Changing Our Way of Thinking: The Reality of Realities Is God
MEETING WITH THE PARISH PRIESTS OF THE ROME DIOCESE. LECTIO DIVINA.
Hall of Blessings, March 10, 2011

BY LORENZO ALBACETE

Eminence, Excellencies, and dear brothers... We have listened to the passage from the Acts of the Apostles (20:17-38) in which St. Paul speaks to the priests of Ephesus, deliberately recounted by St. Luke as a testament of the Apostle, as a discourse not only intended for the priests of Ephesus but for priests in every epoch. St. Paul does not only speak to those who were present in that place, he truly speaks to us. Let us, therefore, endeavor to understand a little of what he is saying to us at this moment….
"I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public" (Acts 20:20). After a few more sentences, St. Paul returns to this point and says, "I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God" (v. 27). This is important; the Apostle did not preach an "à la carte" Christianity to suit his own inclinations, he did not preach a Gospel to suit his own favorite theological ideas; he did not shrink from the commitment to proclaiming the whole of God's will, even an inconvenient will and even topics of which he was personally not so enamored.
It is our mission to proclaim the whole of God's will, in its totality and ultimate simplicity. But it is important that we teach and preach–as St. Paul says here–and really propose the will of God in its entirety. And I think that if the contemporary world is curious to know everything, even we ourselves must be more curious to know God's will: what could be more interesting, more important, more essential for us than knowing God's wishes, knowing God's will and God's face?
This inner curiosity should also be our own curiosity to know God's will better, more fully. We must therefore respond and reawaken this curiosity in others: truly to know the whole will of God, in order to become thoroughly acquainted with God's will, hence to know how we can and should live and to recognize what is the path of our life….
It is also important if we are not to get lost in detail, not to give the idea that Christianity is an immense packet of things to learn. Ultimately, it is simple: God revealed Himself in Christ. But to enter this simplicity–I believe in God who shows Himself in Christ and I want to see and do His will–has meaning and, according to the situation, we enter more or less into details; but it is essential to make the ultimate simplicity of faith understood.
Believing in God as He revealed Himself in Christ also constitutes the inner richness of this faith, the answers it gives to our questions; even answers which in the first instance we do not like but which are nevertheless the path of life, the true path. To the extent that we accept these things even if they are not quite to our liking, we can understand, or begin to understand that this really is the truth. And the truth is beautiful. God's will is good, it is goodness itself.
Then the Apostle says: "I did not shrink from... teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance to God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ" (vv. 20-21).

THE ESSENTIAL IS SUMMED UP here: conversion to God, faith in Jesus. Let us however linger over the word "conversion" which is the central word or one of the central words of the New Testament. It is interesting here–in order to know the dimensions of this word–to be attentive to the various biblical terms: in Hebrew "šub" means "changing one's course," beginning a new direction of life; in Greek "metanoia" means "changing one's way of thinking;" in Latin "poenitentia," "my own action to let myself be transformed;" in Italian "conversione," which coincides better with the Hebrew term "new direction of life."
Perhaps we can see in a special way the reason for the word of the New Testament, the Greek word "metanoia," "change in the way of thinking." At first the thought seems typically Greek, but going more deeply into it we see that it really expresses the essential of what other languages also say: a change of mind, in other words a real change in our perception of reality. Since we are born in original sin, for us "reality" means the tangible things, money, my position, the everyday things we see in the news on television: this is reality. And spiritual things appear a little "behind" reality. "Metanoia," a change from the way of thinking, means inverting this impression.

NEITHER MATERIAL THINGS, nor money, nor buildings, nor any of the things I can possess constitute the essential, or reality. The reality of realities is God. This invisible reality, seemingly far from us, is the reality. Learning this and thus changing the direction of our thinking, to truly assess how the real, which must orient all things, is God, it is the words, the word of God. This is the criterion, God, the criterion of all that I do. This really is conversion if my concept of reality is changed, if my thought is changed. And this must subsequently penetrate each individual aspect of my life: in my judgment of every single thing to take as my criterion what God says about it.
This is the essential, not what I gain for myself, not the advantage or disadvantage to myself that would result from it, but the true reality, to orient ourselves to this reality. It seems to me that in Lent, which is the journey of conversion, every year we should once again apply this change in our conception of reality: namely, that God is reality. Christ is reality and is the criterion of how I act and how I think. To practice this new orientation of our life.
Hence also the Latin word "poenitentia," which appears to us a little too external and perhaps a form of activism, becomes real: to exercise this means to exercise my self-control, to let myself be transformed, with my whole life, by the Word of God, by the new thought that comes from the Lord and shows me the true reality.
Thus it is not only a matter of thought, of the mind, but is a question of the totality of my being, of my vision of reality. This change in thinking, which is conversion, touches my heart and unites the mind and the heart, and puts an end to this separation between the mind and the heart. It integrates my personality into my heart that is opened by God and opens to God.
Thus I find the way; thought becomes faith, that is, having trust in the Lord, an entrustment of myself in the Lord, living with Him and taking His path in a true following of Christ. Then St. Paul continues: "I am going to Jerusalem, bound in the Spirit, not knowing what shall befall me there; except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the Gospel of the grace of God" (vv. 22-24).
St. Paul knows that this journey to Jerusalem will probably cost him his life: it will be a journey towards martyrdom.... He was going to Jerusalem to give to this community... the sum for the poor that he had collected in the world of the Gentiles. Hence it was a charitable journey, but that was not all. This was an expression of the recognition of the unity of the Church between Jews and Gentiles....
In this regard, the journey had both ecclesiological and Christological significance. For to this recognition, this visible expression of the Church's oneness and universality was of such importance to him which might also involve martyrdom.
The unity of the Church deserves martyrdom. Thus he said, "I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry" (v. 24).
Biological survival alone, St. Paul says, is not the priority for me; for me the priority is to carry out my ministry; my priority is being with Christ; living with Christ is true life. Even if he loses this biological life, he does not lose true life. Instead, if he were to lose communion with Christ in order to preserve his biological life, he would have lost life itself, the essence of his being.…