Conversion of mind and heart underpins every word and action of Christ, and the life of a monk shows us what the single-minded pursuit of this remaking can look like

Conversion of mind and heart underpins every word and action of Christ, and the life of a monk shows us what the single-minded pursuit of this remaking can look like

The early Cistercians were drawn to a central paradox of Christmas: that of the Verbum infans or “speechless Word”. Throughout salvation history, God has made ready for great redemptive deeds by preparing quiet places apart in which grace can bear fruit; but that the Father’s eternal Word, by which all things were made, should himself have become such a place was, to these contemplatives, a supreme mystery. The least inadequate response one could make, they thought, was one of silent adoration. When, in the fullness of time, the Word broke forth in speech, it was to say: “Be converted!” That is a reasonable rendering of the synoptic gospels’ call to metanoia (cf. Mark 1:15).

It is useful to unpick the meaning of this important notion. Not only does it introduce Christ’s preaching, it underpins every other utterance he makes. At its core, we find -noia, derived from nous, which a pocket dictionary will translate by the single word “mind”. Never trust a pocket dictionary! If you turn to Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon, that monument of linguistic culture, you learn that nous, in this English meaning, calls for subtle nuances. We are talking of “mind” not just as an intellective faculty, but “as employed in perceiving and thinking, sense, wit”; “as employed in feeling, deciding, etc., heart”; or as deployment of “resolve, purpose”.

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