Continuing Conversion Talks

TOBET—Young Adult Retreat

Monica Ashour, MTS; M Hum

Speakers: Monica Ashour, MTS; M Hum; Julie Muller, M Th

Retreat Theme: Continuing Conversion

Talk 1: What is Christianity and Why Continuing Conversion?

Talk 2: Knowing Thyself Leads to Continuing Conversion

Talk 3: Testimony (not included here)

Talk 4: How Do We Continue to Live Continuing Conversion back in “Reality”?

Talk 1: What is Christianity and Why Continuing Conversion?

Pope Benedict: “Stoic thought regards the heart as…the life force and preserving energy of the human organism and of man as such. It defines the…task of the heart (as) self-preservation, holding together what is its own. The pierced Heart of Jesus has truly “overturned” this definition. This Heart is not concerned with self-preservation but with self-surrender. It saves the world by opening itself. The collapse of the opened Heart is the content of the Easter Mystery. The Heart saves, indeed, but it saves by giving itself away. Thus, in the Heart of Jesus, the center of Christianity is set before us. It expresses everything, all that is genuinely new and revolutionary in the New Covenant. This Heart calls to our heart. It invites us to step out of the futile attempt of self-preservation and, by joining in the task of love, by handing ourselves over to Him and with Him, to discover the fullness of love which alone is eternity and which alone sustains the world.”

And this, dear brothers and sisters is true for every Christian: Faith is above all a personal, intimate encounter with Jesus, and to experience his closeness, his friendship, his love; only in this way does one learn to know him ever more, and to love and follow him ever more. May this happen to each one of us.

The purpose of this handout that I made is to show you the need for continuing conversion in all of our lives, and how that is backed by Doctors of the Church, the Theology of the Body, the Catechism, Adrienne von Speyr’s idea of the most important words of the universe, literature, and Scripture. Since Scripture is the norm that norms and it is living and active, meaning that it can speak to you and me now, I decided to use it as our guide.

Remember, conversion originates from an Old English words which means to turn around. Our first major conversion, baptism, moved us from darkness to light, from emptiness to the fullness of God’s divine life. (Show ad intra/ad extra/Christianity). But continuing conversion must then mean that we get a little off. We need to be redirected. Jesus is quoted in Revelation 21:5: “Behold, I make all things new.” That is what I hope for you this weekend. You will allow Him to make you new. This is why Pope Benedict urges us to go on retreats at least once a year. To see how we might need redirection.

In using Scripture, I am going to focus on one story that I think shows very well what we are to cover this weekend. The Woman at the Well will be the skeletal structure (get it skeletal…it’s Halloween!) around which I will build my talks. We will use her encounter with Christ as a guide.

Part of our encounter with Christ will include discovering what it means to be a body-person, that we are not mere spirits, or shall I say on Halloween, not mere ghosts roaming the earth. We ARE our bodies and more than our bodies because we are a composite of body and soul. Our bodies matter. Matter matters. Unfortunately, many who are Christian think that the spiritual part of ourselves is the end all be all.

But, according to Pope John Paul II, holiness consists in having a pure heart and allowing BODILY actions to correspond. Then, we are integrated, holy wholly, virginal.

How can we work on purity of heart? Let’s get started with John 4:

A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” His disciples had gone into town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”(For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans).

Notice, first, that Jesus initiates conversation. Furthermore, He meets us “where we’re at.”

I mean this in 2 ways, but before I give my conjecture, let me remind you that Scripture is “living and active” and not allegorical. Others may argue that the well stands for truth or history or whatever. So, what I am about to say is not dogma but based on my own reflections and prayer. Incidentally, we all should be doing this with Scripture—read it and “crawl” into it to let it affect us personally.

1. Regarding the well, I wonder if Jesus meets her there because He knows this is the way she tries to sustain life. She thinks life is only horizontal. I wonder if it is symbolic of what St. Augustine spoke of as going to earthy things when he was really seeking God. What is it in your life that you use to fill that void or longing inside?

2. A second way that Jesus “meets us where we’re at” is in the symbolism of her being a Samaritan. The Samaritans were seen as evil, unclean, enemies of God’s chosen people. Are you afraid that you are so evil or unclean that God could not possibly approach you? And I mean, deep, deep down. On the surface, we are all here for we know at some level God loves us. But deep down, do you know God loves you just where you are?

