Weekly THIS AND THAT for January 25, 2009: Celebrating Paul's Conversion and Ours

This and That:
Celebrating Saint Paul’s Conversion – and Ours!


Last spring, Pope Benedict XVI dedicated a special jubilee year to the Apostle Paul, from June 28, 2008 to June 29, 2009 (feast of Saints Peter and Paul), to mark the second millennium of Paul’s birth.

Saint Paul was converted from Judaism while on his way to the city of Damascus as he was engaged in persecution of the early believers in Jesus. Known as the Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul’s missionary travels included Asia Minor, Greece, Spain and Rome. In Rome, Paul was kept in chains and in the year 67 A.D., he was beheaded.

The Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul is celebrated each year on January 25th. Since the feast falls on this Sunday during this Year of Saint Paul, Pope Benedict has encouraged us to celebrate the Feast at our weekend Masses.

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 Thes 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.
Our Lenten Family Fridays this year will focus on Saint Paul’s theology and how we are called to be transformed, as he was, by encountering Jesus Christ. Father Nicholas participated in a pilgrimage “In the Footsteps of Saint Paul” last summer and his presentations will be enriched by that experience. Deacon Lee, Father Nicholas and I will each share aspects of Saint Paul’s exhortation to live in Christ. Mark your calendars for the Lenten Family Fridays: February 27, March 6, 13, 20 and 27 and April 3.

Blessings,
Sister Mary Therese