The Call To A Second Conversion
I offer myself again entirely to you.
Although this year has been a struggle at times recovering from surgery and the lingering effects of anesthesia, that has mostly passed. My doctor has identified some adrenal fatigue in my system that we are trying to address. While I did observe my surgery restrictions for 30 days as ordered, I have been consistently working out at the gym since the surgery in May. Based on my recent workouts, I can say that I have recovered and am now seeing gains every week. Work has been busy but not overwhelming. Several cases, however, were extremely stressful and involved spiritual warfare (which is tiring). I did not have the energy to properly maintain the vegetable garden this year, so yields were small. The good news is that we did enjoy some vegetables all summer and I learned some new lessons (including to watch out for Mexican bean beetles — they destroyed every bean plant I had). We also enjoyed figs for the first time from our fig tree.
None of this has been terrible, but together it has contributed to a certain level of malaise in my life this year. As a result, writing has been difficult. Inspiration is not flowing. Quality time for prayer is hard to find and, when I do get alone with the Lord my prayer is dry. It seems that I am in something of a holding pattern spiritually this year. There are few opportunities for speaking or ministry. I am not selling any books. Amazon even destroyed my inventory because it had been sitting there so long without selling. That was a real dose of humility!
Nevertheless, in an effort to try and continue growing in faith in the midst of a dry season, I have started reading spiritual books again. I keep a small pile of books next to my chair in the living room, and am working my way through them. Historically, I have been a voracious reader. After my first conversion, I would read through every book on the faith that I could get my hands on. As the years have gone by, the energy required to practice law and deal with all of the other things going on in life have sapped my ability to sit quietly at the end of the day and read something. I felt pretty strongly though that I needed to re-develop the habit and discipline of reading a paper book (not something electronic).
Two of the books I ordered to start with were written by the same author, Father Donald Haggerty. I was reading a blog article about spirituality and came across a recommendation for one of his newer books, The Hour of Testing: Spiritual Depth and Insight in a Time of Ecclesial Uncertainty. The book caught my eye because it purported to look at the current state of the world from a spiritual perspective. The blog writer also recommended Father Haggerty’s book on Conversion.
Once they arrived, I started plugging away at both books. Every few days I would pick them up and read one chapter from each. Last week, I found myself about half way through both books. I sat down and opened up Conversion to the next chapter, which was entitled The Import of a Second Conversion. The chapter begins:
The explicit idea of a “second conversion” in the spiritual life was first broached by a Jesuit in the 1600s, Father Louis Lallemant.1 . . . It is likely that he taught his young Jesuit novices the need to cross the threshold of a “second conversion” if serious holiness was to be attained. His view was that a man must come to a point in life, sometime after a commitment to God is already firmly in place, in which he realizes that he has not yet fully offered his life to God. Despite what may be years of faithfulness in a vocation, a deeper offering still awaits the soul. A life may be committed and devout and externally dutiful, but it still awaits a deeper realization of an entire offering of itself as an utterly personal act before God. A man has to arrive at a decisive reckoning in which he sees now with fresh eyes what it means to give himself unreservedly to God. . . . An utterly personal prayer of absolute oblation before God is still needed, which from the day it is made changes forever a soul’s relationship with Jesus Christ. The act is a deep interior release of the soul to be from then onward at the complete disposal of God’s purposes.
The words on the page practically leapt out at me. I could hear the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to my heart. Do I need to surrender my life again to God? Am I holding something back? Is there some area of my life where I am not surrendering to God’s will? Is this why my spiritual life seems to be stalled?
I finished the chapter, full of these thoughts, and picked up the other book, The Hour of Testing. The next chapter was entitled One Thing Needful: Giving All in Giving Ourselves. What are the odds that I would find the same topic in each book, after reading my way to the middle of each? Now I was really paying attention! The chapter begins:
A more serious life with God may compel at times a need for a self-offering that must be made without inner strength or courage, without clear confidence of being heard, but only with the sheer unfelt conviction that we must offer ourselves fully to God, that our soul in its entirety must be delivered up, and that this act of offering cannot wait, cannot be delayed any longer. A sense of spiritual consequence, or real urgency, accompanies this act. We realize that only by offering ourselves completely can we avoid the risk of halting on the path, of faltering in perseverance.
Now I was hearing the Holy Spirit in stereo! How could I not rededicate my life to the Lord? How could I not completely surrender everything to Him? And then, the little areas where I have been holding back began to surface in my mind. As I thought about surrendering myself in those areas, I began to experience some stress. There was some fear and anxiety associated with completely giving myself over to certain possibilities. Yet, as I have prayed and reflected on this for the last week, I find myself at peace. I have renewed my offering of myself to the Lord. I have expressed my desire to surrender all to Him again. Jesus, I trust in you.
Jesus, I offer myself again entirely to you today.
Receive, O Lord, all my liberty. Take my memory, my understanding, and my entire will. Whatsoever I have or possess Thou hast bestowed upon me; I give it all back to Thee and surrender it wholly to be governed by Thy Will. Give me love for Thee alone along with Thy grace, and I am rich enough and ask for nothing more.2
Eric A. Welter is an employment lawyer and trial attorney with a long-time devotion to intercessory prayer. He is a Catholic Christian who has been involved with intercessory and healing prayer ministry for over twenty five years.
Frequent readers know that I am fond of Father Lallemant.
Suscipe prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
Great!