How do you achieve someone's conversion? Speak, remain silent, correct, omit, get closer, distance yourself? Well, whatever you do, whatever God inspires in your heart, whatever your discernment, it's not necessarily what you do, but how you do it.
And you must do whatever it is, right? Loving for love's sake. Love must guide, love must direct.
For example, how many people are praying for the conversion of a husband, a wife, a child, a father, but because the way that person chose to live, the choices they made, in a way constitute a burden in their lives, hurt them, harm them. So I pray for that conversion because it harms me. When in fact we need to purify that intention, I pray for your conversion because I love you, not because you are a burden in my life, not because I want to get rid of a problem, but because I love you.
I want to see you happy. I understand that I have a mission in your life. I need to be an instrument of salvation for you.
I want heaven for you. How many wives, or even husbands, join prayer groups bringing their spouse, not out of faith in God, not because they are aware that they should glorify God, but to shield their spouse from adultery? See, it's the intention that needs to be purified; it's about seeking first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you.
There's an inversion here. And you and your spouse walk with God, always seeking to be in God's grace, in communion with God—of course, this protection exists. But if you seek only this protection, you are capable of trampling over everything else, and sooner or later, this will all crumble.
So, how do you achieve someone's conversion by loving them, that love that springs from faith in God? I believe in God. I believe in everything He has said.
And I understand that I must be an instrument in your life for the salvation of your soul. I'll give you an example. A young woman began a relationship with a young man, a girl with a boy.
But from that point on, from a certain point in their courtship, she began to realize that he was confused about his vocation. And on the path of discernment, he began to understand and see clearly that God was calling him to the priesthood. What is that young woman who loves that young man going to do?
If her love is true, if her love has its source in God, what did that young woman, from the example I gave you, do? In truth, that young man, although aware of his calling to the priesthood, didn't have the courage to break up with that young woman. Who broke up with her?
She did. She said: "I love you so much that I couldn't bear to see you outside of God's will for your life. Follow your path, because the God of all consolation will console me.
And I know that He also has a plan for my life. Follow your path. " And that young man, then, not without pain, entered the seminary and followed a path until he reached the priesthood.
Do you understand? This is what we must understand. What to do?
How to achieve someone's conversion? Love. But be very careful when we use this word, because I need to understand the true concept.
It's not love as the world conceives it, but love as Christ witnessed. A love that is surrender, a love that is giving, love that is obedience to the word. Why did I, Sister Maria Raquel, one day leave—and here I put "my" in quotation marks—my family, my parents, my sisters, my former plans, my dreams, and enter the monastery, a life of semi-cloistered life, out of love?
Do you know why I remain? Despite all the difficulties, out of love, I. .
. I embraced the consecrated life out of love for God, out of love for my family. Today we will delve into the Gospel according to Saint Mark, chapter 2.
And we will find Jesus sitting at the table with tax collectors and sinners, which disturbs the Pharisees. This will disturb the Pharisees, but Jesus will then give them the precise answer. Let's see what Jesus will say to those men.
Pay attention. At that time, Jesus went out again to the seashore. The whole crowd came to him, and he taught them.
As he passed by, Jesus saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax collector's booth, and said to him, "Follow me. " Levi got up and followed him. And it happened that, while Jesus was reclining at table in Levi's house, many tax collectors and sinners were also reclining with him and his disciples.
Indeed, there were many who followed him. Some teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw that Jesus was eating with sinners and tax collectors. Then they asked his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?
" Hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. " The word of salvation.
Glory to you, Lord. Notice that Jesus sits at the table with those sinful men precisely to welcome them, to love them, because only in this way would conversion be possible. The conversion of the heart, the sincere and profound conversion of those who allow themselves to be constrained by love.
Love compels, as Saint Paul says. The only force capable of generating inner conversion, a person may obey for many reasons, including fear. But the only force capable of causing inner transformation is love.
It is love. And what is Jesus doing sitting at the table with those sinful men? Loving them, because only in this way is conversion possible.
Jesus says: "I have come to call sinners. I have not come to call the righteous. " Here we perceive a second thing, the will of God, the vocation, the mission that God entrusts to you as a father, mother, husband, wife, consecrated person, priest; above all, it implies your salvation.
You are important in the lives of your children. But let me tell you something. Even more so, your children are important in your life.
They are the way, the means, the instruments of salvation for you. It is through fatherhood, through motherhood, that you undertake a path of sacrifice, self-denial, a path of maturity. To live no longer for oneself, but to give life.
Why do people today often see children as a burden, a weight? Because they often feel capable of embracing marriage, a sacrament. Then, difficulties arise, a relationship breaks down, and a new one begins.
It becomes difficult, it breaks down, it starts again. It becomes difficult, a breakup, a new relationship. And it keeps changing and changing and changing because they don't know how to deal with the difficulties.
Do you know what's so sad here? It's precisely the cross, the sacrifice, the difficulties that bring meaning, that present, that bring about transformation, that make a very simple word, something good. Love becomes even more intense and goes from abstract to tangible, right?
When it demands sacrifice, renunciation, when you need to live forgiveness, that's concrete love. It left the realm of ideas, of beautiful words, of posts, of well-written texts and became incarnate in life. Concrete love that forgives, that transforms.
See how much richness there is in this word. In the beginning, something that caught my attention, the first verses, Jesus taught these lessons, this learning, only the word of God brings us. There are things that only Jesus has the courage to tell us.
The world won't tell you, why? Because it doesn't want to lose followers. It won't tell you because that harsh word, right, might make you leave .
And for the world, that's unacceptable. The world will say: "Let's talk, let's talk, even if it's deceit, illusion, lies, just to learn them here. " " Let's say what they want to hear.
Jesus won't say what you and I want, but Jesus will say what you and I need to hear. " That's why, at a certain moment, Jesus will ask his disciples, in response to that statement that his words were harsh. Jesus will look and say: "And you, aren't you going away too?
Because I'm not going to change my doctrine. I'm not going to change the truth. I'm not going to change what I received from my Father.
I will preach exactly the truth, because I am the way, the truth, and the life. " And Peter will answer, and may that be the answer for all of us today: Where will we go, Lord? If only you have the words of eternal life, where will we go?
And people keep changing therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and even their confessions. They keep changing priests until they find a priest who tells them what they want to hear. It's not the medicine you want that heals you.
The only medicine that will heal you is the one you need, even if it's not what you want, right? Jesus, I want to learn from you. I don't want to follow the fallacies of the world, no.
But I want to learn from you. I want to live your word. And I know that means losing many times, but I know I will gain much more.
With Jesus, only those willing to lose can win. I prefer the truth. Write it in your spiritual diary, write it here too.
I prefer the truth. And this truth proclaimed with love, with love that transforms, that converts. How many times will a father and mother need to be tougher with their child?
Because you love that child, right? Out of love. Now, put the name of this person who moves you to pray today into prayer, right?
The conversion of this person. Pray for them today, especially these three Hail Marys now with much love, with much faith, by the power that God the Father has granted you. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
For the wisdom that God the Son granted you. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. For the love that God the Holy Spirit granted you.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Amen. Pray for us, Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen. God bless you. God bless your day and your family.
Until tomorrow, our daily encounter with God. I, Sister Maria Raquel, will be waiting for you here.
