Jean Khoury

Summary: The Second Conversion is a decisive turning point in the life of a baptised Christian: a personal encounter with Jesus Christ in which God intervenes in the timeline of a person’s history, calls that person by name and awakens the supernatural life received in Baptism. It is not a second Baptism, not a second vocation and not a judgement on the person’s earlier life. It is the moment at which the universal call to holiness becomes a call heard, received and answered.

This article gathers the elements of that reality: the personal encounter, the divine initiative, the turning, the passage from a distant God to “God with us”, the difference between being called and hearing the call, the seed of Baptism, the process of preparation and assimilation, the general and particular help of grace, the means that prepare the way, Lectio Divina, spiritual formation and the several forms the Second Conversion can take. It reads these elements in the Gospels, in the lives of St Teresa of Ávila and St Ignatius of Loyola, and in the passage from the Third to the Fourth Mansions of The Interior Castle. It then discusses the main questions and objections, draws out the theoretical consequences for the theology of grace, Baptism, spiritual theology, ecclesiology and Mariology, and sets out practical conclusions for the individual believer and for pastoral work.

The article also faces a sobering fact: calls can fail. The rich young man went away sad, and the guests in the parables of the wedding banquet had reasonable excuses and missed the hour of God’s visit. The grace offered today can be lost, and the Second Conversion must be studied together with its refusal.

The central claim is that the Second Conversion is wholly a grace and yet is not beyond understanding. God cannot be compelled, but He prepares, calls and waits for a free response, and the Church can learn how He does so.

Keywords: Second Conversion; Baptism; personal call; St Teresa of Ávila; Interior Castle; Lectio Divina; grace; evangelisation; spiritual formation; Mary.

Introduction: An Essential Reality of Christian Life

The Second Conversion is one of the most important realities of Christian life, and one of the most neglected. The Church today speaks constantly and rightly of evangelisation, of making disciples and of the universal call to holiness. Yet a more precise question remains largely unasked: how does a baptised Christian come to a personal encounter with Jesus Christ that changes the direction of his or her life and opens a new stage of spiritual growth?

Recent magisterial teaching has pressed this question from several sides. Pope Benedict XVI wrote that being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea but of an encounter with a Person.[1] Pope Francis invites every Christian to renew today a personal encounter with Jesus Christ,[2] and John Paul II described the definitive aim of catechesis as communion and intimacy with Him.[3] These texts name the goal. They do not always explain how a baptised and practising Christian arrives there, what prepares the way, what triggers the change and what must follow. The Second Conversion is the name for that passage.

The question is urgent because the Second Conversion is often treated as a pure grace whose causes and dynamics lie beyond our understanding. People acknowledge that God grants it, but they do not ask what happens in the person, what prepares it and what enables it to bear fruit. This article rejects that resignation. It holds that the Second Conversion is wholly a gift of God, and that for this very reason the Church has the duty to study how He gives it.

The question has a darker side that must not be passed over. Not every call is answered. The Gospels record men and women who were invited and did not come, and the reasons they gave were not always bad ones. A study of the Second Conversion that spoke only of success would be dishonest to Scripture and to experience. It must also speak of failed calls, and of the seriousness of the hour in which God calls.

The method followed here is to collect the elements of the Second Conversion, to read them in Scripture and in the saints, to discuss the questions they raise, and to draw conclusions for theology and for pastoral practice. The author’s proposal may prove mistaken in some of its details. It is offered because the subject deserves far more attention than it has received.

I. The Elements of the Second Conversion

The Second Conversion is not a single idea but a cluster of connected realities. Thirteen elements can be distinguished. Each is treated in turn.

1. A personal encounter with Christ

First and foremost, the Second Conversion is a personal encounter with Christ. It is an intervention of God within the timeline of a person’s history. It is not an idea acquired, a rule adopted or a level of fervour reached by effort. Someone meets Jesus, and the meeting changes the person’s life.

This encounter does not replace faith, the sacraments or the moral life. It gives them a living centre. The person no longer merely knows about Jesus, believes the truths of the faith and observes religious duties. He or she begins a relationship with the risen Lord, and discovers Him as the One who knows, calls, loves and invites.

2. A turning: divine initiative and a new spiritual providence

Conversion implies a turning, a reorientation towards a new direction. In the Second Conversion the turning begins with God. He comes in search of us (cf. Luke 19:10). The first work of the Holy Spirit is conversion,[4] and the Second Conversion is a stage of that work.

The encounter marks the beginning of a new spiritual providence, in which God takes charge of the journey of our life in a new and more consciously experienced way. God has always governed the person’s history, but now the person knows that He does, and begins to cooperate. The direction of life is no longer set by habit, preference or the expectations of others. It is set by a Person who calls.

3. From a distant God to Emmanuel, and the limit of every accommodated image

God, who may previously have seemed distant, abstract or transcendent, becomes Emmanuel, “God with us”, present and active in the person’s life. He is no longer an idea or a remote authority but a friend who walks alongside us (cf. John 15:15).

A caution is necessary. The image of God that meets us in our weakness is an adapted image. God accommodates Himself to our capacity, and the friendship we first experience is real, but it is not yet the whole of God as He is in Himself. The danger is to mistake the adapted image for the full reality. The goal of the spiritual life is union with God as He truly is, beyond every human accommodation. The Second Conversion opens the way to that goal. It is not the goal.

4. The personal call: being called and hearing the call

The Second Vatican Council teaches that all Christians “are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity”.[5] This universal call to holiness is fundamental. Holiness is not reserved for priests, religious or a spiritual elite.

Yet being called to holiness is not the same as hearing the call. That everyone is called does not mean that everyone has consciously heard and personally received the call. There is a difference between knowing that Christians are called to holiness and discovering that Jesus is addressing me, asking for my response and inviting me into a deeper relationship with Him. The principle may be stated simply: a call is a call. It is a personal initiative of Jesus, entering a person’s history at a particular moment and in circumstances known to God. It is not an abstract truth applying equally to all, and it is not automatically experienced in the same way by all.

