How conversion happens

Conversion to Christ is a process. The blind man in the Gospel reading exemplifies this journey into faith. Notice that at first he did not go to Jesus. Jesus came to him. The man responded by waiting to see what would happen and then by obeying Jesus.

Conversion begins when Jesus seeks us out and we make ourselves available to his touch. He then opens our eyes to the truth, but we don’t immediately understand.

When the man’s neighbors asked about his cure, he did not yet understand who Jesus was; he thought of him as just a man.

Then, the pressure of listening to the Pharisees argue about who Jesus was caused him to give it more thought. He concluded that Jesus must be a prophet, which for the Jews was a highly esteemed, holy vocation.

Next, as the Pharisees treated him more roughly and raised the possibility of expelling him from the synagogue if he claimed that Jesus was the Christ, he began to wonder whether it might be true. Their reasons for hating Jesus became the eye-openers that cured his spiritual blindness.

Finally, Jesus sought him out again, this time to minister to him in response to the mistreatment he had suffered from the Pharisees. In this act of caring, the man could see who Jesus really was. Conversion — the purification of our spiritual vision — takes place in the fire of our sufferings as we recognize the love and concern that God has for us.

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