The Passion, the Second Conversion, and the Transformation of Our Capacity to See God
Jean Khoury
Summary: Christian theology has devoted considerable attention to divine Revelation: its nature, historical development, fulfilment in Jesus Christ, transmission through Scripture and Tradition, and reception through faith. Yet a fundamental question requires more systematic consideration: what enables the human person to recognise God when he reveals himself? Revelation and recognition are inseparable, but they are not identical. God may reveal himself authentically while remaining unrecognised, not because his Revelation is deficient, but because human expectations, projections, spiritual blindness and the consequences of sin distort the capacity to perceive him.
This article proposes recognition as an essential dimension of the theology of Revelation. It examines the biblical drama of the unrecognised Christ, especially through Genesis 2, Isaiah 9 and 53, Philippians 2, the Johannine writings and the Pauline theology of the Cross. It argues that the Incarnation and Passion constitute two successive depths of the one divine condescension: in the Incarnation, the Word assumes our human nature; in the Passion, he descends into the suffering, humiliation and death of fallen humanity, without himself becoming sinful. In this paradoxical manifestation, divine love becomes accessible precisely where humanity is most wounded.
Nevertheless, recognising Christ requires more than intellectual assent or general adherence to Christian doctrine. It requires the personal discovery that the Crucified and Risen Lord loves me, looks upon me and calls me into communion with himself. The second conversion, particularly illustrated by St Teresa of Avila’s encounter with the wounded Christ, represents a decisive turning point in this recognition. The subsequent purifications described by St John of the Cross progressively transform not only human behaviour but also the very understanding of God.
The article distinguishes catechesis, kerygmatic proclamation, initial conversion, second conversion, spiritual formation and mystical transformation, showing their necessary complementarity without confusing their respective functions. Finally, it explores the consequences for fundamental theology, seminary formation, parish ministry, evangelisation and the continuous formation of the faithful. Its central thesis is that Revelation cannot be adequately taught without a corresponding theology and pedagogy of recognition, ordered towards personal communion and transforming union with Christ.
Introduction: The Missing Question in the Theology of Revelation
Revelation is rightly considered one of the foundational subjects in Catholic theological education. Students are introduced to its biblical foundations, the history of salvation, the relationship between Revelation and faith, the fulfilment of Revelation in Christ, its transmission through Scripture and Tradition, and its interpretation within the Church. René Latourelle’s Theology of Revelation remains an important contribution to this field, particularly through its effort to recover the personal, historical and salvific character of God’s self-communication. The Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum likewise represents a decisive theological renewal, moving beyond an understanding of Revelation primarily as the communication of supernatural propositions towards an account of God’s personal self-disclosure through words and deeds.[1]
Nevertheless, a question emerges which deserves to be treated explicitly and systematically. What happens when God reveals himself, but the human person does not recognise him? The question is more serious than it first appears. It is possible to possess accurate information about someone without truly knowing that person. It is also possible to meet someone repeatedly without recognising the depth of his intentions, the reality of his love, or the significance of his presence. Something similar occurs in the history of Revelation.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. God was present, visible and audible in the humanity of Jesus Christ. Yet many who saw him did not recognise him. Some misunderstood him. Others rejected him. Still others believed in him but continued to misunderstand his mission, his teaching and the true meaning of his love. The Fourth Gospel expresses this tragedy with remarkable simplicity: “He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him” (Jn 1:11). The problem was not simply the absence of Revelation. God had come. The problem was the failure of recognition.
This distinction must be taken seriously. Revelation concerns God’s initiative in making himself known. Recognition concerns the human person’s capacity, under the action of grace, to identify, welcome and respond to God as he truly reveals himself. Recognition is not merely the passive reception of information. Nor is it reducible to the general assent of faith, indispensable though that assent is. It involves the encounter between the God who reveals himself and the human person who must progressively become capable of recognising him.
The central argument of this article is that recognition possesses an entire spiritual history. It has its obstacles, turning points, stages of purification and degrees of maturity. Its decisive personal awakening may occur in what spiritual theology calls the second conversion, while its gradual perfection belongs to the entire journey towards transforming union with God. Consequently, the theology of Revelation cannot be considered complete in its formative purpose unless it also explains how the human person becomes capable of recognising the Revealer. This is not an attempt to replace fundamental theology with spiritual theology. It is an invitation to recover their intrinsic unity.
1. Revelation Is Personal: God Reveals Himself in Order to Be Known and Loved
The starting point must be Dei Verbum itself. The Council declares that God chose to reveal himself and to make known the mystery of his will, so that human beings might have access to the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit and participate in the divine nature. It adds that God addresses human beings as friends and invites them into fellowship with himself (Dei Verbum, 2). These affirmations are fundamental. The object of Revelation is not simply a body of truths concerning God. Its ultimate object is God himself, who communicates himself and invites humanity into communion with his divine life.
The distinction is not between doctrinal truth and personal encounter, as though the former were unnecessary. Rather, revealed truths communicate the reality of the God who gives himself. They are ordered towards knowing, loving and receiving him. Accordingly, the ultimate purpose of Revelation cannot be restricted to the transmission of an accurate theological account of God. God reveals himself to be recognised, welcomed and loved. He desires to establish communion with the person to whom he reveals himself.
An important biblical foundation for this understanding is found in the First Letter of John: “We have known and believed the love that God has for us” (1 Jn 4:16). The Greek text employs the verbs egnōkamen and pepisteukamen: we have come to know and to believe. What is known and believed is not merely that God exists, nor simply that he has revealed certain truths. It is the love he has for us. Benedict XVI places this verse at the beginning of Deus Caritas Est, connecting Christian faith directly with the recognition of divine love. He insists that Christianity begins with an encounter with a Person who gives life a new direction.[2]
Here we discover the theological centre of recognition. To recognise Christ is not simply to identify him correctly as the Son of God. It is to discover the God who loves us, comes towards us and desires communion with us. There is therefore a difference between knowing that God is love and recognising that God loves me. The first is a universal truth of faith. The second is that same truth received personally, in such a way that it begins to transform the whole relationship between the believer and God. This personal recognition does not abolish doctrinal faith. It brings its relational significance into greater fullness.
2. The Drama of Recognition: God Is Present, but We Do Not See Him
The Scriptures repeatedly present a remarkable paradox: God reveals himself, yet those who encounter him fail to recognise him. The disciples on the road to Emmaus provide a particularly clear example. The Risen Lord walks with them, speaks to them and explains the Scriptures, yet “their eyes were kept from recognising him” (Lk 24:16). This is not simply a failure of visual identification. The disciples are also prisoners of their expectations concerning the Messiah. “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Lk 24:21). Their hope was not entirely false, but their understanding of redemption could not yet accommodate the Passion. The Cross appeared to contradict the fulfilment they expected. Consequently, Jesus must transform their understanding of the Scriptures before their eyes are opened in the breaking of the bread. Recognition requires a conversion of interpretation.
