Fr. Jorge Miró shares with Exaudi readers his commentary on the Gospel of this Sunday, March 23, 2025, entitled “If you do not convert, you will all perish.”

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The Word today seriously invites us to conversion. We sang it before the Gospel: Convert, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and Jesus also told us: if you do not convert, you will all perish in the same way.

It is a Word that warns us of a danger: the hardening of the heart.

The Lord is knocking at the door of your heart today: open it! Do not be afraid! Jesus Christ does not come to take away anything that makes you happy, but to give you everything.

The conversion to which the Lord calls you is not a mere adherence to rules. Conversion is an act of faith that leads you to return to Jesus Christ, to let the Lord enter your life, not as a visitor, but to let Him be the Lord of your life, of your whole life! To put Jesus Christ at the center.

It is converting to allow yourself to be loved by God who, as we sang in the Psalm, is compassionate and merciful… He forgives all your sins and heals all your illnesses; He rescues your life from the pit and fills you with grace and tenderness.

It is converting to listen to Jesus Christ. Why would you want to go to the best doctor in the world if you don’t intend to listen to him? What will heal you is not the “information” the doctor gives you, but following his advice, obeying him. That is conversion.

It means converting yourself to live your faith not as a theory, but as a personal encounter with the living and risen Jesus Christ, who loves you and is with you every day until the end of time.

It means converting yourself to be a witness to this encounter, proclaiming the Gospel with your life and your word.

It means converting yourself to live your faith not in a solitary and individualistic way, but in the Church, the Body of Christ, walking with the brothers and sisters whom the Lord has given you as a gift.

It means converting yourself to live your faith not as a moralism or as a requirement that you must achieve with overwhelming and exhausting effort, but as a grace, as a life that the Holy Spirit gives you.

Conversion is a gift; it is letting the Holy Spirit do Christ’s work in you. Conversion is not something you have to do, but something that happens in you, that the Holy Spirit does in you, if you let Him, of course.

If you live with this Spirit, taking into account your weakness, some of the signs the Word speaks of will appear in your life. You will no longer be able to live settled and stubborn in sin: let us not covet evil as they coveted it… You will no longer be able to live in constant complaint: do not grumble, as some of them grumbled; but you will live saying, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.”

Take courage! Ask for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Ask for the gift of conversion.

Do not be afraid of Jesus Christ. He does not come to take anything from you, but to give you everything. No one loves you as He does.

Come, Holy Spirit! (cf. Luke 11:13).