changes. In addition, Francis received special graces (the gift of miracles, e.g.) — “charisms [that] . . . are intended for the common good of the Church” (CCC, 2003). In fact, the Church, under the guidance of the wise and holy Pope Innocent III (who received his own special graces with regard to Francis in a dream), embraced the vision of the Poverello even over the objection of his cardinals because he envisioned a Church and a religion that would become “firmer over the years, more ample in the course of time, more exalted as it advances in age” (St. Vincent of Lérins, Commonitorium, c. 434 AD). 

A pertinent demonstration of the effort on the part of our Regional Formation Team to help focus our spiritual vision is the recent Formation Friday (Sunday Edition!) series which focuses on racism, specifically examining the pastoral letter Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love: A Pastoral Letter Against Racism. These sessions amplify the material presented during the 2021 Regional Formation Workshop by Deacon Art Miller and Christopher Doucot (click here for access, including the original presentations — highly recommended  « « « « « ).  

And now, as promised . . . 

 (A Breather!) 

Francis teaches me — Relationship: Christ and the Trinity are the paradigm. Accomplishments: All of the good that I do  must be consciously referred to God. Seeing: As my spiritual vision improves, prompted by grace, I see Christ’s footprints, indeed His entire imprint on the universe, more clearly and I am empowered, as the Holy Spirit moves me and while observing our Rule of life, to participate in adapting “the Secular Franciscan Order to the needs and expectations of the Holy Church in the conditions of changing times” (OFS Rule, 3). 

Finally . . .

Doing 

Deeds: “. . . let them conform their deeds to those of Christ by means of that radical interior change which the gospel itself calls ‘conversion.’ ” Human frailty makes it necessary that this conversion be carried out daily” (OFS Rule, 7). When my Franciscan vision is in focus, and I “see” the meaning of relationship and true goodness, and once I accept and value the gift of grace in effecting big changes, I can awaken each morning and set about doing the deeds that make a difference daily. Francis once rescued a worm from the middle of a road — all at once he was moved to feel relationship, to consciously praise God for Creation, and to thank Him, with extreme humility. This was a deed that effected a small change, but it represented a true mindful transition from “Gospel to life” — a valuable expression of a single-minded spiritual vision. In this sense, no small changes are inconsequential. 

The Gospel teaches us mindfulness, a concept which has received much attention in recent years outside of religious circles.  A mindful approach to “doing” is an exercise that refreshes me and rescues me from the trap that suspends me between past and future, which is where I spend most of my time, the trap that may motivate me to make  impulsive decisions in the present, decisions that may diminish my Gospel resolve and perhaps even violate Gospel directives. 

{ 

Conversion: Changes, whether big or small, grace driven, mutually dependent and directed at Gospel objectives (i.e., the Beatitudes, the law of Love), help us to immerse ourselves in the relationships that Francis experienced with both God and Creation in a way that helps us to accomplish truly Good things  — truly Franciscan things.

Pax et Bonum,

Fred Conforti, MD, OFS, Director of Formation

St. Clare of Assisi Fraternity, West Stockbridge, MA