This distinction deserves theological development. The author has not yet found it adequately worked out by any writer, and it needs proper study. It does not create a second vocation separate from Baptism. It describes the deepening of the baptismal vocation: the same calling, already given, now received with new awareness, intensity and personal commitment.

5. The awakening of the seed of Baptism

Paradoxically, the Second Conversion is in a profound sense about awakening the seed of Baptism. In Baptism the person is born into the divine life and receives an indelible character.[6] The life of grace is therefore already present. Yet the seed may remain buried beneath a long spiritual winter. It needs to be awakened so that the life received can unfold and bear fruit.

The Second Conversion is thus not the arrival of something foreign. It is the discovery of a gift already given, as when someone finds that the house he has lived in for years has rooms he never opened. It does not mean that the earlier Christian life was false or empty of grace. It means that the grace received had not yet become fully operative.

6. A process: before, during and after

The Second Conversion is both an event and the beginning of a journey. Some accounts suggest suddenness. Jesus tells the first apostles to leave their work and follow Him, promising to make them fishers of men. Matthew’s call can appear sudden, and so can St Paul’s.[7] But the decisive moment must not be confused with the whole process through which God prepares a person, brings about a decisive encounter and enables that person to assimilate its consequences.

There is a time before, a time during and a time after the most powerful moment of encounter. The time after is as important as the moment itself. Assimilation may take months or years. God’s grace does not complete its work in a single day. A person who has met Christ must understand what has happened, grasp the call and learn to respond to its demands.

7. Preparation: the Old Testament, John the Baptist and Mary

God does not act as though a person’s history, relationships and earlier experiences were irrelevant. His grace enters history and works through a divine pedagogy. The Old Testament is the great model. It prepared the people of God for the Messiah through prophecy, promise, figures and events: the journey of Abraham, the Exodus, the wilderness, the Promised Land, Jerusalem and the Temple. Read in the light of Christ, these illuminate the journey of the baptised towards union with Him. The Promised Land leads to Christ Himself, the true Temple and the dwelling place of God. The goal of the spiritual life is the indwelling of God in us. As Jesus promises, the Father and the Son will come to the one who loves Him and make their home with that person (John 14:23).

The first disciples were Jews who awaited the Messiah. When Jesus met them they were prepared. John the Baptist had gathered disciples, preached repentance and offered his baptism of conversion to the people. When Jesus calls, He calls people who have been prepared by the history of Israel, the promises of God and the ministry of John.

Mary has a role in this preparation that is analogous to that of John the Baptist, though not identical to it. The two missions are distinct and neither diminishes the other. John prepared the way by preaching and baptism. Mary, united intimately to her Son and to the Holy Spirit, prepares hearts by her maternal intercession. She opens the way for Christ to encounter the person and awaken the life of grace already received in Baptism. She leads us to Jesus, awakens our attention to Him and helps us become receptive to His call.

The Visitation shows this pattern. Mary visits Elizabeth carrying Christ, and at her greeting Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:39–45).[8] Her presence at Pentecost, praying with the apostles while they await the Spirit (Acts 1:14), confirms her place in preparing the Church for the Spirit’s action. Her role is not an alternative to Christ’s action and does not replace the initiative of grace. It is part of the way God has chosen to prepare hearts. Asking her intercession is not an optional embellishment added to a process that would otherwise be complete. Her role is therefore not merely devotional. It belongs to the very process through which Christ is welcomed and the seed of Baptism awakened.

8. General and particular help of grace, and human freedom

The Second Conversion cannot be understood without distinguishing two modes of divine help. The general, or preparative, help of grace is given to everyone. It enables a person to pray, to desire, to ask and to seek. The particular help of grace is the direct and personal intervention of the Holy Spirit: the strong touch by which God gives Himself to a soul in a new way.

This distinction clarifies God’s part and ours. God cannot force us. On rare occasions He strikes with great force: St Paul thrown to the ground on the road to Damascus, or Teresa of Ávila overwhelmed by grace before an image of the wounded Christ, traditionally identified as Christ at the Column.[9] Most of the time, however, the relationship is an interaction. God wishes to give His particular grace and waits for us to use the general help already given, to ask for His intervention and to correspond to it once it comes.

Two truths must be held together. Grace is necessary: without it we can do nothing, and even our asking is prompted by grace.[10] Yet the general help is truly given to us, and if we do not use it nothing happens, or nothing follows after the moment in which God strikes us strongly. We are free, and the Lord respects our freedom. St Augustine puts it thus: God created us without us, but He will not save us without us.[11] The work of our growth and transformation depends on our response to grace. The Lord stands at the door of the heart, knocks and waits for us to open, to listen and to give ourselves; He cannot and will not force us.[12] We are not puppets.

This is why, even in darkness and difficulty, even as prisoners of that darkness, we are invited to ask, to seek and to knock. The Lord guarantees His answer: the direct and personal intervention of the Holy Spirit. By inviting us to ask, knock and seek, He tells us that He always gives the preparative grace which makes this possible. The Council of Trent and the great tradition of Thomistic theology express the same balance between the divine initiative and the free response of the person.[13][14]

The Particular Help of the Grace of God in St. Teresa of Avila

St. Thomas Aquinas’ Explanation

    9. The means of preparation: conditions and triggers

    The Second Conversion has conditions that help prepare it and factors that trigger it. None of them guarantees it. Several can be named.

