An extremely important characteristic of our conversion into Jesus Christ is its personal nature. God as Trinity is personal. We come to understand that, as precious as any of our personal relationships is, there is infinite richness in the relationships among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It was truly a personal sacrifice when the Son of God became human.

Tell a psychiatrist what Jesus does in today's Gospel, and you will get a diagnosis affirming that he is suffering from delusions. That's the scandal of Christianity: we acknowledge that anyone else in this circumstance would be delusional, but in the case of Jesus, his identity and his special relationship with the Father are real.

What sort of God gives a couple a child -- miraculously -- and then says, offer up the child as a sacrifice? The same God who gave his son as the sacrifice which achieves humanity's salvation. Glory is found in the midst of suffering. God is truly personal.

Conversion means becoming who we really are? Strange as it may seem, this is a very helpful way to look at conversion. Conversion is from sin, which distorts our best and truest self. So the "change" of conversion is not into something alien to us; rather, it is ourselves becoming as God has intended us to be.