1. I tickles me to no end that this dialogue is not only possible, but probable:
Person One: So, what was it that finally convicted you of the truth and caused you to revert/convert to Catholicism?
Person Two: Dog vomit. The thing about the dogs eating their own vomit. Totally.
2. So I posted 2 Peter 2 in the post below, which ends with Peter recalling Proverbs 26:11:
As a dog that returneth to his vomit, so is the fool that repeateth his folly.
Sicut canis qui revertitur ad vomitum suum, sic imprudens qui iterat stultitiam suam.
Now, the story of how that came up is this: I am currently reading “Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori”, which I cannot recommend with sufficient strength, and I found myself earlier this week reading “Sermon XLI, On the Abuse of Divine Mercy”. Ever so slightly relevant to the current goings-on, eh? “Oooh. This should be interesting,” I thought to myself. Indeed. Allow me to quote from Section 2, emphases mine:
“When you intend to commit sin, who, I ask, promises you mercy from God? Certainly God does not promise it. It is the devil that promises it, that you may lose God and be damned. “Beware”, says St. John Chrysostom, “never to attend to that dog who promises the mercy of God.” If, beloved sinners, you have hitherto offended God, hope and tremble: if you desire to give up sin, and if you detest it, hope; because God promises pardon to all who repent of the evil they have done. But if you intend to continue in your sinful course, tremble lest God should wait no longer for you, but cast you into hell. Why does God wait for sinners? Is it that they may continue to insult Him? No; He waits for them that they may renounce sin, and that He may thus have pity on them, and forgive them. “Therefore the Lord waiteth, that He may have mercy on you” -Isaiah 30:18. But when He sees that the time which he gave them to weep over their past iniquities is spent in multiplying their sins, He begins to inflict chastisement, and He cuts them off in the state of sin, that, by dying, they may cease to offend Him. Then He calls against them the very time He had given them for repentance. “He hath called against me the time” -Lamentations 1:15. “The very time”, says St. Gregory, “comes to judge.”
It was pointed out to me that when Chrysostom uses the pejorative “that dog”, it is far from random name calling. He is referencing the “dog that returneth to his vomit” from Proverbs 26 and 2 Peter 2. The dog that eats his own vomit; the sow that was washed who returns to wallow in mud mingled with her own feces, that is “mire”, is the unrepentant sinner who has no intention of STOPPING THE SINFUL ACTIVITY.
One more block quote from section 5 of St. Alphonsus’ sermon:
St. Bernard says that the confidence which sinners have in God’s goodness, when they commit sin, procures for them not a blessing, but a malediction from the Lord. O deceitful hope, which sends so many Christians to hell! They do not hope for the pardon of sins of which they repent; but they hope that though they continue to sin, God will have mercy upon them; and thus they make the mercy of God serve as a motive for continuing to offend Him.
Pray the Rosary, most especially the Sorrowful Mysteries, the First Sorrowful Mystery being The Agony of Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane. The fruit of this mystery is SORROW FOR SIN, which is the utterly critical and essential prerequisite for His Mercy and forgiveness. Beg Him to know what every single one of your sins are, and for you to feel a portion of the agony at your sins that He bore in the Garden, such that you may be animated to STOP DOING THE SINFUL ACTIVITY.
I hope this helps.