At the heart of the monastic person's life is the promise of conversion.
Conversion is at the root of it all.
It is a promise to keep trying, an explicit commitment to trust God enough to keep turning to God and away from anything that would make us ashamed of the Gospel. In many ways, then, conversion of heart is a rejection of living in the past. It is a willingness to let things go, to let the future happen, to keep responding to God's abiding faithfulness to us. This means, of course, that conversion is closely linked to faith. It helps us carry out the decision we spoke of before, to follow Christ in the spirit of the Gospel, living our baptism.