THE CONVERSION OF ST PAUL

Conversion of Paul the Apostle

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. Trying to look at the character of Paul who was called Saul, we can notice that He was not a bad man before he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus. He was a devout Jew. He was a man of the covenant, and he recognized that God had entered into a specially relationship with the Jewish people, and Saul lived that covenantal life to the best of his ability. His heart yearned for the coming of the promised Messiah. He just did not recognize right away that Jesus was the fulfillment of that promise. Saul saw this new “Way”, this new Church as a threat to living a life faithful to the covenant with God, and in his zeal for God he persecuted the Church. But God will not let this be; on that road to Damascus, Saul was given a great grace; he had a profound encounter with Jesus Christ. One sentence determined the change in his whole life: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” . Jesus was mysteriously identified with people—the loving group of people Saul had been running down like criminals. The Jesus, Saul saw, was the mysterious fulfillment of all he had been blindly pursuing. In that encounter, Paul recognized the Messiah in the Church he was persecuting and his life was never the same. The product of God’s transforming grace changed Saul to Paul, from a persecutor to a defender. He became the proclaimer of the Good News of Jesus Christ, to that same Church he persecuted because, as he puts it “it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me.” Paul was filled with new life, the life of Jesus and was ready to answer the call of Jesus Christ to proclaim the gospel to every creature.

All of us have also had a conversion. Maybe it has not been as dramatic as St. Paul’s, but we had our own “road to Damascus” experience in which we had an exceptional encounter with Jesus Christ. Maybe it was when we faced great disappointment and troubles; maybe it was when facing a serious illness, or a death of a loved one. Maybe it was through a friendship with someone who was just so alive with the Holy Spirit. We all had somehow moments of conversion, of turning our lives over to Christ Jesus so that it is “no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me.”

Today on this occasion let us come back to those great moments of conversion in our lives and reevaluate their impact in our lives. Are we transformed as Paul was at his conversion? It is very fitting as well, that today concludes the annual week of prayer for Christian Unity. St. Paul prayed, preached, and worked tirelessly for unity in the Church! Therefore let us pray the Lord to illumine us, to grant us an encounter with his presence in our world, to grant us a lively faith, an open heart and great love for all, capable of renewing the world."