Many times, especially in apparitions of Our Lady, we hear her ask us to pray for the conversion of sinners. Sometimes, I think that after hearing it over and over and over again, we tend to loose sight of exactly what we are praying for. The truth is, whether we realize it or not, when we pray for the conversion of sinners, we are really praying for the whole world to come to know Christ to the fullest. How did I come up with that? Well, that's what this blog is about.
When we pray for the conversion of sinners, we are not only praying for people that live every other second of their life committing a sin, but also, we are praying that everyone, including ourselves, have a conversion experience. Remember, converting isn't a one time thing were you just switch religions. You could have thousands of conversion experiences and remain Catholic the entire time! Rather, conversion is like a stair case. Every step is a "conversion" and we have to go through many of them in our lives. In a way, Our Lord, through the Blessed Mother, asks us to eat a little humble pie and acknowledge that we are sinners in need of taking the next step of conversion. So when you pray for the conversion of sinners, don't only be praying for God to draw others closer to Himself, but also that He will make you holy as well. None of us are perfect and we are all in need of mercy. As our Lord tells us in the gospels, taking the log out of our own eye is the first step in helping our brother take out the thorn in his.
Another very important thing we pray for when praying for the conversion of sinners is what we usually think of when we hear someone say "convert (conversion, converting etc.)". That is, converts from other religions to Catholicism. Now, I'm not saying that all Catholics are holier than non-Catholics simply because I referred to non-Catholics as sinners. A matter a fact, there are atheists who are far better morally than many Catholics. But no matter who you are or what you believe, we've all sinned. So really, when I refer to "sinners" I am basically talking about all humans currently living on this earth. Now that we have that out of the way, let's continue. I think we've all seen what Catholic converts like Scott Hahn and Stephen Ray have done in spreading the truth of the Catholic Church. Actually, you may notice that most converts to Catholicism are more enthused about their faith than many cradle Catholics! I would even go so far to say that it is because of converts to Catholicism that many cradle Catholics have come to love their faith more! In that case, when we pray for the conversion of sinners, one of the things we pray for is more converts that will not only be strong in what they believe, but also, to strengthen the faith of those around them! Then, the more Catholics you have actually living their faith, the fewer misunderstandings people have about the Catholic Church which then brings in more converts by the simple example of others. Imagine what an impact it would make on the world if we had all 1.2 billion Catholics actually living out their faith as opposed to just saying they're Catholic, but going against the teachings of the Church!
Now, take a step back and look at the big picture. When you do, you will find that when we pray for the conversion of sinners, we are praying for what the world says is impossible. We are praying for the world to change pretty drastically. I'm talking the end of abortion, contraception, homosexuality, porn, etc. If this is so impossible, why do pray for it? Because if the God of the universe, through His Holy Mother, is asking us to do it, then why wouldn't we? Did He not promise that all things are possible with Him? I truly believe that in order to change the world (for good), what needs to be done is that everyone who calls themselves Catholic must truly live their faith. With that, the things destroying man's relationship with God will drastically shrink if not, disappear entirely. Will it be easy to do this? No. But God never promised easy did he? What He did say was that all things are possible with Him. We can make a difference and we can show the world that there is truly a God who loves them, but it all starts with praying for the conversion of all sinners, including ourselves.
All for..,
TheCatholicApologist
