Birthday of John the Baptist

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Today we celebrate the Birthday of John the Baptist.

John preached in the wilderness of Judaea and this was his message: 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand'.

Jesus began with precisely the same message: “Repent and Believe in the good news.”

And likewise, Jesus sends the Apostles out: “So they set off to preach repentance.”

It is not a coincidence that Mary, the Mother of God began to appear in Medjugorje forty years ago this day, June 24, 1981, the birthday of John the Baptist with precisely the same call to conversion: “Be Converted!” Our Lady tells us, “It will be too late when the sign comes. Beforehand, several warnings will be given to the world. Have people hurry to be converted. I need your prayers and your penance…The only thing that I would want to tell you is be converted. Make that known to all my children as quickly as possible… You cannot imagine what is going to happen nor what the Eternal Father will send to earth. That is why you must be converted.”

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John the Baptist calls us to conversion. Prostitutes, tax-collectors and alcoholics were the first to repent and believe after they heard John. It’s not surprising that AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) figured out the steps to conversion:

It begins when we admit we were powerless over our sin—that our lives have become unmanageable. We believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. So we make the decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of the Good Shepherd, Jesus.

Then make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves – a thorough examination of conscience. And we Admit to God, to ourselves, and to a priest in confession the exact nature of our wrongs and Humbly ask God to remove your shortcomings. Continue each day to make a daily examination of conscience and when we are wrong promptly admit it.

Then through daily meditation, especially the Rosary, strive for a deeper union with God…praying only for knowledge of His will and the power to carry that out.

Finally, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps we try to carry this message to others by means of genuine friendship and sharing life with them.

There are three key steps here for our on-going conversion:

A.  Daily Examination of Conscience and Frequent Confession

B.  Daily Meditation and a Resolution

C. A small group of family and friends with whom you share life to enrich and stretch one another.

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Without a daily examination of conscience and frequent confession we probably wont keep converting.  

Conversion is about the continual change from

·       Grave sins that don’t make us happy and leave us empty

·       But then we settle in for a life of small sins and vice:

o   Pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust 

·       We get stuck there

·       We don’t go from small habitual Vice to Virtue and a greater happiness

Why do we stop and settle for a life of vice? Why do we settle for a less fulfilling life? Daily Examination of Conscience and Frequent Confession keeps the conversion process going in one’s life.  The Catechism (1423) calls Reconciliation the sacrament of conversion.

What prevents me is that I am lazy about my daily examination of conscience. Because of this I am not aware of my vices and my bad habits that diminish my happiness and those around me. With a simple examination of conscience each day I could identify my sinful habits and bring them to Christ the physician in confession for Him to heal me. Here is a simple examination called 3-2-1:

Begin by finding 3 ways your day went well. These should include ways you resisted temptation. Thank God for his blessings and graces of the day. Next, review 2 problematic ways you could have done better that day. If you have failed to complete any resolutions, wasted too much time entertaining yourself, done something you shouldn’t have, failed to do something you should. The point is not to beat yourself up, but to find what weaknesses the enemy is exploiting in you. Then make 1 resolution for the following day that will help to counteract the vices by practicing the opposite virtue.

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We cannot make progress in our conversion without daily meditation and a resolution

By daily meditation, either by reading and reflecting on the Word of God in silence or through the Rosary some very transformative things take place:

We spend time opening up to God who is the only one who can transform us

We read or listen to the Word of God, all that He has revealed to show us how to live

We reflect on our own lives and the difference between how God wants us to live and the way we are living. We see the disparity, we want more, we are convicted to change.

Then we make a small concrete resolution to do something that very day that leads to a change.

If we spend time in this form of meditation and have a resolution each day, then one or two things will happen: we will continue to convert and grow in happiness and peace; or we will quit meditating. That wisdom is why AA included it as a vital step in freedom and recovery.

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Finally, the step that will help you the most to keep growing in your conversion – be a ring leader.

Invite a small group of family and friends, a group of guys, or gals or couples…

Designate a specific day and time and place

Make it consistent, meet regularly – even if its just two or three of you…

Share life together, do good things together but most importantly, have good conversation – share with one another what is really going on in your life – then good, the bad and the ugly.

If you need some help kick-starting the conversation, then pray the Rosary podcast together or read the transcript together – there’s lots of stuff there to make you think and discuss.

The bottom line – if we want to grow in conversion, then we all need a small group of family or friends with whom we share life with habitually who will enrich and stretch us to grow from vice to virtue.

But it usually takes a ring-leader to get us together. Some person who gathers people up. Are you a ring leader? Do you have the good desire to get people together to grow closer to God; do you desire that for yourself?

Make the commitment to help another person, or a handful by being the ring leader who invites a small group of family or friends to share life to genuine friendship, good conversation and invite someone else regularly into your habit of the Rosary.