    • Foundations. Complete initial catechesis as an adult, that is, the full Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA), together with a strong commitment to parish life, forms an important basis. These are minimum conditions which bring a person nearer to the Second Conversion without guaranteeing it.
    • Being told. A person needs to hear that a personal relationship with Jesus is possible and that Jesus calls us into it. A person may know the truths of the faith without ever having heard this.
    • The Holy Spirit. The action of the Holy Spirit must be explained, together with how we receive and respond to it. The Spirit is not only a doctrine to be believed but a divine Person who dwells within and transforms.
    • Testimony. The accounts of other people, especially of the saints and their conversions, can be decisive. Through them Jesus can awaken something that has remained dormant. The conversions of St Ignatius of Loyola and St Teresa of Ávila are especially instructive.[15]
    • Preparing others. Believers prepare the way for one another, as John the Baptist did and as Mary does: by inviting to prayer, introducing the Gospel, praying for others and helping them become receptive.

    Through all these means Jesus can awaken what has been sleeping in the person.

    10. Lectio Divina: the encounter with the living Word

    Once the Second Conversion has inaugurated a new life, Lectio Divina becomes the primary means of encountering the divine presence that has entered it.[16] The initiative remains God’s. We do not choose a text and make it say what we prefer. We place ourselves before the Word, listen and seek to receive the light He wishes to give.

    The Word of God is not merely a text to be studied or a source of religious information. In the liturgy and in prayerful reading God addresses us and invites a response. The Word must penetrate our lives, illuminate our concrete circumstances and lead to a decision. It reveals not only what is good and true but also what must change within us.

    The Second Conversion changes the way Scripture is read. The question is no longer only, “What does this passage mean?” but also, “Lord, what are You saying to me, and how must I respond?” This is not a private message detached from the Church’s faith. The believer receives the Word within the faith and liturgical life of the Church and allows it to shape personal choices. Lectio Divina belongs both to the preparation for a deeper spiritual life and to its continuing development. It moves us from hearing about Christ to listening to Him, and from listening to putting His Word into practice.

    11. Spiritual formation: God’s domain

    The Second Conversion raises a basic question about spiritual formation itself. Formation is not the transmission of information, the acquisition of religious habits or the improvement of conduct. It concerns the transformation of the whole person in Christ, and aims at union with Him and the fullness of love.

    Such formation cannot be reduced to a programme with predictable results. The decisive initiative belongs to God. A teacher or formator cannot manufacture the personal call of Jesus, and no course can guarantee that a participant will undergo the Second Conversion. In this sense spiritual formation belongs to God’s domain. The Church still has work to do: to offer the means of formation, to communicate the wisdom of the saints, to teach the stages of growth and to help people discern God’s action. The great spiritual doctors, especially Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross, are indispensable guides.[17] But the encounter remains a grace, and the response must be personal and free.

    12. Different forms of the Second Conversion

    There is not one pattern but several. Some Second Conversions are dramatic, as with Paul. Others are gradual, as with many of the saints. Some are triggered by suffering, by illness or by failure, others by reading, by an encounter with a witness, by a retreat or by a moment of prayer. Teresa’s experience, Ignatius’s experience and the calling of the apostles differ in circumstance while sharing a structure. These forms need to be explored and compared. We should examine the conditions that prepare a person, the factors that trigger the change, the nature of the decisive encounter and the process of transformation that follows.

    13. Failed calls and the loss of the kairos

    The last element is the most sobering: a call may be heard and not followed. The Second Conversion is a real offer to a free person, and a free person can refuse. Grace does not cease to be grace when it is declined, but its fruit is lost, at least for that moment, and the moment may not return.

    The Gospels record such failures. The rich young man comes to Jesus eagerly, keeps the commandments and receives a personal invitation: sell what you have, give to the poor and come, follow me. He does not decide to follow. He goes away sad, for he had great possessions.[18] Nothing in his conduct was scandalous. He was the very figure of the good and earnest believer. Yet he stood at the threshold of the Second Conversion and did not cross it.

    The parables of the wedding banquet make the same point from the side of the invited. In Luke’s account the excuses are a field that must be seen, oxen that must be tried and a marriage that has just taken place; in Matthew’s the invited go off to their farm and their business.[19] These excuses seem legitimate. Work and marriage are good things, and no one is asked to despise them. The tragedy is that they are allowed to take the place of the one thing that cannot wait. The master has prepared the feast and Jesus is present, and the guests fail to recognise that this is the hour. They fail to seize the kairos.[20]

    Failed calls are not confined to the Gospels. Would-be disciples ask to bury a father or to say farewell first, and many of the disciples withdraw after the discourse on the bread of life.[21] The same pattern appears in the lives of the saints, who often record long years in which they delayed or refused. Teresa’s nineteen years before the decisive change include years of resistance as well as years of ignorance.

    Two things follow. First, grace present today can be lost. St Augustine expresses the fear that every Christian should share: he fears Jesus passing by and not returning, that is, the grace of God that goes before him and is not taken hold of.[22] The favourable time is a particular time, and the call that was offered may not be offered in the same way again. Second, the refusal is rarely a rejection of God. It is usually a preference, in good conscience, for something good over the best. This is what makes the failed call difficult to recognise from within.

    This element completes the account of general and particular grace given above. God gives the general help that enables us to hear and to ask, and He holds out the particular help in His freedom. But it is possible to leave the general help unused and so to let the particular help pass unreceived. Preparation, vigilance and a readiness to answer are therefore not optional additions to the Second Conversion. They belong to its very structure.

    II. The Second Conversion in Scripture and in the Saints

    1. The first disciples in the Gospels

    The opening chapters of the Gospels are fundamental for understanding the Second Conversion because they display its essential elements: preparation, prophecy, relationship, encounter with Jesus, the hearing of His call, conversion, confession of sins and hope for the messianic age. All have their place. At the heart of the process, however, is meeting Jesus, leaving everything to follow Him and giving one’s whole life to Him.

    John 1 shows the pattern. The disciples, prepared by the Old Testament and by John the Baptist, meet Jesus. They become curious and want to know Him more deeply. They ask where He stays, and He answers, “Come and see” (John 1:39). The Second Conversion begins with an encounter that awakens a desire for a personal relationship. The person no longer wants only to know about Jesus; he or she wants to remain with Him and follow Him.