Remember, we are trying to show how we are to have a pure heart. So what is next?

Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Since she does not know Jesus, he reveals himself to her in a way she can understand, speaking metaphorically regarding water. I ask you, do you often not recognize Jesus who approaches you? Are you sensitive to the ways in which he speaks to you? (My story of the baby heart). Be sensitive to things in your life that are God’s ways of manifesting himself to you personally.

The woman said to him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and this cistern is deep; where, then, can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flock?”

The Son of God just spoke to her. It is real. It is powerful. And what does she respond—with doubt and really, with science: it is impossible for you to give that to me. Don’t you know physics? Yet, perhaps she senses something…are you greater than…do you know something I don’t know? And you, have you ever experienced Christ personally…and then later…well, maybe I imagined it, surely it couldn’t be proven by science and so you doubt it. (My story of Self-Abandonment book on the plane). (In the Theology of the Body, JPII says that we often are surrounded by agents of suspicion, not believing that God can reach us).

Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst. The water I give will become a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

She does finally ask, but I wonder if it is like many of us, we ask for too little, we stay horizontal—thinking we will be satisfied with earthy, material satisfaction, when what we are made for is out of this world, yet we can start living it now: eternal life, as Jesus said to the woman.

The first words in the Catechism of the Catholic Church are from Christ: “Father, eternal life is this: that they know you, the one true God and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ” (John 17:3).

C.S. Lewis sums up Christianity brilliantly:

“All right, Christianity will do you good—a great deal more good than you ever wanted or expected. And the first bit of good it will do you is to hammer into your head (you won’t enjoy that!) the fact that what you have hitherto called “good”—all that about “leading a decent life” and “being kind”—isn’t quite the magnificent and all-important affair you supposed. It will teach you that in fact you can’t be “good” (not for twenty-four hours) on your own moral efforts. And then it will teach you that even if you were, you still wouldn’t have achieved the purpose for which you were created. Mere morality is not the end of life. You were made for something quite different from that. J. S. Mill and Confucius (Socrates was much nearer the reality) simply didn’t know what life is about. The people who keep on asking if they can’t lead a decent life without Christ, don’t know what life is about; if they did they would know that “a decent life” is mere machinery compared with the thing we men are really made for. Morality is indispensable: but the Divine Life, which gives itself to us and which calls us to be gods, intends for us something in which morality will be swallowed up. We are to be re-made. All the rabbit in us is to disappear—the worried, conscientious, ethical rabbit as well as the cowardly and sensual rabbit. We shall bleed and squeal as the handfuls of fur come out; and then, surprisingly, we shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined: a real Man, an ageless god, a son of God, strong, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy.” (“Man or Rabbit”)

Talk 2: Knowing Thyself Leads to Continuing Conversion

For the last talk, our focus was on the essence of Christianity: Divinization, that is, living in Christ. We are to live out in our own lives as another Incarnation.

This next talk has to do with the excruciatingly painful task of self-understanding/self-possession, for without it, we cannot move to a deeper level in our conversion. Here’s a story that I will use as an analogy.

About 2 months ago, I discovered this unusual pile of what looked like sawdust behind my bed. I knew it was unusual, but I did not think much of it. Then, I noticed a month later the pile had gotten bigger and there were more piles. What is that? I sort of inquired into it with my roommate and knew I had to do something. But I kept forgetting; it was not a priority. I finally realized that it was significant, got a pest control person out, and had him diagnose carpenter ants that were inside my house, but behind my wall. I did not know they were there, except for a small clue. Not only did he have to spray but he had to go to other places in my house, like my attic to put poison there so they just wouldn’t go to another place. And he had to drill. 18 holes in my wall and spray in each. I still see some dead ants on my carpet.

Now, if my house symbolizes myself and I am not willing to take a look at aberrations/evidence of something being wrong, then eventually, the whole structure would have collapsed; I would have collapsed. I needed another person to help me to see (spir dir) the hidden, dark places.

Isn’t this what happened with the Woman at the Well?

Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus answered her, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

Perhaps the Woman at the Well’s “sawdust” was having to keep going back to the well, going vertical…and then what Jesus points out: her having had multiple husbands. That is more than a clue, and yet, often we, like her, refuse to look at such huge things in our lives. I remember a long time ago in my life when some seniors in high school got their term papers back and were mad at their grades. I was so hurt (which a teacher should have better boundaries) that I took everything on my desk and swiped it on the floor in front of them and stormed out. Hello! That is a major sign, Monica. What was it deep down where the carpenter ants were eating away at me? Finally, I went to counseling to discover these big issues in my life that I never knew were there.

I also remember during this time that I knew I couldn’t go to those deep places without prayer and daily Mass. One time, I was praying and I saw clearly this image of me behind bars, in a prison. Then I saw Jesus, who looked exactly like the Divine Mercy image, beckoning me to leave the prison and go with Him inside the door with tons of light inside. I refused. I was too scared.

The Woman at the Well was brave. She could’ve said, “Ok, I will get my husband”, left, and ended the encounter. Or she could’ve said, “I have a husband but he is away,” but she stays and is honest. Then, after Jesus points out her area of frailty, she could have said, “So what! Mind your own business, bucko, it is my life.” Instead, what does she say:

The woman said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Anointed; when he comes, he will tell us everything.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.”

Her longing….her true desire…she was a little scared to say, “Are you the one my heart desires?” but she is open. Jesus reveals Himself to her. “Yes, I am all you desire. I am the one. I am the anointed. And I will anoint you with healing and give you a drink of eternal life if you let me.”

Notice, too, that continuing conversion must include not only truth of ourselves, but truth of our faith. It may seems strange at the outset that right when Jesus tells her things about herself, she brings up worship. But, perhaps it is because we cannot face the pains we are going through without the Eucharist.

At the risk of you thinking I get these images in prayer all the time, I would like to share with you another image I got in prayer when I was going through this huge time of conversion in my late 20’s and early 30’s. While I was praying, asking Jesus to help me face myself and heal me, I got this image of this huge monster-looking thing. He had these huge hands. And he was laughing in a mocking way. He said in this hideous voice, “You think these crumbs, this piece of bread can save you and heal you. Ha, ha. They can’t.” And what he had in his hand was the Eucharist, but it looked like crumbs compared to his giant hands. I was scared. I stopped praying, trying to catch my breath. I went to work where I taught at Mt. St. Michael’s. It was a Wednesday, and so Mass was first thing. Of course, I was praying with Acts of Faith, which we should all pray when someone/something is trying to cast doubts. At Communion time, I went up to receive the Eucharist and put out my hand. I was given the normal-sized Host, but it just so happened that I also received 2 crumbs of the Blessed Sacrament. I poured forth tears as I used my finger to consume all of Jesus in the Eucharist. I heard Him say (not audibly): “That thing was wrong. The slightest crumb of my precious Body can heal you. Be not afraid.”

Pope John Paul in his encyclical on the Eucharist says that each time we receive the Eucharist, it is almost like another incarnation. He puts it this way: “At the Annunciation, Mary conceived the Son of God in the physical reality of his body and blood, thus anticipating within herself what to some degree happens sacramentally in every believer who receives, under the signs of bread and wine, the Lord’s body and blood” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 55).

Conversion comes from the word, metanoia, “to turn around.” But we don’t just turn around anywhere on the road of continuing conversion. We face our past, our sins, our frailties, and within the context of our encounter with Jesus, we are remade. “Behold, I make all things new.”

Talk 4: How Do We Continue to Live Ongoing Conversion back in “Reality”?

(I will be skipping the part of Jesus’ dialogue with His disciples to save time, but the main parts of that is that Jesus says His food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work, he mentions eternal life again, and speaks of some who reap what they did not sow, sharing in the fruits.)

The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Messiah?”

The woman left her water jar. If the well and the jar symbolize the horizontal grasping to fulfill her ache and she leaves it, a deeper conversion has happened. And she cannot possibly hold in her deeper conversion to Christ: she went and told others. What does she say—she speaks from her experience: “he told me everything I had done” and then proposes, not imposes: “could he possibly be the Messiah?”

