Sisters and brothers in Christ, today is the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, Apostle.
For today's first reading, we have two options to choose from but both are the account of the radical conversion of Saul to the Apostle Paul when he encounter our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ while on the way to Damascus to persecute Christians following the Way. In both versions, we hear Christ say to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? [. . .] I am Jesus [the Nazorean], whom you are persecuting. . ."
As I reflected on these two Scripture passages, I was reminded of Fr. Mike Schmitz's reflection on the conversion of Paul, on his "Bible in the Year" podcast. Fr. Mike said that Saul was persecuting Christians yet he said to Saul, ". . .why are you persecuting me?" Our Lord identifies himself with his people, the Church, because we - the faithful people of God, make up the Church, which is the Body of Christ. Therefore, an attack on Christians is an attack on Jesus Christ himself.
This is interesting to me because, in today's first reading, we come to understand that persecuting the Church is persecution of Jesus himself. In Monday's Gospel, we come to understand from Christ that "whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an everlasting sin. . ." And then in Evangelium vitae, we come to understand that God is the Creator and only He is the Author of Life, and that “life, especially human life, belongs only to God: for this reason whoever attacks human life, in some way attacks God himself” (EV 9).
All this affirms the First Commandment and the Great Commandment to love God above all. It also affirms that an attack on the dignity and sanctity of human life is an attack on the Triune God (the Holy Trinity) - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
. . .
Gospel of the Day
Jesus appeared to the Eleven and said to them:
“Go into the whole world
and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved;
whoever does not believe will be condemned.
These signs will accompany those who believe:
in my name they will drive out demons,
they will speak new languages.
They will pick up serpents with their hands,
and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them.
They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
The Story of the Conversion of Saint Paul
ReplyDeleteSaint Paul’s entire life can be explained in terms of one experience—his meeting with Jesus on the road to Damascus. In an instant, he saw that all the zeal of his dynamic personality was being wasted, like the strength of a boxer swinging wildly. Perhaps he had never seen Jesus, who was only a few years older. But he had acquired a zealot’s hatred of all Jesus stood for, as he began to harass the Church: “…entering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonment” (Acts 8:3b). Now he himself was “entered,” possessed, all his energy harnessed to one goal—being a slave of Christ in the ministry of reconciliation, an instrument to help others experience the one Savior.
One sentence determined his theology: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5b). Jesus was mysteriously identified with people—the loving group of people Saul had been running down like criminals. Jesus, he saw, was the mysterious fulfillment of all he had been blindly pursuing.
From then on, his only work was to “present everyone perfect in Christ. For this I labor and struggle, in accord with the exercise of his power working within me” (Colossians 1:28b-29). “For our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and [with] much conviction” (1 Thessalonians 1:5a).
Paul’s life became a tireless proclaiming and living out of the message of the cross: Christians die baptismally to sin and are buried with Christ; they are dead to all that is sinful and unredeemed in the world. They are made into a new creation, already sharing Christ’s victory and someday to rise from the dead like him. Through this risen Christ the Father pours out the Spirit on them, making them completely new.
So Paul’s great message to the world was: You are saved entirely by God, not by anything you can do. Saving faith is the gift of total, free, personal and loving commitment to Christ, a commitment that then bears fruit in more “works” than the Law could ever contemplate.
[Source: Franciscan Media]