    2. St Teresa of Ávila: a paradigm

    St Teresa’s experience is particularly emblematic. She entered the Carmelite Monastery of the Incarnation at Ávila at the age of twenty. For about nineteen years she lived as a nun, fulfilled her duties and remained faithful to prayer, with long periods of struggle.[23] She was not an unbeliever who later found the faith. She was a Christian and a consecrated religious who had received graces throughout those years. Yet something essential remained incomplete. Her external life was that of a committed religious, but she had not entered the personal relationship with Christ that was to transform her whole existence.

    At about the age of thirty-nine, she underwent a decisive conversion. An encounter with the presence and mercy of Christ changed her relationship with Him.[24] She read Augustine’s Confessions and recognised herself.[25] Her religious life continued, but its inner centre had moved. What followed was marked by an extraordinary abundance of grace, a new depth of prayer, the foundation of reformed monasteries and a spiritual teaching that has shaped the Church. In her Lifeshe looks back on her existence as divided into two periods. What had been, in many respects, her own life became increasingly the life of Jesus within her.

    The significance of this turning point is easily underestimated. We admire her mystical experiences, her writings and her apostolic achievements, and we neglect the decisive change that made them possible. Yet that is where the study must begin. What happened to Teresa? Why did it happen when it did? What was missing in the preceding years? What prepared her? What did she herself have to recognise, surrender and embrace? What can her experience teach us about the renewal of other Christians and of the Church?

    These are not secondary questions. If Teresa’s experience is a gift God has given the Church as a teaching, the Church must learn from it and not merely admire its fruits. Teresa does not treat the Second Conversion ex professo. The relevant lessons are present throughout her writings, and they need to be identified, organised and brought together into a coherent account.

    3. St Ignatius of Loyola

    The conversion of St Ignatius offers a complementary account. Wounded at Pamplona and confined to his sickbed at Loyola, he read the life of Christ and the lives of the saints, and found within himself the desire to do for God what they had done.[26] The pattern is again instructive: a long preparation of which he was largely unaware, a triggering circumstance, an awakening through the testimony of others, a decisive turning and a long process of assimilation that continued through his years at Manresa and beyond. Reading accounts such as these helps us understand what is at stake in conversion, identify its constituent elements and recognise the journey through which grace works.

    4. The dormant good Catholic and the Third Mansions

    One of the most challenging aspects of the Second Conversion is that it may be needed by someone whose Christian life appears entirely satisfactory. Consider a practising Catholic who attends Mass regularly, keeps the commandments, helps others, prays and takes an active part in parish life. This person may be sincere, generous and faithful. Nothing in his or her conduct gives cause for concern.

    Yet that person may not have entered a sufficiently personal and transformative relationship with Jesus Christ. The life of grace is present, but its full dynamism is not yet operative. This is a genuine paradox. A person can be faithful to the Church and morally sound, yet remain within narrow spiritual horizons. One can know the commandments, practise religion and keep good habits without having experienced the decisive opening of the heart that comes from encountering Christ.

    The phrase “dormant good Catholic” must be used with care. It is not a technical judgement about the person’s state of grace, and it does not imply an absence of the Holy Spirit. It is a pastoral description of a situation in which the supernatural life of Baptism has not yet unfolded with the depth and fruitfulness to which it is directed.

    Teresa’s Third Mansions describe exactly such people.[27] They are earnest and disciplined. They are not lacking in generosity or good intentions. Their lives are ordered. But their love has not carried them beyond their established patterns and self-understanding, and their relationship with God has not yet opened to the wider horizons of divine love. This is why moral improvement and religious commitment, though indispensable, cannot be identified with the Second Conversion. Nor may we assume that a person who receives the sacraments and practises the faith has thereby entered the full journey that Baptism inaugurates. The problem is not that the earlier life was worthless. The problem is that it has not yet unfolded all its possibilities. The seed is present. It needs to awaken.

    5. From the Third to the Fourth Mansions

    A comparison between the Third and Fourth Mansions clarifies the transition. In the Third Mansions the person is committed to prayer, virtue and the demands of Christian life, but his relationship with God remains strongly governed by his own understanding, expectations and sense of control. In the Fourth Mansions the action of God becomes more clearly manifest in the interior life.[28] The person begins to experience a new depth of prayer and a different relationship with grace. He must learn to receive what God gives, and no longer rely only on established habits and personal effort.

    This shows why the Second Conversion cannot be reduced to a decision to become more fervent. It involves a change in the person’s relationship with Christ and a new openness to the Holy Spirit. The question that follows is what factors help a person to make the transition, what obstacles prevent it, and what roles are played by humility, prayer, personal relationships, the Word of God, Marian intercession and the witness of the saints. How does the person learn to cooperate with the grace being offered? These questions need careful study.[29]

    6. The rich young man and the Third Mansions: a call refused

    It is significant that Teresa herself, in the Third Mansions, turns to the rich young man.[30] She sees in him the person who has kept the commandments from youth and is sincerely attached to God, yet who, when invited to go further, is unable to let go. His case shows the other possible outcome at the threshold between the Third and Fourth Mansions. Teresa also went through the threshold and the young man did not, and the difference is not one of goodness. In him a fixed attachment prevailed over the invitation. In her, after long struggle, surrender prevailed.

    Placed side by side, the two accounts show that the Second Conversion is not the automatic reward of a good life. The dormant good Catholic is exactly the person most exposed to the failed call, because nothing in his life warns him that he is at a decisive point. He may have reasons of the same kind as those of the invited guests, reasons concerning work, family and responsibilities that are good in themselves. He may refuse without realising that he has refused.

    III. Discussion

    1. What the Second Conversion is not

    Clarity requires four negations. The Second Conversion is not a second Baptism, since Baptism is received once and for all. It is not a second vocation separate from the baptismal calling, since the same calling is deepened and awakened. It is not a verdict on the state of the person’s previous life, which may have been faithful and full of grace. And it is not merely an increase of fervour or moral resolve, since it involves a change in the person’s relationship with Christ and not just in his effort. It is also not necessarily sudden or dramatic.