Vatican II, in Guadium et Spes #’s 22 & 24, tell us: “Jesus reveals us fully to ourselves” and “Man can only find himself in a sincere gift of self.” We do not hear the longer conversation between her and Jesus; there is a lot more to a person than one’s faults and sins—she says, “Everything…he told me EVERYTHING I have done.” Scripture is true. Scripture is active and alive. You too can know the depths of yourself by your continuing encounter with Jesus. But it can’t stop there. We find more and more of ourselves by giving ourselves away properly.

They went out of the town and came to him. Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me everything I had done.’

Notice, our continuing conversion ought to affect others—they believed on the basis of her testimony. Is your faith strong enough such that you can share it. I sometimes tell those struggling with faith that they can have mine. All I need is a mustard seed, or the unborn Sacred Heart. We really are Jesus’ Mystical Body. We are co-redeemers with him. My conjecture about Mother Theresa’s deep, deep time of darkness when she calls Jesus, “Oh, Absent One,” is due to the fact that God took seriously her request to be totally united with Christ; my guess is that others used her faith, and so she had to experience darkness.

When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. Many more began to believe in him because of his word, and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”

First they believed because she shared her faith in Jesus. Then, they opened themselves to Him, inviting them into their homes. They experienced Christ because the Samaritan woman’s brave encounter with herself and with Jesus, the Savior of the world. Have you experienced Jesus personally? Have you faced yourself in the security of His life-giving water? And if so, have you shared that with others in a way accessible to them?

The 2 concrete suggestions I have for you regarding being back to reality are simple: pray and find the interior gaze.

1. Prayer—If you need to, take a hard look at how you spend your time. Now, let’s not be freaks. I LOVE the Dallas Cowboys. If at all possible, I watch them, even though I got criticized last week by a friend. No, it is a passion for me. But otherwise, I do not watch TV. I relax by reading (remember that the word, leisure, comes from the word, schola—so scholasticism. That is, part of our leisure time ought to be spent in study/reading. So, to set aside the best time, your prime time for prayer and the more and more you enter in, really enter in (Lectio Divina), you will find God loves you unquestionably. (My story of being on retreat—“I am in love with you,” Jesus said to me). And when you experience such love, you will be able to have more and more of the second thing I suggest:

2. The Interior Gaze—To look at each person as a mystery. To know you are a tabernacle, especially when they share deep things with you. To take them seriously, as CS Lewis says. Look at each person you see as a mystery, as a sacred unfathomable person that it is unbelievable that you were privileged to meet. The banker, the clerk, the colleague—even though he/she is a jerk—is also sacred.

C.S. Lewis puts it this way:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously--no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinners--no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat, the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden. (The Weight of Glory)

Isn’t such a viewpoint terribly difficult to take, especially when people get on our nerves or hurt us or disappoint us or even are our enemies. I remember this one occasion while I was campus minister at Texas A&M. It was over a year after my ex-fiance called off our wedding. I was heading from my office for 5:30 Mass as I did everyday. Well, it just so happened that Rick and this chick showed up at the exact time I was going out the door. In fact, the timing was such that I had to HOLD the door open for them! UGH! I was fuming! (And I yell and complain to God a lot, as you have noticed). “God, it is bad enough that I have to see them! But then you make me hold the door open for them! Whatever!” And yes, this is right before Mass. I sat in the front deliberately so I wouldn’t have to see them at Mass. I also was hesitant about receiving the Eucharist in such a state. Should I, shouldn’t I? I decided that those were mere emotions, not warranting not receiving Communion; in fact, I knew I needed to receive Jesus. So I told Him, “Jesus, ok, I am going to go ahead and receive You, but please, Jesus, please speak to me a word to help me.” I receive and return to my pew and am listening: “She’s your sister. She’s your sister.” “Oh, yes. Thank you, Jesus. She IS my sister. Please bless her.”

When we go back there to our workplaces, residence, encounters with others, remember that that person next to you is the “holiest object presented to your senses.” (If things are going well regarding bonding for the retreat, I will suggest this: In fact, I invite you…not forced…I invite you without words to look deeply into the eyes of every person here with what Pope John Paul calls the “interior gaze,” seeing the absolute mystery of the other, and silently, with no talking, give each one a hug. If this is over-the-top for you, which is fine, perhaps you can remain seated and just close your eyes and ponder the mystery of those you know in your life).

