Editor’s note: God calls everyone into deeper relationship with him — sometimes in dramatic ways. In this special section of four stories with a guest commentary, The Catholic Spirit explores God’s call to conversion. This introductory story features Paul Ruff, the writer’s brother, and Father Rolf Tollefson’s commentary. In separate stories, conversion experiences are recounted by Meisha Johnson, Maria Sinchi and Jerry Wind.
Splintered inside, alienated from God and each other by original sin, men and women are always being called back into deeper relationship with the Lord — at times dramatically — and knowing what that call sounds like can help people navigate the journey, said Paul Ruff, assistant director of human formation at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul.
“Conversion literally means a ‘turning back.’ It is a turning back to God, the source of our creation and of love, rather than hiding in our self-sufficiency and shame, covered by a fig leaf,” said Ruff, who also is director of counseling services at the seminary. “It means allowing ourselves tremulously to be found again and surrender to just radically being loved and participating in love. And, knowing that is going to mess things up. To convert is also letting go of the defensive ways that we have tried to control that relationship.”
Such defenses can include perfectionism, self-sufficiency, a desire to earn and deserve God’s love rather than simply receive and respond to it, Ruff said.
God offers the free invitation to be embraced by his love continuously and gradually, and, at times, dramatically, Ruff said. This is beautifully described by St. Augustine of Hippo in his autobiographical “Confessions,” written in the fourth century. Ruff has written a chapter for a book on St. Augustine’s “Confessions,” with contributors from around the country organized by Christopher Thompson, the seminary’s academic dean and professor of moral theology. Titled “Augustine’s Confessions and Contemporary Concerns,” the book was published last spring by the seminary’s St. Paul Seminary Press.
St. Augustine lived a hedonistic lifestyle in his youth, until his conversion to Catholicism and subsequent ordination as a priest and bishop. He is a doctor of the Church. In his writing, Ruff places St. Augustine’s spiritual conversion into dialogue with findings in the field of phenomenological psychology, which notes intense, rapid, out-of-control feelings that are a result of forces outside of the self, leading to a dramatic and even abrupt change in growth both psychologically and spiritually. In Book 8 of the “Confessions,” St. Augustine says of his own conversion: “All I knew was that I was going mad but for the sake of my sanity, and dying that I might live” (8.8.19). The experience can be one of simultaneously falling apart and coming together. It can — and in the very same experience — bring intense emotional upheaval and deep peace. Whether it is described spiritually or psychologically, the gift of such transformation brings a clear “before and after” sense of self — the landscape of the heart and mind have “been reconfigured, and almost universally for the better,” Ruff writes.
This is not something that can be pursued or achieved, but only allowed, Ruff said, and “often those who have had such an experience find it difficult to talk about.” There is no pride in such an experience, he said. Those who have chronicled such changes often describe it as simultaneously confusing, humbling, convicting, reassuring, and inviting of response, he said. They are often hesitant to talk about it.
Conversion: Embraced by Love
This four-part podcast explores the conversion experiences of three local Catholics and is a production of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and The Catholic Spirit. It is made possible by a grant from 1891 Financial Life, where “the heart of our work is the heart of your world.” Listen Now
“They always describe it as an out-of-control experience. Always,” Ruff said. “They never describe it as an achievement. They always describe it as a gift. And the other marker I think is hugely important, one of the elements of truth — they’re never proud of it. They are just deeply grateful for it.”
Such conversion stories can serve everyone as an illustration of how God works, Ruff said, even when conversion occurs through more incremental steps into spiritual growth. At some point in everyone’s life, and often at numerous points throughout life, something must change, some self-willed control must be given up, to allow the Holy Spirit to do its work, he said.
“The more dramatic stories of sudden conversion perhaps serve as an example to all of us in our more daily, small surrenders of our egos,” Ruff said. Even a dramatic conversion story such as St. Augustine’s is not completed in the experience. It needs to take root and flower in the embeddedness of community, an extension into service, and a practice of faith that is a continuous, daily surrender, he said.
“Conversion is never self-serving or ego aggrandizing — this would be a counterfeit to its nature,” Ruff said. It also leads the one who has experienced such conversion into community, into greater union and love and service of others, he said.
In his chapter on St. Augustine, Ruff quotes Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (the late Pope Benedict XVI): “Conversion does not lead into a private relationship with Jesus, which in reality would be another form of mere monologue. It is the delivery into the pattern of doctrine … or entrance into the ‘we’ of the Church.”
Those who have gone through such dramatic experiences need to be assisted in integrating them, Ruff said. They need to be embedded in community, he said.
“Can our Church welcome such stories?” he asked. “Can it help them take root and find expression in community? Can it offer support and guidance?
“Such stories help me examine my own practices and disciplines as a Catholic,” he said. “Augustine offers me an example, a challenge, but even more an invitation into a more radical surrender into the communion of love.”
Guest Commentary | Father Rolf Tollefson
Conversion is God’s work, not ours
When we see the word “conversion” we might think of the character of Rodrigo Mendoza atoning for his sins by doing penance — hauling a heavy load of his armor and weapons up the side of a mountain in the 1986 film, “The Mission.” I make up for my sins (the more difficult penance I do, the better), God is impressed and then he decides to forgive me. The only problem is that Jesus Christ and his love for sinners is not part of this equation. It is the opposite of how the true and living God rolls.
God is a lot more like the bishop in “Les Misérables.” Jean Valjean is the main character who is introduced when the movie “Les Misérables” opens. Valjean stole bread to feed his starving family, so he was sentenced to nine years in prison. After his release, no one will hire him because he has a criminal record. He is told that he will be “on parole forever.” He is homeless and hungry. He’s angry. No one treats him with respect. He’s filled with discouragement.
Then, one person reaches out to him. His name is Monseigneur Bienvenue (in English, “Msgr. Welcome”). He provides Valjean with “wine, bread and a bed.” But in the middle of the night, Valjean steals the bishop’s silver. The police arrest him, hit him on the head, and bring him back to the bishop.
The bishop refuses to press charges. He explains to the police that he actually gave all his silver to Valjean — and he throws in two extra silver candlesticks to boot. He blesses Valjean and then sets him free.
An unforgettable impression is made in the heart of Valjean that day, an impression that lasts a lifetime, a reception of divine mercy that utterly converts him. Because someone is merciful with him, Valjean repents of his sins. He is set free. Everything is different now that he has received mercy.
Divine mercy works throughout Valjean’s life. It multiplies inside the heart of each person he meets. With the silver, Valjean buys a factory that employs the poor; he saves a prostitute from dying in despair; he adopts her little girl, Cosette. Valjean saves the life of a peasant caught under a cart — who later shelters them when police officer Javert is hunting him down yet again. Right back atcha!
In a later scene, Valjean forgives Javert and sets him free when Valjean could easily exact revenge on him and kill him. Later, Valjean risks his life by finding Cosette’s love, Marius, then saves Marius’ life by bringing him through a stinky sewer to safety … so that Cosette can marry the man she loves.
This is what happens when God’s love drives conversion and not man working to convert himself. Such is the God of Jesus Christ. This is the Gospel.
Father Tollefson is pastor of St. Hubert in Chanhassen.