    2. Between two errors

    Two opposite errors threaten any discussion of the Second Conversion. The first imagines that conversion can be produced by human technique or effort. This is a form of Pelagianism, and the Church has rejected it.[31] The second concludes that, because conversion is a grace, there is nothing for us to do and nothing meaningful to investigate. This produces a quietism of the mind, which treats the mystery of grace as a reason for ignorance.

    The Catholic tradition holds both truths together. God’s grace is first and free; the human response is real and necessary.[32] The distinction between the general and the particular help of grace gives this balance a precise form. God gives the general help without exception. He gives the particular help in His freedom and at His time. Our task is to use what we have received, ask for what we need and correspond to what comes. To investigate the dynamics of the Second Conversion is therefore not an attempt to take God’s place. It is an effort to understand more faithfully how He works and how we can cooperate better.

    3. Can the Second Conversion be triggered?

    The word “trigger” needs care. We cannot manufacture grace, control God’s action or fix the moment at which Jesus will call. The sovereignty and freedom of God are beyond question. But God is not indifferent to our salvation and is not reluctant to give Himself. His initiative is the foundation of the whole journey. The question is not how to compel God to act but how to understand the ways in which He prepares us, approaches us and invites a response.

    We must distinguish between causing grace and preparing for grace. The former is beyond our power. The latter belongs to the responsibility entrusted to us. Teresa’s case makes the point urgent. She remained a committed nun for nearly two decades before the decisive transformation. What was happening in those years? Why did the change not occur earlier? What obstacles had to be removed, and what circumstances prepared her? And what did she do in response to the grace received? These questions do not reduce God’s action to a human mechanism. They arise from the conviction that God has given us the lives of the saints as sources of wisdom. To ignore the circumstances of Teresa’s conversion would be to admire the fruits of grace while neglecting what might help others receive the same divine action.

    4. The Second Conversion and the adapted image of God

    The Second Conversion makes God close, personal and friendly. This is its great gift, and also its risk. If the Christian takes the friend who walks beside him for the whole of God, he will remain at the level of his own accommodated experience. God accommodates Himself to our weakness in order to lead us beyond it. The goal remains union with God as He is, and the Second Conversion should be understood as the beginning of a road towards that goal. The Fourth Mansions and what follows, with the purifications described by John of the Cross, show how the adapted image is gradually transcended.

    5. Second Conversion, evangelisation and the making of disciples

    The contemporary emphasis on evangelisation and discipleship is welcome.[33] Pope Francis calls all the baptised “missionary disciples” and insists on the primacy of the first proclamation.[34] Yet a gap can open between the proclamation and the lives of those already baptised. Many Christians have never been told that a personal relationship with Jesus is possible, nor been led into it. The Second Conversion names the missing link between sacramental initiation and mature discipleship. Without it, evangelisation risks addressing only those outside the Church, while the baptised remain dormant within.

    6. Parallels in other accounts of conversion

    Other traditions of reflection recognise a similar structure. Bernard Lonergan distinguishes religious, moral and intellectual conversion as distinct but related reorientations of the person.[35] Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange uses the expression “second conversion” in his account of the stages of the interior life.[36] These accounts differ in method and aim from the present one, and none develops the points made here about the personal call, the seed of Baptism and Mary’s role. They show, however, that the intuition is shared: Christian life contains decisive thresholds, and a theology of the spiritual life must be able to describe them.

    7. The failed call and divine mercy

    To say that a call can fail raises a legitimate worry: does it follow that a refusal is final, and that God’s offer is simply withdrawn? Scripture and the saints do not support so bleak a conclusion. Jesus looked at the rich young man and loved him, and the sorrow with which the man left does not suggest indifference. The master of the banquet sends his servants out again and again. Teresa herself was called repeatedly over years. God’s mercy is not exhausted by a refusal.

    Yet mercy does not cancel the seriousness of the hour. Augustine’s fear is not that God is unwilling to return but that we may not be there when He does, or may have hardened ourselves in the meantime. The tradition speaks of a particular visitation of grace, and the warning in the letter to the Hebrews applies: today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. The right response to this teaching is neither anxiety nor complacency. It is vigilance, together with confidence in the Lord who continues to knock.

    It must also be said that we cannot judge the interior state of another. A person who appears to have refused may in fact be on the way, and one who seems to have answered may not have done so. The language of failed calls describes a possibility in the drama of freedom and grace. It is not a verdict on any individual.

    8. Open questions

    Many questions remain open, and the author may be mistaken about some of them. What exactly distinguishes the call heard from the call known? Which elements of Teresa’s experience are common to all Second Conversions and which are peculiar to her? How do the different forms of Second Conversion relate to the temperaments, vocations and states of life of those who experience them? How does the Second Conversion relate to later transitions in the spiritual life? A symposium devoted entirely to the Second Conversion could be of great benefit to the Church, provided that it receives the right theological input and does not simply conclude that it is a pure grace beyond understanding. Such a gathering would bring together theology, the study of the saints, biblical interpretation, spiritual formation and pastoral experience.

    IV. Theoretical Consequences

    If the account given here is sound, it has consequences for several areas of theology.

    Theology of grace

    The distinction between the general and the particular help of grace must be given a more prominent place in the explanation of conversion. It allows theology to affirm the absolute priority of grace and the reality of human cooperation without confusing them. It also provides a framework for studying the conditions of conversion without implying that grace can be produced.

    Theology of Baptism

    Baptism must be understood not only as the remission of sin and the gift of divine life but also as the planting of a seed with its own dynamism, which can lie dormant. A theology of Baptism that explains why so many baptised Christians appear untouched by its power must speak of awakening. The Second Conversion supplies a category for this.

