The Sinner’s Prayer and Ongoing Conversion of Heart

The “Sinner’s Prayer” has a Protestant connotation. It usually goes something like this: “Lord, I know I am a sinner. I need your forgiveness. Please come into my heart and be my personal Savior.”

There’s a reason you find Gideon bibles placed in motel rooms. When people are alone, they have a greater propensity for introspection and for coming to terms with the potential mess they’ve made of their lives. They realize they can’t fix it themselves, and they need help. It may be at the foot of a motel bed that one comes to be “saved” in the way a Protestant Christian understands it.

Two views of metanoia

 In Protestantism, the idea of “once saved, always saved” supports this act of personal surrender. Lives can and do turn around in the wake of the Holy Spirit moving one towards metanoia (conversion of heart).

For the Catholic, however, this is only the first step on a lifelong journey to the Cross and Redemption, not the last. It is, however, an important one that Catholics, who are prone to intellectualizing their faith, tend to neglect.

Before we dismiss the “Sinner’s Prayer” as pious emotionalism with shallow roots, we should first take a look at the biblical roots of it to see the sentiment that is so necessary for mature Christians to grow and continually renew their faith: repentance.

When John the Baptizer went out to the desert to live out his calling, his was a “baptism of repentance” (Mark 1:4; Acts 19:4). He baptized “with water” (Acts 1:5), and it was only later, after Christ’s coming, that the Holy Spirit would be an integral component of the sacramental act of Baptism.

Was John’s ministry futile or impotent then? Absolutely not. However, it was incomplete and preparatory, as he himself recognized: “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie” (Luke 3:16).

Prayer and sanctification

In the Catholic faith, we have the beautiful and traditional prayers that were, in essence, written by someone else. We have prayers to various saints, prayers of exorcism and deliverance, prayers of homage and thanksgiving. We find them on prayer cards and in missals. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, as many Protestants sometimes find themselves doing in their services and ministries.

But there is also in Catholic tradition what we call “ejaculatory” prayers – those expressions of the heart that come spontaneously from a broken spirit, symbolized most potently in some of the psalms. “My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise” (Psalm 51:17).

We also find in the Eastern tradition of the Church the simple words of the Jesus Prayer, which are meant to be repeated in a meditative way: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Like the Lord’s Prayer, this is really a “complete protein” for the spirit, encompassing the entire Christian ethos in a short yet substantial proclamation:

• Submission to the Lordship of Christ;
• Acknowledgment of His human and divine lineage in salvation history (Son of David, Son of God);
• Begging for the mercy that our salvation depends on;
• Recognizing and confessing the reality of our state of being as sinful men.

We see this desperate “crying out” in our brokenness in Scripture repeatedly, but as it relates to this form of prayer, the blind Bartimaeus articulates it most perfectly: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:47). Was there anything incomplete in this prayer? Was it just pure, desperate emotionalism? The Lord did not think so. He healed him immediately, saying to him “it is your faith that has made you whole” (Mark 10:49, 52).

Sacramental grace

As Catholics, we know the sacramental power of Baptism, which St. Peter tells the Jews in Acts is a necessary component of being saved, “Repent and be baptized…and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

We also see this in Acts 8 when the Ethiopian eunuch hears Philip’s preaching of the Gospel and asks to be baptized (Acts 8:36). In Acts 16, when the jailer asks Paul and Silas, “What must I do to be saved?”, he is told, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household” (Acts 16:31). What happens next? The jailer and all his household are baptized (Acts 16:33).

As these passages show, Baptism, preceded by repentance, is the person breathing with both lungs – faith and reason, faith and works. They work together as a means to spiritual completion.

This why we profess the fullness of faith as Catholics. We know that sacramentals, for instance, are only made effective by faith, lest they become like good luck charms. The Lord in scripture did not perform many mighty works in his hometown because of the people’s unbelief (Matthew 13:58).

A personal metanoia that might start with a heartfelt “Sinner’s Prayer” is efficacious and necessary, but it must also be brought to completion over the course of a lifetime, not just in a momentary decision.

A Lenten challenge

As we enter into the Season of Lent, this spirit of repentance should be a continual and intentional practice that brings us back to our initial baptismal vows and renews them. Sometimes the best way to do that is to keep it simple, as in the Jesus Prayer: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

This is a sinner’s prayer; are we not all sinners in need of mercy? Let’s not overcomplicate things, especially when we have gone off the rails and need to come home without delay.

If we have not been baptized, such a prayer can be the catalyst for desiring the saving sacrament, especially if we have lived lives of despondency prior to it. And if we are already baptized and pray with a sincere and broken, contrite spirit, Baptism has the power to call us to sacramental Confession where the Lord washes us in His Blood and makes our spirit white as snow.

There is nothing incomplete in such a prayer, nothing that God will spurn, but it doesn’t end there. It only brings us to completion, renewal, and, God willing, eternal salvation when we go before the throne at our personal judgment.