What does conversion to Christ mean?

Conversion to Christ, believing in the Gospel,
ultimately means this: to exit the illusion of self-sufficiency in order to
discover and accept one’s own need – the need of others and God, the need of
His forgiveness and His friendship. So we understand how faith is altogether
different from a natural, good-feeling, obvious fact: humility is required to
accept that I need Another to free me from “what is mine,” to give me
gratuitously “what is His.” This happens especially in the sacraments of
Reconciliation and the Eucharist. Thanks to Christ’s action, we may enter into
the “greatest” justice, which is that of love (cf. Rm 13, 8-10), the justice
that recognises itself in every case more a debtor than a creditor, because it
has received more than could ever have been expected. Strengthened by this very
experience, the Christian is moved to contribute to creating just societies,
where all receive what is necessary to live according to the dignity proper to
the human person and where justice is enlivened by love.


Pope Benedict XVI
Lenten Message 2010