    Spiritual theology

    Spiritual theology needs a more developed account of the thresholds between stages. Teresa’s Third and Fourth Mansions, and the transitions described by John of the Cross, supply the material. The task is to identify the factors of change, the obstacles and the human contribution, and to assemble them into a coherent whole. The author considers that Teresa’s writings contain the lessons needed, even though she does not treat the subject as such.

    The doctrine of vocation

    The distinction between the universal call to holiness and the personal call heard requires development. The universal call establishes the scope of God’s invitation. The theology of the personal call explains how that invitation becomes an event in a particular life. Both are needed, and the second has been neglected.

    Ecclesiology

    Teresa’s conversion is a paradigm for the renewal of the Church. She did not leave Carmel or replace her vocation. The same vocation was transformed from within, and the transformation bore fruit in the reform of Carmel and in a remarkable apostolic mission. The Church likewise already possesses the fullness of the means of salvation. She proclaims the Gospel, celebrates the sacraments and calls all to holiness. These gifts must be received, understood and lived. The Church can possess sound doctrine, established practices and good structures and still need a deeper renewal in the way her members live their relationship with Christ. Renewal need not mean abandoning what has been received or inventing something new. It may mean rediscovering the inner dynamism of the gifts already given.

    Mariology

    The analogy between Mary and John the Baptist invites further reflection. It situates Mary’s maternal mediation in the economy of preparation, and shows that her role in leading souls to Christ is not merely devotional but belongs to the process by which Christ is welcomed. It should be developed in dialogue with the Church’s teaching on Mary’s cooperation in the work of grace.

    Biblical theology and the theology of the Word

    The Old Testament as divine pedagogy and the Gospel accounts of the calling of the disciples provide a biblical framework for the whole process. Lectio Divina, as the ordinary means of meeting the living Word, needs to be integrated into the theology of conversion and spiritual growth.

    Theology of the failed call and of the kairos

    A theology of the Second Conversion must include a theology of refusal. It should explain how a good person may decline a genuine call without sinning gravely, how the opportunity of grace is related to time, and what the Gospel’s language of the hour and the visitation implies for the freedom of God and of man. It should also connect the failed call with the traditional teaching on resisting the Holy Spirit and on the hardening of the heart. The parables of the banquet, the story of the rich young man and Augustine’s fear provide the starting points.

    A programme of research

    These consequences point towards a research programme: a systematic study of Teresa’s writings for the elements of the Second Conversion; a comparative study of the conversions of the saints; a historical study of how the idea has been handled in the tradition; and an investigation of the forms, conditions and triggers of the Second Conversion. A symposium would be a natural way to begin.

    V. Practical Conclusions

    1. For the individual believer

    • Recognise the call. Do not assume that being a good Catholic is the end of the road. Ask whether Jesus is calling you personally, and whether you have heard Him.
    • Use the grace already given. The general help of grace is always available. Ask, search and knock, trusting that the Lord has promised to answer and that He gives you the grace to ask. In darkness, do not wait for feeling. Ask.
    • Give yourself to Lectio Divina. Read Scripture daily as a personal address from Christ. Ask, “Lord, what are You saying to me?” and take the answer into your decisions.
    • Seek the testimony of the saints. Read the conversions of Ignatius and Teresa. Notice the preparation, the struggles and the slow change after the decisive moment.
    • Ask Mary to prepare you. Entrust yourself to her, as the one who prepares hearts for her Son.
    • Do not let good things crowd out the best. Work, family and responsibilities are good, but they can become the excuses of the invited guests. When you sense a call, do not postpone the answer on the ground that the time is inconvenient.
    • Fear the grace that passes. With Augustine, take seriously the possibility that grace offered today may pass unreceived. Respond promptly to what you have understood, however small, and ask the Lord to give you the courage to leave what holds you back.
    • Be patient with assimilation. The encounter may be followed by months or years of understanding and response. Do not abandon the journey when the intensity fades.
    • Do not confuse the adapted image with God. Welcome the friend who walks beside you, and keep walking towards God as He is.
    • Seek guidance. Find a spiritual director who knows the stages of the spiritual life and the teaching of Teresa and John of the Cross.

    2. For pastoral work

    • Build firm foundations. Offer thorough adult initiation, such as the full OCIA, and encourage serious commitment to parish life, while recognising that these do not exhaust the baptismal vocation.
    • Say it plainly. Tell the faithful that a personal relationship with Jesus is possible and that He calls them into it. Do not assume they have already been told.
    • Teach about the Holy Spirit. Explain who He is, how He acts and how to receive and respond to Him.
    • Make room for testimony. Invite believers to tell of their encounters with Christ, and put the lives of the saints before the faithful.
    • Prepare the way, in the manner of John the Baptist. Invite people to prayer, introduce them to the Gospel, pray for them and pray with Mary.
    • Accompany after the encounter. The Second Conversion is the beginning of a new stage. Provide formation in the spiritual life, drawing on Teresa and John of the Cross, so that people understand the road ahead.
    • Identify the dormant. Pay particular attention to the faithful and generous parishioner whose life is ordered but whose relationship with Christ has not yet opened. Speak to such people with respect and without implying that they have failed.
    • Preach the urgency of the hour. Teach the faithful that the call is made in a particular time, and help them to recognise their own excuses. Speak of the rich young man and the banquet guests as warnings addressed to practising Christians and not only to unbelievers.
    • Return to those who hesitated. A call refused is not necessarily the last. Keep in contact with those who drew back, pray for them and be ready to renew the invitation with patience and without reproach.
    • Avoid technique. No programme can guarantee a conversion. Offer means, not mechanisms, and keep formation within God’s domain by praying, teaching, witnessing and waiting.
    • Study and share. Support the theological investigation of the Second Conversion, including the proposed symposium, so that practice is guided by understanding.

    Conclusion: Awakening the Seed of Baptism

    The Second Conversion is an essential reality of Christian life that deserves far greater theological and pastoral attention. It is a personal encounter with Christ, an awakening of the baptismal life and the beginning of a new stage in a person’s relationship with God. It brings the universal call to holiness into the concrete history of an individual, as Jesus personally calls that person to follow Him more closely.