The same problem appears throughout the Fourth Gospel. The Samaritan woman gradually discovers who Jesus is (Jn 4). The man born blind progresses from identifying Jesus as a man to confessing his faith in the Son of Man (Jn 9). Martha confesses Jesus as the Messiah, yet must still discover what his words about resurrection mean in the concrete situation of her brother’s death (Jn 11). Mary Magdalene encounters the Risen Lord but initially mistakes him for the gardener. Only when Jesus addresses her personally by name does she recognise him (Jn 20:14–16).
These episodes disclose different dimensions of recognition. Sometimes the difficulty concerns expectations. Sometimes it concerns suffering, religious presuppositions or limited understanding. Sometimes recognition occurs through an unexpected personal address. But the recurring pattern is clear. The same Christ is present before and after recognition. What changes is the capacity of the person to perceive who he is. This transformation cannot be explained by intellectual effort alone. It requires divine initiative and grace.
3. The Old Self and the Projection of Our Own Image upon God
The deepest obstacle to recognition is not necessarily ignorance of religious doctrine. It is the tendency to construct an image of God according to our own expectations. We do not approach Revelation as neutral observers. Our understanding is shaped by education, culture, religious experience, personal history, fears, desires, wounds and habitual patterns of judgement. Some imagine God primarily as a severe judge. Others imagine a distant sovereign whose favour must constantly be earned. Others conceive of him as an expression of power, success, order or moral perfection. Such representations may contain elements of truth. But they become dangerous when they are treated as the measure of what God must be.
The person then no longer receives Revelation as an event that challenges and transforms his understanding. Instead, he measures Revelation against the image of God he already possesses. The image becomes a filter. Eventually, it can become an idol. This is not necessarily a consciously chosen idolatry. It may exist in a sincere and practising Christian who accepts the Church’s doctrine while remaining unaware of the inadequate image of God governing much of his spiritual life.
Saint Paul identifies this difficulty in his first letter to the Corinthians. The Jews demand signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but the Apostles proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the former and foolishness to the latter (1 Cor 1:22–24). Paul is not denying the authentic religious vocation of Israel or the genuine philosophical achievements of the Greeks. His contrast exposes two expectations that become incapable of recognising God’s action when they are made absolute. Some expect divine power to manifest itself in unmistakable triumph. Others expect divine wisdom to conform to recognised standards of intellectual excellence. But God reveals his wisdom and power through a crucified Messiah.
The problem is therefore not that human beings possess expectations. It is that their expectations can prevent them from recognising God when he acts differently. A comparable inversion appears in Jesus’ attitude towards ritual impurity. Instead of keeping his distance from the leper, he approaches and touches him (Mk 1:40–42). Instead of avoiding sinners, he eats with them (Mk 2:15–17). His holiness is not diminished by his compassionate proximity to the wounded human person. It is manifested through it.
The old self, however, may find such a manifestation difficult to recognise. Thus, spiritual blindness is not merely an absence of information. It may be the result of a whole internal structure of perception and judgement. The purification of that structure becomes indispensable to a deeper knowledge of God.
4. The First Abasement: The Divine Light Becomes Accessible in the Incarnation
Philippians 2:6–8 offers an essential starting point for understanding how God adapts his manifestation to humanity. Paul describes Christ as existing in the form of God, yet taking the form of a servant, becoming like human beings and being found in human appearance. The expression “schēmati heuretheis hōs anthrōpos” (Phil 2:8) may be rendered “being found in appearance as a human being”. The participle heuretheis, from heuriskō, means “having been found”. In this context, it indicates how Christ was encountered and recognised in his human condition.
The significance is considerable. The eternal Word does not cease to be God. He does not abandon his divine nature. He assumes a complete human nature and becomes accessible within the conditions of human existence. The invisible God becomes visible in Christ. Human beings can hear his voice, approach him, touch him and live in his presence. This constitutes what may be called the first adaptation of the divine light. The expression must be understood analogically. The Incarnation does not diminish the divinity of the Son or reduce the intensity of divine holiness. Rather, the divine Person becomes present and accessible through the genuine human life that he assumes.
The Transfiguration illuminates this mystery by contrast. On the mountain, Jesus’ face shines like the sun, and his garments become radiant. When the divine voice is heard, the disciples fall to the ground in fear (Mt 17:1–8). The episode reveals, in an extraordinary manner, the glory ordinarily concealed beneath the familiar conditions of Jesus’ earthly life. The disciples had walked with him, spoken to him and shared meals with him. Yet his identity infinitely exceeded what their ordinary perception could encompass.
The Incarnation, therefore, is already a divine condescension towards human weakness. But the human condition to which Christ comes is not merely finite. It is fallen. Humanity suffers from a deeper blindness caused by sin. A further depth of divine abasement is therefore revealed in the Passion.
5. The Second Abasement: The Wounded Christ Enters the Darkness of Fallen Humanity
The Passion brings the logic of divine condescension to its most astonishing depth. In the Incarnation, the Word assumes our human nature. In the Passion, he enters the suffering, humiliation, rejection and death that characterise humanity’s fallen condition. The distinction is important. Christ does not assume a sinful personal will. He never becomes morally guilty or inwardly corrupted by sin. Yet he takes upon himself the suffering and consequences of human sin, entering the very conditions in which fallen humanity experiences abandonment, violence and death.
Saint Paul writes that God made the sinless Christ to be sin for our sake (2 Cor 5:21). Isaiah describes the Servant as carrying our griefs and being wounded for our transgressions (Is 53:4–5). The Christ of the Passion is covered with wounds. His humanity, already the visible manifestation of the invisible God, now appears disfigured by suffering. One may therefore speak, analogically, of a second adaptation of the divine light.
The first adaptation makes God accessible to humanity through the Incarnation. The second brings the manifestation of divine love into the very depths of humanity’s wounded and sinful condition. It is as though God descends to the lowest place in which humanity can be found, in order to communicate with those whose spiritual blindness prevents them from recognising him.
The Crucified comes into the world of those who have wounded and rejected one another. He is counted among transgressors, exposed to injustice, covered with wounds, and subjected to death. Yet precisely there, at the lowest point of human degradation, the love of God is revealed. This is the great paradox of the Cross. What appears as the greatest obscuring of divine glory becomes its supreme manifestation as redeeming love. The Cross does not make God’s love less luminous. It reveals that divine love possesses a depth that humanity’s ordinary conceptions of power and glory were unable to anticipate.
This brings us to Isaiah 9. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Is 9:2 in Hebrew numbering; 9:1 in some Christian traditions). In its historical context, the prophecy concerns the deliverance and hope of God’s people. Matthew applies it to the manifestation of Christ (Mt 4:15–16). Read in the fullness of the Christian mystery, the light finds a particularly profound manifestation in the Passion. Here the light does not merely shine upon darkness from outside. The Son of God enters into the suffering of those who dwell in darkness and reveals his love from within their wounded condition. The light of salvation takes the form of the wounded Saviour.
