Metanoia: A Change of Heart

Metanoia: From the Greek to change in one’s way of life resulting from penitence or spiritual conversion.

The disciplines of Lent are given to us to affect a change of heart – a metanoia. It begins with the Ash Wednesday reading from the prophet Joel who tells the people to “rend your hearts, not your garments.” But what exactly does it mean to rend one’s heart? To change one’s life?

If we engage in fasting and prayer and charitable giving without thinking deeply about the meaning of the actions, we are only “rending our garments.”

If the end result of our fasting is not that others in our community are fed, or that we learn what it means to be hungry without the means to assuage our hunger, then the fasting is an empty gesture.

If we give up phone scrolling or other pointless time-wasting activities but don’t supplant that activity with something meaningful, then we’ve just given things up for the sake of saying we did it.

And Jesus tells us that giving from our excess does not assure us of reward. Jesus asks us to be transformed, to be changed into his likeness for our own sake and the sake of the world.

Metanoia is a change of heart. It can start with Lent. We can begin to feel contrition, empathy, the longing for a deeper relationship with our Creator.

But a true conversion of heart is the work of a lifetime.

For a lifetime.

“… in order to attain the perfection to which you are called, a solid foundation is required.” — Saint Mother Theodore Guerin