    The seed of divine life was planted in Baptism. The Second Conversion does not replace that gift but awakens it, allowing its dynamism to become fully operative. What was dormant begins to unfold, and the person’s Christian existence takes a new direction.

    God’s initiative is sovereign throughout. Yet this does not mean that we cannot study the preparation, circumstances, human responses and spiritual dynamics that accompany the Second Conversion. Precisely because God has given the Church the witness of the saints, we are responsible for learning from them. St Teresa of Ávila is an especially important teacher. Her conversion reveals the difference between an established religious life and a life transformed by a deeper personal relationship with Christ, and her writings help us investigate the passage from the Third to the Fourth Mansions. The Old Testament, John the Baptist, Mary, the Gospel accounts of the calling of the disciples, Lectio Divina and the great spiritual doctors all contribute to our understanding of this process. They show that the Second Conversion belongs to a wider divine pedagogy in which God prepares, calls, encounters and transforms.

    The Second Conversion also has its shadow. The rich young man went away sad, and the guests of the parables, whose excuses seemed legitimate, missed the hour of their visitation. The call can fail, and the grace offered today can be lost. With Augustine, the Christian should fear the grace of God that passes by without being taken hold of, and should answer while it is near.

    We must therefore hold two truths together: the Second Conversion is a grace that only God can give, and there are ways in which the Church can prepare people to receive it more fruitfully. We cannot manufacture the encounter, but neither should we remain ignorant of the means through which God prepares the way. The purpose of further study would not be to devise a technique for producing conversions, but to understand more deeply the work of grace, to recognise the obstacles that may hinder our response and to learn how to help the faithful become more receptive to Jesus’ personal call.

    For the Second Conversion is, in the end, about awakening the seed of Baptism after a long spiritual winter. It is about allowing Christ to become the living centre of an existence that already belongs to Him. And it is about discovering that the goal of the Christian life is not merely to be a good Christian, but to enter ever more deeply into union with Christ, until His life becomes increasingly manifest in ours.

    Read also

    St. Teresa of Avila’s Conversion

    The Universal Call to Holiness in the Church: CCC,  LG V, NMI

    A Call Is A Call

    Hearing Jesus’ Call

    The Dormant Good Catholic, When the Baptismal Life Has Not Yet Become Fully Operative

    Second Conversion: Encountering Jesus

    The Second Conversion and Mary’s Role in it

    Can we Trigger the Second Conversion?

    Spiritual Formation – God’s Domain

    The Promised Land is Union with Christ: The Necessary Christian Reading of the Old Testament

    Catechesis vs. Spiritual Formation

    Is the “Universal Call to Holiness” an Error?

    The Epiphany of the Church of the Desert

    The Prophetic Creed

    The Transfiguration of the Parish

    The Spiritual Journey and the School’s Formation (this article can help understand Spiritual Formation)

    Training Spiritual Formators (and the articles at the bottom)

    Bibliography

    Scripture

    The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006). Principal passages: Matthew 7:7; 19:16–22; 22:1–14; Mark 1:15; 10:17–22; Luke 1:39–45; 9:57–62; 11:9; 14:15–24; 18:18–23; 19:10, 41–44; John 1:35–51; 6:60–66; 14:23; 15:15; Acts 1:14; 9:1–19; 2 Corinthians 6:2; Galatians 1:11–17; Hebrews 3:7–15; Revelation 3:20.

    Councils and magisterial documents

    Benedict XVI. Deus Caritas Est. Encyclical Letter. 2005.

    Benedict XVI. Verbum Domini. Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation. 2010.

    Catechism of the Catholic Church. 2nd edn. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997.

    Denzinger, Heinrich. Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals. Edited by Peter Hünermann. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012. (Second Council of Orange, 529; Council of Trent, Session VI, 1547.)

    Francis. Evangelii Gaudium. Apostolic Exhortation. 2013.

    John Paul II. Catechesi Tradendae. Apostolic Exhortation. 1979.

    John Paul II. Redemptoris Mater. Encyclical Letter. 1987.

    Paul VI. Evangelii Nuntiandi. Apostolic Exhortation. 1975.

    Second Vatican Council. Dei Verbum. Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. 1965.

    Second Vatican Council. Lumen Gentium. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. 1964.

    Patristic and medieval sources

    Augustine of Hippo. Confessions. Translated by Henry Chadwick. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

    Augustine of Hippo. Sermons III/5 (148–183). Translated by Edmund Hill. The Works of Saint Augustine. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1992.

    Augustine of Hippo. Sermons III/3 (51–94). Translated by Edmund Hill. The Works of Saint Augustine. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1991.

    Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologiae. Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger, 1947.

    Writings of the saints

    Ignatius of Loyola. A Pilgrim’s Journey: The Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola. Translated by Joseph N. Tylenda. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1985.

    John of the Cross. The Collected Works of St John of the Cross. Translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez. Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1991.

    Teresa of Ávila. The Collected Works of St Teresa of Ávila. Translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez. 3 vols. Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1976–85. (The Book of Her Life, vol. 1; The Interior Castle, vol. 2.)

    Studies

    Garrigou-Lagrange, Reginald. The Three Ages of the Interior Life. Translated by M. Timothea Doyle. 2 vols. St Louis, MO: Herder, 1947–48.

    Lonergan, Bernard. Method in Theology. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1972.

    Williams, Rowan. Teresa of Avila. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1991.

    [1]Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est (2005), no. 1: being a Christian is the result of an encounter with an event, a Person, who gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.

    [2]Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (2013), no. 3.

    [3]John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Catechesi Tradendae (1979), no. 5, which describes the definitive aim of catechesis as communion and intimacy with Jesus Christ.