6. Isaiah 53: The Revelation of God and the Tragedy of Misrecognition
Isaiah 53 begins with a question: “Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” (Is 53:1). The language is significant. The arm of the Lord evokes divine strength and saving power. Yet the Servant who follows is not presented under the conventional appearance of victorious power. He is despised, rejected and acquainted with suffering. Those who look upon him misunderstand his condition. They consider him stricken and afflicted by God. Only subsequently do they recognise that he has borne their griefs and carried their sorrows.
The passage therefore contains a movement from misrecognition to recognition. The witnesses must abandon their initial interpretation of the Servant before they can understand the true significance of his suffering. They thought they understood what they were seeing. In reality, their interpretation was profoundly mistaken. The Servant does not correspond to their expectations of divine action. The truth of his identity and mission becomes accessible only through a radical reversal of judgement.
John explicitly draws upon Isaiah 53:1 when reflecting upon the failure to believe in Jesus despite his signs (Jn 12:37–38). This Johannine connection confirms the theological relevance of Isaiah’s question. The difficulty is not simply whether God has revealed his saving power. It is whether humanity is capable of recognising that power when it appears in a form that contradicts its expectations. The Passion thus becomes a decisive place of revelation and judgement. It reveals God. But it also reveals the blindness of the human heart.
7. Genesis 2 and the Nuptial Dimension of Recognition
The theology of recognition also possesses a profound anthropological and nuptial dimension. Genesis 1 affirms that humanity is created in the image and likeness of God. Genesis 2 then presents the solitude of Adam, who encounters the animals but finds none corresponding to him as a human companion. When the woman is presented to him, Adam exclaims that she is bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh (Gn 2:23). He recognises someone who corresponds to him. The encounter is marked by the discovery of another person capable of entering into a relationship of reciprocal self-giving.
There is, however, a striking narrative detail. Adam speaks, but the woman’s response is not recorded. The text does not tell us explicitly how she recognises Adam. This silence does not establish an absence of recognition. Nevertheless, within a Christian typological reading, it can open a further question. If Adam prefigures Christ, the new Adam, and the woman can be read as a figure of the Church, what becomes of the recognition of the Bridegroom by the Bride?
The New Testament provides the theological basis for such a reading. Paul interprets the mystery of marriage in relation to Christ and the Church (Eph 5:31–32). The question then becomes personal and ecclesial. Christ comes to humanity as the divine Bridegroom who desires to communicate his life. But will humanity recognise him? Will the Bride recognise the Bridegroom, especially when he appears wounded and crucified rather than in the form of glory she expected?
The nuptial interpretation does not replace the historical and literary meaning of Genesis 2. It develops its theological possibilities through the Christological interpretation provided by the New Testament. It allows us to grasp something essential about recognition. Recognition is not merely correct identification. It is the discovery of another person in the reality of his love and the willingness to receive that love.
In a particular manner, Mary represents the human response most perfectly receptive to the new Adam. At Cana, she recognises the one who can provide what humanity lacks and directs the servants towards his word (Jn 2:1–11). Her unique grace and faith illuminate the Church’s vocation to recognise Christ. Nevertheless, the present enquiry concerns the wider process through which every believer is progressively enabled to recognise the same Lord. The nuptial dimension is therefore not peripheral. It reminds us that Revelation is ultimately ordered towards communion.
8. Recognition Is Personal: “He Loved Me and Gave Himself for Me”
We now reach a decisive distinction. A person may believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He may accept that Christ died for humanity and rose from the dead. He may know the doctrines of the Incarnation, Redemption, grace and the sacraments. All these truths are essential. But one further question remains. Has this person recognised that Jesus loves him personally?
Saint Paul expresses the distinction in Galatians 2:20: “The Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” The Greek is emphatically personal: tou agapēsantos me kai paradontos heauton hyper emou. The word me means “me”. The expression hyper emou means “for me”. Paul does not deny the universal character of Redemption. He appropriates its truth personally. Christ loved me. Christ gave himself for me.
This is not merely a change of grammatical number. It is the passage from a universal truth to its personal recognition. The believer discovers that the love manifested on the Cross is addressed to him personally, in the irreducible uniqueness of his existence. A similar insight emerges from Mark 10:21, when Jesus looks upon the rich young man and loves him. The initiative belongs to Christ. He looks first. He loves first. He calls first.
The young man is already the object of Christ’s love before he has decided how to respond. Indeed, the Gospel tells us that he ultimately departs sorrowfully. The love offered and the love recognised are not identical with the free response eventually given. Here lies a crucial point for spiritual formation. The second conversion is not the moment when Christ begins to love the person. It is the moment when the person begins to recognise, with a new depth and immediacy, the love that Christ already bears towards him.
A person may have been Christian for decades without having entered fully into this recognition. He may have sincerely believed in God, prayed, attended Mass, received the sacraments and fulfilled his religious duties. Yet the personal reality of Christ’s love may not have penetrated the deepest part of his heart. The movement from general faith to personally recognised love is therefore an event of great spiritual significance.
It is not merely intellectual. It involves the whole person: understanding, will, memory, affections and freedom. It is the discovery that Christ looks upon me, knows me, loves me and desires to give himself to me. This is the personal heart of recognition.
9. St Teresa of Avila: The Second Conversion as the Opening of the Eyes
The experience of St Teresa of Avila provides an extraordinarily illuminating example. Teresa had spent almost twenty years in religious life when she underwent the decisive spiritual turning point commonly described as her second conversion. She was not an unbeliever. She was not ignorant of Christian doctrine. She knew the importance of prayer and had repeatedly struggled to live faithfully. Yet she remained divided within herself. Her affections and attachments prevented her from surrendering her whole heart to Christ. She did not fully recognise the depth of what he was asking of her, nor the generosity of the love with which he awaited her response.
In chapter 9 of The Book of Her Life, she recounts entering an oratory and encountering a representation of the severely wounded Christ. The image moved her profoundly. She became aware of the poor response she had made to the love manifested in his wounds. Her heart was deeply affected, and she fell before him in tears, asking for the strength to cease offending him.[3]
The event is remarkable because of the instrument through which God chose to reach her. It was not an elaborate theological explanation. It was not the communication of a new doctrine. It was the contemplation of the wounded Christ. Teresa already knew that Jesus had suffered and died for humanity. But now she was touched by the personal significance of that suffering. The wounds of Christ became the occasion of a revelation of his love directed towards her.
At the same time, they disclosed something she had not sufficiently recognised within herself: the divided condition of her heart. The illumination was therefore twofold. She recognised the love of Christ more deeply. And, in that same light, she recognised her own resistance to that love. This is an essential characteristic of the second conversion. The divine light does not merely reveal God. It also reveals to the person the truth of his own spiritual condition.
