Sacred Heart Parish
CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL
On the 29th of June, 2008, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Pope Benedict XVI inaugurated the Year of Saint Paul. On January 29, 2009 – four days from now – we can say of the Year of St. Paul – Seven months down, five to go. I don’t know whether to be happy or sad. It’s the same with a good bottle of wine: more than half of the wine has disappeared, so I’m sad; however, there’s still a good bit left, so I’m happy.
Who is this fascinating figure first introduced to us as Saul of Tarsus? "He was born a Jew, lived as a Jew and died a Jew. It was therefore, obviously, that as a Jew he experienced in person the once crucified Jesus as the resurrected and exalted Lord, the promised Messiah of Israel." (See Michael Gorman’s – Apostle of the Crucified Lord – publisher: Eerdmann) Of course, we must also say that Paul was a Christian; he confessed the Lordship of Jesus and became his ardent follower without ever forgetting the Jewishness of this word Christian. Paul thought of himself as a Pharisee of the Pharisees, a zealot for the Law, a persecutor of those Jews and Gentiles who became what Paul used to call dismissively "those Jesus people". In the mysterious and strange ways of God’s providence, Paul found the Lord, or more correctly the Lord found him and seized hold of him on the road to Damascus. He was called by the risen Christ himself, the very Lord who once in human history called Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Christ called Paul to discipleship and apostleship that he might bring the Gospel to the nations, that he might proclaim Jesus as God’s divine Son to all the world. Biblical scholars during this year of St. Paul have been asking: Who was Paul and why was he important in the early Church? But as our Holy Father suggested last June, our question for The Year of St. Paul goes this way: Who is this figure Saint Paul, what is he saying to us today, what can we learn by following in the footsteps of this traveling preacher, this tireless evangelist, this builder of Christian communities, and always this suffering servant of Christ?
How should we understand Paul’s conversion? Professor Gorman writes – "Whether on his own initiative or with official sanctions, Paul set out for Damascus to stop the cancer which had metastasized to the region from Jerusalem. It was somewhere between 32 A.D. and 35 A.D. And when it happened Paul was literally converted or turned around. Paul tells us that Jesus appeared to him as he had appeared to the original apostles and believers. It wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t a mythical story. Paul had seen the risen Christ. The Damascus encounter was an experience of undeserved mercy." It is interesting to note what Paul himself tells us in our first reading – "On that journey as I drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light suddenly shone around me. I fell to the ground and I heard a voice say to me – ‘Saul, why are you persecuting me?’’’ Paul didn’t think he was persecuting Jesus but rather was pursuing some crazy followers of Jesus. "I replied – ‘Who are you, Sir?’ And he said to me – ‘I am Jesus the Nazorean whom you are persecuting.’" Paul realized immediately that he was persecuting the risen Christ, not in his physical body but in his mystical or sacramental body which we call the Church.
Paul also tells us in the first reading that it was Ananias who was to give him his orders from Christ, for Christ had made Ananias know quite well that this Saul of Tarsus was to be a chosen instrument of Christ who was to carry Christ’s name before the Gentiles, kings and the children of Israel, and in doing so would come to know how much he would come to suffer for Christ’s name.
I hope you listened carefully to the Entrance Antiphon, and I hope you will listen carefully to the Communion Antiphon. Paul writes to Timothy and says – "I was appointed preacher, apostle and teacher; that is why I am suffering these things; but I am not ashamed, for I know him in whom I have believed and am confident that he is able to guard what has been entrusted to me until the last day." Our Communion Antiphon is taken from Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. It teaches us how Paul understood the nature of his new life in Christ. He tells us – "For through the law I died to the law, that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live for faith in the Son of God who has loved me and who gave himself up for me."
What sort of image do we have of St. Paul? Perhaps some exquisite painting of Caravaggio. But Paul tells us – "Often near death, five times I have received thirty-nine lashes from Jews; three times I have been beaten with rods, three times I have been shipwrecked, I have encountered dangers from rivers, from bandits, in the city, in the wilderness, on the sea." One biblical scholar has a wonderful picture of St. Paul in a book entitled: "On the Road and on the Sea with St. Paul" – "Paul was an itinerant artisan. He had to struggle during the day to get money for food and lodging. He couldn’t afford a wheeled-vehicle or horseback. He did not take the shuttle from Philippi to Corinth. He obviously did not enjoy frequent flyer miles. He walked from place to place carrying his possessions, covering some twenty miles a day." What was his motivation? Paul tells us – "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord." He says to the Galatians – "The Son of God loves me and gave himself for me." And how often we thrill to what Paul says in Chapter 8 of Romans – "What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loves us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord."