The Liberating Road Of Conversion

Do you feel closer to God now than you did at the beginning of Lent? If not, there’s still time during this Holy Week. There is still time to allow His grace to draw you closer to Him.

Why should this be done? Well, as Saint John Paul II said in his 1982 Message for Lent:

If there is still some distance between God and ourselves, that can only be due to us and to the obstacles we place in the way of this coming close: the sin which is in our heart, the injustices that we commit, the hatred and divisions that we foster, everything that still prevents us from loving God with all our heart and our strength. The time of Lent is the special time for purification and penance, so as to allow our Savior to make us his neighbor and save us by his love.

The Church celebrates the Resurrection in six days, and in order to feel the joy of Easter we must realize how much we need a Savior. We must realize how empty we are without the risen Christ. In order to share in the overwhelming happiness experienced by the Apostles, we must undergo a conversion that leads our hearts to the Messiah!

“Penance, conversion: this is the road to follow; not a sad one, but a liberating one suggested by the Lenten period,” John Paul II wrote. Let us experience the freedom of conversion this Holy Week, as we travel with Christ from Calvary to the Resurrection.

St. John Paul II, Pray for Us!