Teresa’s experience also demonstrates the importance of the Passion in the economy of recognition. The Christ covered with wounds reaches her where abstract knowledge and repeated human efforts had not brought about the decisive change. The Crucified speaks to the hidden depths of her heart. It would be inaccurate to reduce the entire transformation of Teresa to one isolated moment. Her conversion was prepared by a longer spiritual struggle, the reading of St Augustine’s Confessions, and successive interventions of grace. Nevertheless, the encounter with the wounded Christ occupies a privileged place in her account of the Lord awakening her soul.
In my earlier article, “St Teresa’s Conversion: The Meaning of Her Life”, I argued that the decisive change concerns the giving of the whole heart to Christ, including the affective dimensions that had remained dispersed among secondary attachments.[4] From this perspective, the second conversion is not simply an improvement in moral observance. It is a transformation of the relationship between the soul and Christ. The person begins to recognise Jesus as the one who loves her personally, awaits her love and desires her entire heart. This recognition initiates a new stage of spiritual growth. It does not complete purification, but it changes the orientation of the journey.
10. Catechesis, Kerygma and Second Conversion: Necessary Distinctions
At this stage, we encounter an important theological and pastoral difficulty. How should we distinguish ordinary catechesis, kerygmatic proclamation, initial conversion and second conversion? These realities are intimately connected, yet they cannot simply be identified.
Catechesis provides an organic and systematic formation in the Christian faith. It communicates Scripture, doctrine, the sacramental life, Christian morality and prayer, helping the believer to understand and live the mystery of Christ. Its indispensable contribution is to provide the objective content, language and ecclesial framework of faith.
Kerygmatic proclamation announces the saving event of Jesus Christ, his death and Resurrection, and the personal invitation to conversion and faith. Its distinctive emphasis is not simply that certain Christian propositions are true, but that the living Christ offers salvation and calls the listener to respond. Pope Francis expresses this in Evangelii Gaudium, 164, insisting that the proclamation of Christ’s personal love must remain at the centre of evangelisation.
The distinction between catechesis and kerygma is therefore not a separation between information and experience. Authentic catechesis is already ordered towards encounter, and authentic kerygmatic proclamation already communicates doctrinal truth. The difference concerns their immediate emphasis and function. Catechesis unfolds the Christian mystery. Kerygma announces the saving Christ and summons the listener to respond.
Initial conversion designates the turning towards Christ and the reception of the life of faith, ordinarily associated with the fundamental conversion expressed and sacramentally realised in Baptism. Second conversion concerns the renewed turning of those who are already Christian. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1428, describes this second conversion as an ongoing task for the whole Church, continually called to repentance and renewal.
In spiritual theology, however, a more specific use of the expression is also possible. The second conversion may designate a recognisable and decisive turning point in the life of an already baptised person, when the love and call of Christ become personally apprehended with new force, prompting a more complete surrender to him. This more specific meaning should not be confused with the broader catechetical meaning, although the two are compatible.
The distinction is particularly important. An individual may have received a thorough catechetical formation without yet experiencing such a decisive personal awakening. He may even have heard repeated kerygmatic proclamations without allowing the truth announced to transform the deepest orientation of his heart. Conversely, the Lord may bring about a profound personal recognition through an apparently simple event, such as a passage of Scripture, the contemplation of the Crucified, an encounter with mercy, or a period of prayer.
The event does not replace catechesis. Nor does it make the kerygma unnecessary. Rather, it reveals the difference between hearing that one is loved and personally recognising that love. Pope Francis insists in Evangelii Gaudium, 165, that Christian formation consists in entering ever more deeply into the kerygma. This assertion is especially important for our enquiry. The first proclamation is not something to be left behind once doctrinal formation begins. Its fundamental content must become progressively more personal, more deeply understood and more completely lived.
We must therefore resist a mechanical sequence in which catechesis, kerygma and second conversion are treated as automatically successive stages. A kerygmatic encounter may precede formal catechesis, accompany it or occur after many years of Christian practice. What matters is that the person be guided towards a genuine recognition of Christ, followed by sustained growth.
The second conversion, understood as a decisive personal awakening, should neither be presumed to have occurred merely because a person is baptised nor imposed as an obligatory emotional experience. It is a work of grace, discerned by its truth, spiritual orientation and enduring fruits.
11. Spiritual and Mystical Recognition: An Important Distinction
The recognition we are discussing may be described as spiritual, personal, contemplative or even mystical. Yet these terms must be used carefully. The word mystical sometimes evokes extraordinary phenomena: visions, locutions, ecstasies and unusual states of consciousness. Such associations can obscure the reality under consideration.
Recognising that Christ loves me personally does not necessarily involve an extraordinary spiritual phenomenon. It may occur quietly, through faith, prayer, the Word of God or an ordinary event interpreted in the light of grace. It may be accompanied by powerful emotion, as in Teresa’s encounter with the wounded Christ. But emotion is not its defining characteristic. Nor is the absence of strong emotion evidence that recognition has not occurred.
The essential reality is the personal encounter with Christ through faith, under the action of grace, and the consequent transformation of the person’s response to him. We must also distinguish this recognition from the deeper stages of infused contemplation and transforming union described by the Carmelite doctors.
The second conversion is not equivalent to mystical marriage. It is a decisive beginning or turning point within a journey that can lead much further. The person discovers Christ’s personal love and begins to surrender more completely. Subsequently, the Holy Spirit progressively purifies the faculties, attachments and deeper structures of the soul. The recognition of Christ becomes more stable, profound and purified. Eventually, the person may be led through the passive purifications described by St John of the Cross, towards the spiritual betrothal and marriage of the Carmelite tradition.
Thus the same fundamental reality develops throughout the spiritual journey. What begins as the personal recognition of divine love is progressively transformed into a deeper participation in that love. The second conversion is not the summit. It is a threshold.
12. St John of the Cross: Purification Transforms Our Understanding of God
St John of the Cross provides an essential theological foundation for understanding why recognition must develop through purification. In The Ascent of Mount Carmel, he describes how disordered appetites obscure the soul and impede the freedom necessary for union with God. In The Dark Night, especially Book II, he explains the deeper purification accomplished by infused contemplation. Here the soul undergoes a transformation extending beyond external behaviour and conscious spiritual attachments. Its habitual ways of understanding, desiring and judging are progressively purified.
The importance of this doctrine for the theology of Revelation is considerable. Purification is not merely moral improvement. It is also a purification of our understanding of God. Throughout the earlier stages of spiritual life, the person may still unconsciously imagine divine action according to human categories. He may expect God to behave according to his own ideas of power, success, spiritual consolation or perfection. He may seek God while remaining attached to the ways in which he has previously experienced him.
The deeper purifications challenge these expectations. God progressively detaches the soul from inadequate representations and from its dependence upon familiar forms of spiritual understanding. The process can be experienced as darkness, confusion or even apparent loss. Yet in the teaching of St John of the Cross, this darkness can arise precisely because divine light exceeds the soul’s present capacity to receive it. The difficulty lies not in a deficiency of the divine light but in the condition of the recipient.
There are, however, two distinct aspects to this disproportion. The finite human intellect is naturally incapable of comprehending the infinite God. In addition, sin and disordered attachments further obstruct the reception of divine illumination. Purification addresses the second problem while grace elevates the created person towards a participation in divine life that infinitely surpasses natural capacities.
This is why the night of the spirit is so important. It is not simply an advanced exercise in detachment. It reaches the roots of the person’s spiritual functioning. The transformation affects the way the soul knows, loves, judges and acts. Consequently, the understanding of God itself changes. The person discovers that God is not merely a perfected version of human greatness. His wisdom, power, humility, love and action exceed our natural concepts. More precisely, the soul becomes capable of recognising with greater purity the God who has always revealed himself in Christ.
The objective Revelation has not changed. The recipient has been transformed. This distinction is indispensable. Christian spiritual progress does not produce a new public Revelation, nor does it grant an exhaustive comprehension of the divine essence. It deepens the person’s participation in and understanding of the definitive Revelation already given in Christ.
We can therefore state a central principle: The more profoundly the human person is purified and transformed by grace, the more capable that person becomes of recognising God according to the truth of his own self-revelation rather than according to the projections of the old self. The entire spiritual journey is consequently also a history of the progressive purification of our knowledge of God.
13. Recognition and Transforming Union: The Ultimate Purpose of Revelation
The process does not culminate simply in improved theological understanding. Its ultimate purpose is communion with God. John 14:21–23 is especially important here. Jesus links love, fidelity to his word, divine manifestation and indwelling. He promises to manifest himself to the one who loves him, and then speaks of the Father and the Son coming to dwell with that person.
The movement is remarkable. Divine love leads to manifestation. Manifestation opens towards indwelling. Indwelling establishes communion. In my article “Divine Manifestation and Indwelling Communion”, I argued that these Johannine verses disclose the innermost orientation of divine self-communication: God does not merely seek to be known from a distance, but desires to establish his dwelling within the human person.[5]
Recognition must be understood within this movement. The person is not invited simply to recognise Christ and then remain an observer. He is called to receive Christ, to love him and to be united with him. The same purpose governs the Fourth Gospel more broadly. Its stated intention, in John 20:30–31, is that readers may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing they may have life in his name.
This is the first and governing purpose: faith leading to participation in the life of Christ. Within a contemplative and ecclesial reading, the opened side of Jesus in John 19:34 becomes a privileged expression of this gift of life. The disciple is called not only to recognise the Crucified but to receive the life that flows from his saving self-gift.
Recognition therefore prepares for communion, and communion progressively deepens recognition. The two movements sustain one another. We recognise Christ more deeply because he transforms us. And we are transformed more deeply because we receive and respond to the Christ whom we increasingly recognise. This is why spiritual theology cannot be relegated to the practical application of doctrines already fully understood. It studies the transforming reception of divine truth within the human person, leading towards the fullness of charity and union with God.
14. Theological Consequences: Revelation Must Be Studied Together with Recognition
The first major consequence concerns fundamental theology itself. A course on Revelation should not merely explain the objective content of Revelation, its historical development, its credibility and its transmission. It should also ask how the recipient becomes capable of recognising the God who reveals himself. This does not require abandoning the traditional subjects of fundamental theology. It requires completing their formative orientation.
Theology must investigate the obstacles that prevent recognition: sin, spiritual blindness, cultural assumptions, projections, inadequate images of God, psychological resistance, distorted expectations and the disordered attachments described by spiritual theology. It must also investigate the work of grace through which these obstacles are progressively overcome.
In particular, the relationship between faith and spiritual growth requires more systematic attention. Dei Verbum, 5, already provides the fundamental principle. The Council explains that the grace of God and the interior action of the Holy Spirit move the heart towards God, open the eyes of the mind and enable the person to embrace revealed truth. The same Spirit continually deepens faith through his gifts.
A theology of recognition develops the full implications of this teaching. The opening of the eyes is not merely an initial condition for believing. It also belongs to the continuing maturation of faith. The question therefore becomes: what are the identifiable spiritual stages and processes through which this capacity is progressively purified and transformed?
Here fundamental theology must enter into sustained dialogue with spiritual theology. The former provides the account of divine Revelation, its truth and its ecclesial transmission. The latter studies how that truth is progressively received, assimilated and lived through grace. Neither discipline should be isolated from the other. A fully integrated theology must explain not only what God reveals but also how the revealed truth becomes a living and transforming reality within the human person.
15. The Consequences for Theological Education and Seminary Formation
The implications for theological education are substantial. A student may complete an extensive curriculum in biblical studies, dogmatic theology, moral theology, sacramental theology and Church history while receiving relatively little systematic instruction concerning the practical stages of spiritual growth. He may know what the Church teaches about grace without understanding how grace progressively transforms the soul. He may know the doctrine of the Incarnation without having been adequately helped to recognise the living Christ who desires personal communion with him. He may study Redemption while remaining unaware of important resistances within his own heart.
Such a situation does not invalidate his theological knowledge. But it exposes an incompleteness in his formation. The central difficulty is the separation between theological knowledge and its progressive transformation into spiritual life. In my article “Theology and Spiritual Life”, I have argued for the necessity of constructing explicit bridges between the major theological disciplines and their corresponding dimensions in spiritual theology.[6]
The study of Revelation offers a particularly important example. Students should encounter not only the theology of God’s self-disclosure, but also the theology of human recognition. The study of the Passion should be accompanied by an examination of the ways in which the Cross challenges our images of power, wisdom, holiness and love. The doctrine of grace should be connected to the actual transformation of the faculties, affections and deeper structures of the person. The study of faith should include the difference between doctrinal assent, personal encounter, the second conversion and the subsequent purification of faith.
Theological formation should also teach students how to recognise the difference between a temporary spiritual emotion and an enduring turning of the heart towards Christ. Most importantly, it should provide a realistic account of the spiritual journey, its stages, its difficulties and the means by which growth may be sustained.
This is especially important for future priests and spiritual formators. They will be entrusted with people who may already possess a considerable knowledge of Christianity but who still need help to recognise Christ’s personal love. If ministers have never been taught how this recognition develops, they may mistake religious observance for spiritual maturity or reduce formation to the repeated communication of doctrine.
The result can be a serious pastoral limitation. A theological education that studies Revelation without adequately addressing recognition risks producing ministers who can explain who Christ is but have received insufficient preparation to accompany others towards a personal and transforming relationship with him.
16. Parish Ministry: Moving Beyond Religious Maintenance
The same problem emerges in parish life. Much pastoral activity is organised around the transmission of doctrine, sacramental preparation, liturgical celebrations, parish administration and the maintenance of established religious practices. These activities are necessary and often fruitful. But they do not automatically ensure that those who participate have personally recognised the love of Christ.
A parishioner may attend Mass faithfully for decades, know the prayers, accept Catholic teaching and participate generously in parish life, while still relating to God predominantly through duty, fear or inherited religious expectations. The question is not whether such a person has faith. The question is whether that faith has been helped to mature into a progressively more personal recognition of Christ.
Parish ministry must therefore ask questions that are frequently neglected. Do parishioners know that Christ loves them personally? Have they begun to discover him as the living Lord who speaks to them? Do they understand that their spiritual life is called to develop beyond the observance of religious duties? Have they been helped to recognise and overcome inadequate representations of God? Do they possess practical means of listening to Christ and putting his word into practice? Do they understand that the goal of Christian life is union with God and the fullness of charity?
These questions are not peripheral. They concern the purpose of the Church’s ministry. The parish should be a place where Revelation is continually proclaimed and where people are progressively formed to recognise the Revealer. This requires more than occasional retreats or inspiring sermons. It requires sustained spiritual formation, adapted to the different stages of Christian growth.
A parish could, for example, offer an initial programme explaining the foundations of spiritual life, the personal love of Christ, the second conversion and the means of prayer. This could be followed by ongoing formation in Lectio Divina, the Sermon on the Mount, the Gospels, the laws of spiritual growth, purification and contemplative prayer.
Such programmes should not be designed merely to increase religious activity. Their purpose should be to help people recognise Christ, establish a living relationship with him and progress steadily towards union.
17. Evangelisation: Announcing Christ Is Not the Same as Ensuring His Recognition
Evangelisation introduces a further distinction. The Gospel must be proclaimed. But proclamation and recognition are not identical. A person may hear the Gospel without understanding its personal significance. He may accept its historical or moral claims while remaining unable to recognise the love of Christ directed towards him. Conversely, an encounter with Christian mercy, suffering, forgiveness or holiness may awaken a desire for Christ before the person possesses an extensive doctrinal understanding.
This is why the kerygma is indispensable. The proclamation that Christ loves us, has given his life for us and is risen must remain central to evangelisation. However, a further question must be asked. How is the recipient helped to move from hearing the proclamation to recognising the One who is proclaimed?
The answer cannot be simply to repeat the same message more insistently. Repetition may be valuable, but recognition also requires the action of grace and the progressive removal of obstacles. Evangelisation must therefore be accompanied by a pedagogy of recognition. This includes patient listening, personal accompaniment, the presentation of the Crucified Christ, the introduction to prayer, and the gradual purification of inadequate images of God.
We should not assume that every difficulty in accepting the Gospel is purely intellectual. Sometimes the obstacle lies in a wounded understanding of love. Sometimes God is imagined as distant, demanding or threatening. Sometimes the person cannot believe that he or she is personally loved. Sometimes the proclamation of forgiveness encounters an interior inability to receive mercy.
Evangelisation must learn to distinguish these situations. It must also resist the temptation to measure its success exclusively through immediate decisions, sacramental enrolments, attendance figures or emotional responses. These indicators may have genuine pastoral value, but they cannot adequately measure the maturity of recognition. The more decisive question concerns the emergence and sustained growth of a living relationship with Christ.
18. Practical Consequences: Towards a Pedagogy of Recognition
A theology of recognition must eventually provide practical guidance. Otherwise, it risks remaining another theoretical contribution to the very problem it seeks to address. The first requirement is to help people encounter the truth that Christ loves them personally. This should not remain an abstract statement. The Gospel must be presented in such a way that the individual can gradually discover the personal significance of Christ’s words, actions, Passion and Resurrection.
Mark 10:21 and Galatians 2:20 are especially important in this regard. The person must be helped to understand that Christ’s love is not merely directed towards humanity as an anonymous collective. It is personally addressed to each human being. This is the central concern of my book God Loves You, which takes the loving gaze of Jesus in Mark 10:21 as a starting point for rediscovering the initiative and unconditional generosity of his love.[7]
A second requirement is the practical introduction to daily listening. The Christian needs to learn how to approach Scripture not merely as a historical or doctrinal document, but as the Word through which the living Christ addresses the believer today. This is why Lectio Divina is so important. In the approach developed within the School of Mary, two essential movements are emphasised: listening to what Jesus is saying and putting his word into practice. The purpose is not simply to gather spiritual reflections. It is to establish a real dialogue of faith and obedience with the living Christ.
A third requirement is the development of contemplative prayer. The Prayer of the Heart helps the believer to remain before Christ in faith, to surrender to his action and to allow the grace of God to operate beyond the limits of conscious understanding.
These forms of prayer have complementary functions. Listening to and practising the Word helps to transform the conscious understanding and exercise of freedom. Contemplative prayer opens the person more deeply to the sanctifying action of God. Both contribute to the maturation of recognition.
A fourth requirement is teaching the stages of spiritual growth. The person who has experienced a second conversion must not be left without guidance. Initial enthusiasm may be followed by difficulties, dryness, attachments, confusion or discouragement. Without an adequate theology of growth, such experiences may be misunderstood as failure or abandonment by God.
A sound spiritual formation explains how the Lord purifies, strengthens and transforms the soul throughout successive stages. It also helps distinguish ordinary difficulties from deeper passive purifications, avoiding premature interpretations of spiritual suffering as advanced mystical experience.
A fifth requirement is accompaniment and discernment. The formation of spiritual directors and spiritual formators should include an understanding of personal recognition, the second conversion and the dynamics of purification. Those accompanying others need to distinguish between doctrinal knowledge, emotional experience, authentic spiritual growth and the deeper action of grace.
Finally, recognition must be tested by its fruits. An authentic relationship with Christ should progressively produce humility, charity, truthfulness, obedience to the Gospel, freedom from disordered attachments and greater love of neighbour. Personal recognition must never become a justification for spiritual individualism or withdrawal from the sacramental and ecclesial life of the Church. The Christ whom we recognise personally is the same Christ who forms his Body and sends his disciples into the world.
19. The Need for an Integrated Theology of Revelation and Spiritual Growth
The preceding analysis reveals a wider theological problem. The Church possesses a rich doctrine of Revelation and a profound tradition concerning spiritual growth. Yet these two bodies of theological knowledge are not always sufficiently integrated in teaching and formation.
Fundamental theology explains divine self-disclosure. Spiritual theology explains the transformation of the person by grace. The connection between them must be made explicit. The study of Revelation must not terminate at the moment when revealed truth is intellectually understood. It must remain oriented towards the progressive transformation of the believer’s capacity to recognise, receive and live that truth.
In this perspective, spiritual theology does not simply apply truths already established elsewhere. It studies a dimension intrinsic to the purpose of Revelation itself. Revelation is given for salvation and communion. Salvation involves transformation. Transformation deepens recognition. Recognition opens towards greater communion. These movements belong to one coherent divine economy.
A reformed theological method would therefore bring the history of Revelation into continuous dialogue with the interior history of the believer. It would study the objective manifestation of God alongside the progressive transformation of the human capacity to recognise him. It would treat the second conversion as an important spiritual turning point, not as a substitute for Baptism or sacramental grace, but as a decisive awakening to their personal implications.
It would also recognise that the more advanced purifications of spiritual life transform not merely moral conduct but the person’s understanding of God himself. This approach has important consequences for research. It invites a more systematic study of the relationship between divine illumination, spiritual perception, purification, personal recognition and transforming union.
It also requires a more developed dialogue between biblical theology, dogmatic theology, theological anthropology, mystical theology and pastoral formation. The purpose is not to create another isolated speciality. It is to recover the intrinsic unity of theology as a discipline ordered towards the knowledge, love and union of the human person with God.
Conclusion: Revelation Finds Its Personal Fulfilment in Recognition and Communion
The theology of Revelation begins with God’s initiative. God reveals himself because he freely desires to communicate his life and love. In Jesus Christ, this self-revelation reaches its definitive historical fulfilment. Yet the coming of Christ also exposes a tragedy: God can stand before humanity and remain unrecognised.
The problem is not simply the absence of knowledge. Humanity is wounded by sin, restricted by inadequate expectations and inclined to project its own images upon God. Consequently, the divine manifestation is frequently misunderstood. The wisdom of the Cross appears as folly. Divine power appears as weakness. The holiness of Christ appears scandalous because it approaches sinners. The love of God remains unrecognised because it does not correspond to the human images of greatness, power and perfection.
The Incarnation and Passion reveal the extraordinary divine response to this condition. In the Incarnation, the Word becomes genuinely human and accessible within the conditions of our nature. In the Passion, Christ descends into the suffering and death of fallen humanity, carrying our wounds and the consequences of our sins without himself becoming sinful. At the very point where human expectations are most radically contradicted, the deepest truth of divine love is manifested.
But the recognition of this love requires the work of grace. The Holy Spirit opens the eyes of the mind and transforms the heart. The person begins to discover not only that Jesus is the Son of God and Saviour of the world, but that he is the One who loves me, looks upon me and has given himself for me.
The second conversion represents a decisive personal awakening to this reality. St Teresa of Avila’s encounter with the wounded Christ illustrates it with exceptional clarity. After many years of religious life, the contemplation of the Passion became the occasion of a new recognition of Christ’s love and of the divided condition of her own heart. What she already knew doctrinally became personally illuminating and transformative.
Yet the journey does not end there. Through the successive purifications described by the Carmelite tradition, the believer’s understanding of God is progressively freed from the projections of the old self. Recognition becomes more purified, more profound and more conformable to the divine mystery. The goal is not simply greater religious knowledge, nor even a more intense personal experience. It is communion with Christ, culminating in the fullness of charity and transforming union with God.
This understanding has immediate consequences for theological education, catechesis, evangelisation, priestly formation and parish ministry. A theology of Revelation cannot fulfil its formative purpose if it does not also address how the human person becomes capable of recognising the God who reveals himself.
The Church must transmit the truths of faith. She must proclaim the kerygma. She must celebrate the sacraments. But she must also provide the spiritual formation that helps the faithful personally recognise Christ, respond to his love and grow towards union with him.
The essential question is therefore not simply whether people know the teachings of Jesus. It is whether they have begun to recognise Jesus himself. Do they know that he loves them personally? Have they discovered his gaze, his call and his desire to communicate himself to them? Have they been helped to overcome the images of God that prevent them from seeing him as he truly is? Are they progressing in the purification and transformation that make deeper recognition possible?
These are not secondary pastoral questions. They concern the very purpose of Revelation. God does not reveal himself merely to become an object of our knowledge. He reveals himself to enter into communion with us.
Revelation is God’s self-disclosure. Recognition is the grace-enabled discovery of the One who reveals himself. Purification progressively liberates and transforms our capacity to recognise him. And communion is the fulfilment towards which the entire movement is directed.
Perhaps the most serious obstacle to recognising God is not that we know nothing about him, but that we believe we already know him sufficiently. The old self constructs an image of God and then fails to recognise him when he appears in a form that contradicts that image.
Christ comes to free us from this blindness. He reveals himself through the wounds of his Passion. He looks upon us and loves us. And he invites each person to discover the truth that changes the whole spiritual journey: He has loved me. He has given himself for me. He is here, and he calls me to receive him.
The beginning of a renewed spiritual life is not merely the discovery of new truths about Christ. It is the personal recognition, by grace, of the Christ who has always loved us. And the entire journey of purification and transformation is the gradual deepening of that recognition, until we become capable of receiving him more fully, loving him more completely and living in communion with him.
Notes
[1] Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, 18 November 1965, especially §§2–6; René Latourelle, Théologie de la Révélation (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1963; revised and enlarged edition, 1966). English edition: Theology of Revelation, including commentary on Dei Verbum (Staten Island, NY: Alba House, 1966).
[2] Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, Encyclical Letter, 25 December 2005, §§1 and 17. See especially his treatment of the personal encounter with Christ, the priority of divine love and the progressive recognition of that love.
[3] Teresa of Jesus, The Book of Her Life, chapter 9, §1. See also chapters 8–10 for the wider context of her spiritual struggles, the encounter with the wounded Christ and the beginning of a new phase in her relationship with God. A modern English translation is found in The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, vol. 1, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodríguez (Washington, DC: ICS Publications).
[4] Jean Khoury, “St Teresa’s Conversion: The Meaning of Her Life”, School of Mary, https://schoolofmary.org/st-teresa-of-avila-2-16-st-teresas-conversion-the-meaning-of-her-life/. See also Khoury’s “Twenty Years with Jesus, Yet the Water Did Not Flow”, listed in the School of Mary’s St Teresa of Avila resources.
[5] Jean Khoury, “Divine Manifestation and Indwelling Communion: The Johannine Revelation of God’s Self-Communication in John 14:21–23”, School of Mary, 2026. See the discussion of divine manifestation as ordered towards indwelling communion in the author’s collected articles.
[6] Jean Khoury, “Theology and Spiritual Life”, School of Mary, based on a lecture given at Allen Hall Seminary, London, October 2023. https://schoolofmary.org/theology-and-spiritual-life/.
[7] Jean Khoury, God Loves You, School of Mary publications, listed at https://schoolofmary.org/books/. The book takes Mark 10:21 as a starting point for exploring Jesus’ unconditional personal love, the primacy of his initiative and the human tendency to doubt or resist that love.
[8] For the distinction between the definitive Revelation in Christ and its progressive appropriation in the believer, see Dei Verbum, §§4–5, and Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§65–67, 142–165.
[9] For the second conversion in the broad sense of the continuing conversion of the baptised, see Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§1427–1429. The more specific use of “second conversion” as a decisive spiritual turning point belongs to the theological and formative interpretation developed in this article.
[10] Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, Apostolic Exhortation, 24 November 2013, §§160–166. These passages are particularly important for the relationship between kerygmatic proclamation, catechesis, growth in faith and mystagogical initiation.
[11] Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelisation, Directory for Catechesis (2020). See its treatment of the kerygma, catechetical formation, conversion and mystagogy. See also the General Directory for Catechesis (1997), §§61–62 and 85–89.
[12] John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book I, particularly chapters 4–13, concerning the disordered appetites and their consequences for spiritual freedom and illumination.
[13] John of the Cross, The Dark Night, Book II, especially chapters 5–13, concerning the purifying illumination of divine contemplation and the soul’s experience of darkness.
[14] John of the Cross, The Spiritual Canticle and The Living Flame of Love, for the mature stages of spiritual union, the transformation of the faculties and the participation of the soul in divine love.
[15] Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, 30 September 2010, especially §§22–25 and 86–87, concerning the Word of God, the response of faith and Lectio Divina.
[16] Jean Khoury, “The Second Conversion: Awakening the Baptismal Life and Hearing Jesus’ Personal Call”, School of Mary, 2026. https://schoolofmary.org/the-second-conversion-awakening-the-baptismal-life-and-hearing-jesus-personal-call/.
[17] Jean Khoury, “Rethinking Theological Method and Theology”, School of Mary. https://schoolofmary.org/rethinking-theological-method-and-theology/. See especially the proposal for a theology ordered towards spiritual sight and transforming union.
[18] Jean Khoury, “The Unfolding and the Depths: Towards a True Method of Theology”, School of Mary, 2026. https://schoolofmary.org/the-unfolding-and-the-depths-towards-a-true-method-of-theology/.
[19] Jean Khoury, “The Keys to the Johannine Opus”, School of Mary, 2026. https://schoolofmary.org/the-keys-to-the-johannine-opus/. See the author’s interpretation of Cana, the Johannine signs and the movement towards the Cross.
[20] For the nuptial typology of Christ and the Church, see Genesis 2:18–24; Ephesians 5:25–32; and John 2:1–11 and 19:25–37. For the traditional relationship between the new Adam and the new Eve, see Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, III, 22, 4. The specific interpretation of the silence of Eve as opening the question of recognition is a proposed theological reading, not an explicit claim of the Genesis narrative.
[21] Jean Khoury, “With All Your Meʾōd, the First Commandment and the Theology of Passionate Love”, School of Mary, 2026. https://schoolofmary.org/with-all-your-me%CA%BEod-the-first-commandment-and-the-theology-of-passionate-love/. This article offers a complementary treatment of the personal and total response of human love to the prior love of God.
[22] Jean Khoury, Theology and Spiritual Life; and “Introduction: Reforming Spiritual Formation”, School of Mary, https://schoolofmary.org/introduction/. These texts develop the argument that sustained spiritual formation is necessary if doctrinal teaching is to contribute effectively to growth towards union with God.
Bibliography
Scripture and Magisterial Sources
The Holy Bible. Genesis 1–2; Isaiah 9 and 52–53; Matthew 17; Mark 10; Luke 24; John 1–2, 4, 9, 11–14, 19–20; Romans 5–8; 1 Corinthians 1–2; 2 Corinthians 5; Galatians 2; Ephesians 5; Philippians 2; 1 John 4.
Second Vatican Council. Dei Verbum. Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. 18 November 1965. https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html.
Catechism of the Catholic Church. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1992; English edition, 1994. Particularly §§50–73, 142–165, 1427–1429, 2012–2016.
Benedict XVI. Deus Caritas Est. Encyclical Letter. 25 December 2005. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est.html.
Benedict XVI. Verbum Domini. Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation. 30 September 2010. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20100930_verbum-domini.html.
Francis. Evangelii Gaudium. Apostolic Exhortation. 24 November 2013. Particularly §§160–166.
Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelisation. Directory for Catechesis. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2020.
Congregation for the Clergy. General Directory for Catechesis. Vatican City, 1997.
Patristic and Classical Spiritual Sources
Augustine of Hippo. Confessions. Particularly Book X, chapter 27.
Irenaeus of Lyons. Against Heresies. Particularly III, 22, 4.
Teresa of Avila. The Book of Her Life. Translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodríguez. Washington, DC: ICS Publications.
Teresa of Avila. The Interior Castle. Translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodríguez. Washington, DC: ICS Publications.
John of the Cross. The Ascent of Mount Carmel. In The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross. Translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodríguez. Washington, DC: ICS Publications.
John of the Cross. The Dark Night. In The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross.
John of the Cross. The Spiritual Canticle. In The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross.
John of the Cross. The Living Flame of Love. In The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross.
Thérèse of Lisieux. Story of a Soul. Translated by John Clarke. Washington, DC: ICS Publications.
Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus. I Want to See God. An integrated theological treatment of the spiritual journey drawing especially upon Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross.
Studies in Revelation and Theology
Latourelle, René. Théologie de la Révélation. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1963; 2nd revised and enlarged edition, 1966.
Latourelle, René. Theology of Revelation: Including a Commentary on the Constitution Dei Verbum of Vatican II. Staten Island, NY: Alba House, 1966.
Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger). Jesus of Nazareth. Three volumes. London: Bloomsbury/Continuum and associated English-language editions, 2007–2012.
Publications by Jean Khoury — School of Mary
Khoury, Jean. God Loves You. School of Mary publications. https://schoolofmary.org/books/.
Khoury, Jean. “St Teresa’s Conversion: The Meaning of Her Life.” https://schoolofmary.org/st-teresa-of-avila-2-16-st-teresas-conversion-the-meaning-of-her-life/.
Khoury, Jean. “Twenty Years with Jesus, Yet the Water Did Not Flow.” Listed under the St Teresa of Avila resources at https://schoolofmary.org/teresa-of-avila-master-in-spiritual-life/.
Khoury, Jean. “The Second Conversion: Awakening the Baptismal Life and Hearing Jesus’ Personal Call.” https://schoolofmary.org/the-second-conversion-awakening-the-baptismal-life-and-hearing-jesus-personal-call/.
Khoury, Jean. “Theology and Spiritual Life.” https://schoolofmary.org/theology-and-spiritual-life/.
Khoury, Jean. “Rethinking Theological Method and Theology.” https://schoolofmary.org/rethinking-theological-method-and-theology/.
Khoury, Jean. “The Unfolding and the Depths: Towards a True Method of Theology.” https://schoolofmary.org/the-unfolding-and-the-depths-towards-a-true-method-of-theology/.
Khoury, Jean. “The Keys to the Johannine Opus.” https://schoolofmary.org/the-keys-to-the-johannine-opus/.
Khoury, Jean. “Divine Manifestation and Indwelling Communion: The Johannine Revelation of God’s Self-Communication in John 14:21–23.” School of Mary, 2026.
Khoury, Jean. “With All Your Meʾōd, the First Commandment and the Theology of Passionate Love.” https://schoolofmary.org/with-all-your-me%CA%BEod-the-first-commandment-and-the-theology-of-passionate-love/.
Khoury, Jean. “Introduction: Reforming Spiritual Formation.” https://schoolofmary.org/introduction/.