    [4]Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd edn (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), nos. 1989 and 2001. Number 1989 calls conversion the first work of the Holy Spirit; number 2001 states that God’s free initiative demands a free human response.

    [5]Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium (1964), no. 40; see also nos. 39–42.

    [6]Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 1265–1266 and 1272, on Baptism as new birth into the divine life and on the indelible character.

    [7]Acts 9:1–19; compare Galatians 1:11–17 on the revelation of Christ to Paul and on the years that followed.

    [8]John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Mater (1987), no. 12, on the Visitation; see also Lumen Gentium, nos. 61–65, on Mary’s maternal cooperation in the life of grace.

    [9]Teresa of Ávila, The Book of Her Life, ch. 9, in The Collected Works of St Teresa of Ávila, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1976). Teresa entered the Monastery of the Incarnation at Ávila in 1535; the change described in chapter 9 is usually placed in 1554, when she was thirty-nine.

    [10]Second Council of Orange (529), canons 3–7, in Denzinger–Hünermann, nos. 373–377. The Council teaches that even the desire to ask for grace is itself prompted by grace.

    [11]Augustine, Sermon 169, 11, 13, in Sermons III/5 (148–183), trans. Edmund Hill, The Works of Saint Augustine (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1992).

    [12]Revelation 3:20; Matthew 7:7; Luke 11:9. The exhortation to ask, seek and knock presupposes that the grace to do so has already been given.

    [13]Council of Trent, Session VI, Decree on Justification (1547), chs 5–6, in Heinrich Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals, ed. Peter Hünermann (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), nos. 1525–1526.

    [14]Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I–II, q. 109, a. 6 and q. 112, a. 2, on preparation for grace and on the manner in which the human will is disposed by God.

    [15]Ignatius of Loyola, A Pilgrim’s Journey: The Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola, trans. Joseph N. Tylenda (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1985), nos. 1–9, on his wounding at Pamplona (1521), his convalescence at Loyola and the reading that began his change of life.

    [16]Benedict XVI, Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini (2010), nos. 86–87, on lectio divina; see also Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum (1965), no. 25.

    [17]John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel and The Dark Night, in The Collected Works of St John of the Cross, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1991).

    [18]Matthew 19:16–22; Mark 10:17–22; Luke 18:18–23. Mark alone notes that Jesus, looking at the man, loved him (Mark 10:21).

    [19]Matthew 22:1–14 and Luke 14:15–24. In Matthew those invited make light of the invitation and go off, one to his farm and another to his business (22:5). In Luke the excuses are the purchase of a field, the purchase of oxen and a recent marriage (14:18–20). The two parables are distinct, but they share the refusal of an invitation by people whose reasons are not wicked in themselves.

    [20]Mark 1:15; Luke 19:41–44 (“you did not know the time of your visitation”); 2 Corinthians 6:2 (“now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation”); Hebrews 3:7–15 (“today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts”). In the New Testament kairos denotes the favourable moment, charged with God’s action, as distinct from chronos, the passing of ordinary time.

    [21]Luke 9:57–62, where three would-be followers each ask to do something else first, and John 6:60–66, where many disciples withdraw after the discourse on the bread of life.

    [22]Augustine, Sermon 88, 13, in Sermons III/3 (51–94), trans. Edmund Hill, The Works of Saint Augustine (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1991): Timeo Iesum transeuntem et non redeuntem, “I fear Jesus passing by and not returning”. The saying is frequently quoted in the form “I fear the grace of God when it passes”. The reference should be checked against the edition used.

    [23]Teresa of Ávila, The Book of Her Life, chs 7–8, which describe her years of struggle, her abandonment of mental prayer for a time and her return to it.

    [24]Teresa of Ávila, The Book of Her Life, ch. 9, in The Collected Works of St Teresa of Ávila, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1976). Teresa entered the Monastery of the Incarnation at Ávila in 1535; the change described in chapter 9 is usually placed in 1554, when she was thirty-nine.

    [25]Teresa of Ávila, The Book of Her Life, ch. 9, nos. 7–8, where she recounts reading Augustine’s Confessions and recognising herself in his conversion.

    [26]Ignatius of Loyola, A Pilgrim’s Journey: The Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola, trans. Joseph N. Tylenda (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1985), nos. 1–9, on his wounding at Pamplona (1521), his convalescence at Loyola and the reading that began his change of life.

    [27]Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle, Third Mansions, chs 1–2, in Collected Works, trans. Kavanaugh and Rodriguez, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1980). Teresa’s use of the rich young man (Matthew 19:16–22) occurs in the second chapter.

    [28]Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle, Fourth Mansions, chs 1–3, where she distinguishes the “consolations” that we produce by our own effort from the “spiritual delights” that God gives.

    [29]The Mansions are not a rigid sequence; Teresa insists that souls move within them and that God acts as He wills (Interior Castle, Introduction to the First Mansions and the Epilogue).

    [30]Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle, Third Mansions, chs 1–2, in Collected Works, trans. Kavanaugh and Rodriguez, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1980). Teresa’s use of the rich young man (Matthew 19:16–22) occurs in the second chapter.

    [31]Second Council of Orange (529), canons 3–7, in Denzinger–Hünermann, nos. 373–377. The Council teaches that even the desire to ask for grace is itself prompted by grace.

    [32]Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I–II, q. 111, a. 2, on operating and cooperating grace.

    [33]Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975), nos. 18–24, on the inner conversion of persons and of the Church that evangelisation seeks.

    [34]Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, nos. 120 and 164–165, on the missionary discipleship of all the baptised and on the primacy of the first proclamation.

    [35]Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1972), ch. 10, on religious, moral and intellectual conversion. Lonergan’s account is philosophical and concerns the structure of conversion in general; it is cited here as a parallel, not as a source for the present argument.

    [36]Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, trans. M. Timothea Doyle, 2 vols (St Louis, MO: Herder, 1947–48), passim, on the passage from the purgative to the illuminative way. The expression “second conversion” belongs to this tradition of spiritual theology.