[[Dear Sister Laurel, Happy Feast Day!! [January 25, Conversion of St Paul] I wondered why you chose St Paul as your patron and why this particular feast day. I can understand what conversion expects of us all, but I guess I don't much see a hermit needing to convert or come to conversion. Does conversion mean the same thing to you now that it did when you chose this particular feast?]]
Thanks for the good wishes! I have chosen Paul as my patron and reaffirmed that choice several times since I was in high school and preparing to be baptized as a Catholic. I had read a book called The Great Lion of God and became inspired by Paul when I was about 13 years old. It may well have been part of what led me to an interest in the Catholic Church at the age of 15-16. Despite the book's inaccuracies and naive and harmonizing approach to Scripture, it introduced me to Paul in a way which would stay with me. (After all, I was just becoming a teenager; this was exciting stuff and it never occurred to me that Caldwell read Scripture naively! What would that matter to me then??!!)
Paul was dynamic, faithful, thought through Judaism in a way which allowed one to see Christ as the fulfillment of the promise of the Hebrew Scriptures, travelled all over the place proclaiming the Gospel, and was incredibly courageous and independent. He captured my imagination and perhaps he began to capture my heart in some way even as he pointed beyond himself to Christ.) I chose him as a patron in a formal way for confirmation (though I had to disguise the name and spell it Paule because I was supposed to choose a female saint/name! It helped that the catechist who refused to allow me to have "Paul" on the card I showed her first (the card was to be handed to the bishop doing the confirming), never questioned me on who "Paule" actually was when I eventually showed her the second card!!!); I chose him again when I was a young Franciscan --- and the Feast Day itself as well in part because I was a convert to Catholicism. I confirmed that choice later on even though I used my given name instead of Paul Maureen in those years as a religious.
Throughout my education in Theology, I came more and more to truly know and love Paul and his theology, but especially his theology of the cross. I am not sure who or where I would be had it not been for that theology and those who introduced me to it. It has been my companion during many dark days, and the ground of many joyous ones as well. (I have dealt with serious chronic illness from the age of 18 and struggled with it --- especially in finding ways to live my life in spite of it, and later as it became a grace in some ways.) When I made perpetual (eremitical) profession, while I retained my given name (I considered readopting Paul Maureen and the designation "of the Cross") I retained at the same time, the Feast Day, the Conversion of Paul. I expect Paul will continue to accompany, inspire, and instruct me through the rest of my life, especially in allowing it to be shaped in terms of the cross not only in weakness but in terms of God's power. (Thus, as the motto of my religious and eremitical life I chose 2 Cor 12:9, "(God's) power is made perfect in weakness." It is engraved on my ring.)
The question you ask about the meaning of conversion is an important one. Yes, my understanding of the process of conversion and what it requires and points to has changed. In the beginning it was a matter of becoming a Catholic --- and that, of course, meant more than simply being baptized into the Church. It meant becoming a Catholic in terms of theology, doctrine, and spirituality. It meant coming to read Scripture in the way the Church reads it --- not so much in the sense of accepting texts mean one thing and no other (the Church has only done this a handful; of times by the way), but reading it historically-critically, and -- as I studied, learning also to pray with the Scriptures. During these first years I was also introduced to a focused formation as a religious and, more generally, as a human being. Gradually these various streams melded together as I became a theologian and a religious.
Over time I discovered a vocation to eremitical life in light of c 603. Some years into all of this, I came to know my relationship with Christ as nuptial and over time I grew as a contemplative. That occasioned a new chapter in my own formation as I entered the "gateways" represented by the canon's central elements and discovered the various ways they mediate the Mystery underlying all life in Christ. One piece of this growth was my membership in my parish as I discovered how I might be called to serve it, especially in regard to the Word of God. Even so, at this point conversion was about allowing myself to be made into an instance of c 603 life, a representative of one small but significant strand in the living stream of the Church's tradition of eremitical life. Later (about 10 years after perpetual profession), I began (and continue today), a very intense and focused process of personal formation accompanied by my Director (diocesan delegate). In this process conversion takes on a specifically intense sense of healing and in such healing, allowing the realization of the true self in Christ. Here my Heart and Mind are given over more completely to God.
At every pivotal point in these last 5 and a half years, I have affirmed more and more completely my call to eremitical life and the fact that I live it in the name and on behalf of the Church and her wellbeing. I learned how profoundly I am called to life in "the silence of solitude" (meaning life in communion and even union with God in Christ). Conversion means becoming the person God calls me to be. It means becoming God's own prayer in this world. (Which implies becoming ever more compassionate to and capable of
hearing and holding the anguish of the world in conjunction with the unconditional love of God.) I think I am still far from that but on my way. The framework for this is c 603 (which I find beautiful!) and the work I will continue to do with my Director. The driving impulse behind it is the call to abundant life in and with Christ.
It seems to me now that conversion is about coming to genuine and ever-deepening freedom with all that requires of letting go, forgiving, healing, and embracing my truest self in conformity with Christ. When I began this journey all those years ago, I thought I was myself. I was mistaken.
Again, to truly be myself in the power of the Holy Spirit is my most fundamental vocation. Conversion serves that call. I think Thomas Merton said that holiness was being himself; Merton and I are on the same page with that comment.
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