Let us conclude with a prayer: We don’t even know your proper name, oh, Woman at the Well. Little did you know that your continuing conversion, your encounter with Christ, would impact so many, not just in Samaria, but over 2,000 years later, across the Atlantic to us in Texas. Your conversion story reaches us. Pray for us, that we too might live more deeply what Christianity means, that participation in the eternal exchange of life and love, that we might be brave enough to face those deep wounds and to know our own giftedness, that we might go from here, mindful of the strength of the Eucharist, enabling us to continue to encounter Christ, especially in those we meet day-to-day. Jesus, reach us. Meet us where we’re at, oh, Savior of the World. Amen.

Quotations from Monica Ashour's 3 Talks

Talk 1: What is Christianity and Why Continuing Conversion?

Pope Benedict: Stoic thought regards the heart as…the life force and preserving energy of the human organism and of man as such. It defines the…task of the heart (as) self-preservation, holding together what is its own. The pierced Heart of Jesus has truly “overturned” this definition. This Heart is not concerned with self-preservation but with self-surrender. It saves the world by opening itself. The collapse of the opened Heart is the content of the Easter Mystery. The Heart saves, indeed, but it saves by giving itself away. Thus, in the Heart of Jesus, the center of Christianity is set before us. It expresses everything, all that is genuinely new and revolutionary in the New Covenant. This Heart calls to our heart. It invites us to step out of the futile attempt of self-preservation and, by joining in the task of love, by handing ourselves over to Him and with Him, to discover the fullness of love which alone is eternity and which alone sustains the world.

C.S. Lewis sums up Christianity brilliantly:

Talk 2: Knowing Thyself Leads to Ongoing Conversion

Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This, as already been said, is why Christ the Redeemer ‘fully reveals man to himself.’ If we may use the expression, this is the human dimension of the mystery of the redemption. In this dimension man finds again the greatness, dignity and value that belong to his humanity. In the mystery of the redemption man becomes newly ‘expressed’ and, in a way, is newly created. He is newly created! ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave or free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly—and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being—he must with his unrest, uncertainty and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ. He must, so to speak, enter into Him with all of his own self, he must ‘appropriate’ and assimilate the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself. If this profound process takes place within him, he then bears fruit not only of adoration of God but also of deep wonder at himself….In reality, the name for that deep amazement at man’s worth and dignity is the Gospel, that is to say: the Good News. It is also called Christianity. (JPII, Redemptor Hominis, 10).

Talk 4: How Do We Continue to Live Ongoing Conversion back in “Reality”?

Vatican II, in Guadium et Spes #’s 22 & 24, tell us: “Jesus reveals us fully to ourselves” and “Man can only find himself in a sincere gift of self,” respectively.

C.S. Lewis puts it this way:

Because even now, and always, the fiat is uttered, and the Love of the Spirit of Life is consummated in the Child Bride; the earth is continually made new; we are continually born again. This is what really matters most of all to everyone: the power to be made new. Not simply beginning again, dragging along with the old scars, the old crippling wounds, the old weakness dragging at the will; limping with the weariness of yesterday, sore with the heartsickness of the last defeat, bitter with the still smarting grievance against one another. Not that, but real newness, being born again. A new will, a new heart, new vision, new love—indeed, new life. …To be born again: that is exactly what Christ has promised to us; not only once, but just as often as our inner life grows old and jaded and dies. But newness, flowering spring, shadowless morning, are not born of what is decaying, corrupt and fetid. They are born only of virginity, virginity which is newness, virginity complete as fire and water. (Caryll Houselander, Reed of God,126-127)

….(W)e believe that nobody else can bring us as Mary can into the divine and human dimension of this mystery (of Redemption). Nobody has been brought into it by God Himself as Mary has….The special characteristic of the motherly love that the Mother of God inserts in the mystery of Redemption and the life of the Church finds expression in its exceptional closeness to man and all that happens to him. It is in this that the mystery of the Mother consists. The Church, which looks to her with altogether special love and hope, wishes to make this mystery her own in an ever deeper manner. For in this the Church also recognizes the way for her daily life, which is each person. (JP II, Redemptoris Hominis, 22)

Monica Ashour can be contacted at mashour@tobet.org

The Theology of the Body Evangelization Team can be reached at info@tobet.org