The Zeal of the Convert

When you work in the Church, professionally or on a volunteer basis, you become familiar with the phenomenon known as “the zeal of the recent convert.”

Sometimes, it really seems that the newly baptized are just stronger Catholics than the cradle Catholics. They smile more at Mass. They are awestruck by the Eucharist. They come out of the confessional beaming.

It’s not that they are naive. It’s not that they are in some honeymoon phase of religion, living outside of reality. It’s simply that they remember. They remember what it felt like before the Eucharist or before Confession. They recall before the sacraments and the oil and the grace and the relief. It was more recent for them than for some of us older Catholics — especially those of us who were baptized as infants.

Let’s ask ourselves: Have we become too comfortable? Do we receive God’s grace with expectation instead of surprise? Have we ceased to marvel and wonder at the goodness of God? If the answer is a resounding yes, don’t despair. Look at the Gospel — a literal nine times out of ten, God goes un-thanked and un-noticed.

So many of us have forgotten, or never understood, what it meant when the leprosy was washed from our souls. But when we remind ourselves, we become more keenly aware of the extraordinariness of the gift we have received.