A serious conversion is never a personal accomplishment, an achievement that we might savor with some satisfaction. In a very pure sense, it is entirely a gift of God when a soul returns to a friendship with him or discovers his real presence for the first time in life. But there is another truth behind conversions that is often less noted. It may also be that the Virgin Mary always has her eyes on a soul that undergoes any form of conversion. She is the mother of conversions and often in a very direct manner. She asked Saint Bernadette many times in the apparitions at Lourdes to pray for the conversion of sinners. Bernadette recounts that each time Mary made this request, the young seer asked Our Lady what she meant by these words. And each time, in reply, Mary only smiled at her. There is a mystery in that smile of Mary. Did she smile at the zeal of Bernadette’s desire to get it right and fulfill the request properly? Or perhaps Mary smiled in knowing already that this girl in the years to come would offer much in sacrifice and self-giving for the conversions of many souls. As in all the apparitions of Our Lady, the passage reminds us that conversions occur because prayer and sacrifice have been placed in the heart of Mary for the sake of souls. The personal experience we might have in every serious conversion of being drawn to Our Lord has hidden within it the presence of Mary and these intercessions. Mary wanting a soul for her Son because her own love for that soul is strong is one reason behind every conversion.
Haggerty, Donald. Conversion: Spiritual Insights Into an Essential Encounter with God (pp. 23-24). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.
Why were two men crucified on either side of Jesus at Calvary? An interior experience that the Virgin Mary underwent at Calvary is the possible reason. The account in Saint Luke’s Gospel of the so-called good thief is well known. This man, likely a murderer, rebukes the other crucified criminal for taunting Jesus and then turns to Jesus with his request to join him when he comes into his kingdom. This moment is the first deathbed conversion as Jesus extends the extraordinary promise of mercy to him, that of being with him that day in paradise. Surely Mary had prayed for his soul before his words to Jesus. He was at risk of losing his soul, and he was saved in his last hour by embracing the offer of mercy. But what happened with the “other” man at the crucifixion? The Gospel is quiet and does not speak of any appeal to the mercy of God. We have to assume that this man remained full of venom and curses to the end. When the soldiers broke the legs of these two criminals still alive, they slowly suffocated on their crosses, unable to hold themselves up and breathe. Mary, in terrible pain, stood watching their death agonies as another soldier plunged his spear into the side of Jesus, penetrating his heart. Yet the real pain of this piercing took place in Mary, a dreadful suffering that she carried with her in memory even into heaven. Despite her prayer and her desperate desire for the conversion of this other criminal, she stood helpless before what was likely the death of a man who refused any last act of repentance. In that case, the piercing of the heart of Mary is inseparable from the death of the unrepentant criminal at Calvary. When the soldiers broke the legs of these two criminals still alive, they slowly suffocated on their crosses, unable to hold themselves up and breathe. Mary, in terrible pain, stood watching their death agonies as another soldier plunged his spear into the side of Jesus, penetrating his heart. Yet the real pain of this piercing took place in Mary, a dreadful suffering that she carried with her in memory even into heaven. Despite her prayer and her desperate desire for the conversion of this other criminal, she stood helpless before what was likely the death of a man who refused any last act of repentance. In that case, the piercing of the heart of Mary is inseparable from the death of the unrepentant criminal at Calvary. In some mysterious manner, it is an experience she has never overcome, even now in heaven. Rather, it has carved into her immaculate soul an immense yearning to go in search for souls who are in danger of eternal loss. In a sense, all of history is at Calvary before the eyes of Mary as these two men die on either side of the crucified Jesus. There are those who in sorrow for their sins embrace God’s mercy, even on their deathbed; then there are those who refuse God and his mercy. Mary may have been given a deep intuitive vision of this division among souls at Calvary. Perhaps she has never forgotten that vision or the terrible pain it caused her to see a child of God lose his eternal soul; nor has she forgotten the tears she shed in that hour. It is why she begs us in her apparitions for prayer and sacrifice for the conversions of sinners” (Haggerty, 63-64).
Prodigal Catholic 