The Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Acts 22, 3-16

Paul addressed the people in these words: “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city. At the feet of Gamaliel I was educated strictly in our ancestral law and was zealous for God, just as all of you are today. I persecuted this Way to death, binding both men and women and delivering them to prison. Even the high priest and the whole council of elders can testify on my behalf. For from them I even received letters to the brothers and set out for Damascus to bring back to Jerusalem in chains for punishment those there as well.  “On that journey as I drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from the sky suddenly shone around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ I replied, ‘Who are you, sir?’ And he said to me, ‘I am Jesus the Nazarene whom you are persecuting.’ My companions saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who spoke to me. I asked, ‘What shall I do, sir?’ The Lord answered me, ‘Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told about everything appointed for you to do.’ Since I could see nothing because of the brightness of that light, I was led by hand by my companions and entered Damascus.  “A certain Ananias, a devout observer of the law, and highly spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, came to me and stood there and said, ‘Saul, my brother, regain your sight.’ And at that very moment I regained my sight and saw him. Then he said, ‘The God of our ancestors designated you to know his will, to see the Righteous One, and to hear the sound of his voice; for you will be his witness before all to what you have seen and heard. Now, why delay? Get up and have yourself baptized and your sins washed away, calling upon his name.’ ” 

The conversion of the Pharisee known as Saul of Tarsus proved a pivotal point in the spread of the Gospel in the early Church.  Though not particularly granted a great presence or speaking voice, his persistence, sincerity, and boundless zeal for the Gospel, with the grace of the Holy Spirit, brought large numbers of people into the Faith of Christ during the early days of the Church.  His profound thoughts on the mystery of salvation practically invented Christian theology.  His teachings on marriage, chastity, the need to obey the Law of Moses, and how we belong to the Body of Christ have changed history and continue to form people today as believers in Jesus Christ.  

We have three accounts of his conversion, two told in his own words.  He must have told the story many times, as his own conversion was a tremendous sign of Christ’s power: that of an enemy of Christ to his most fervent believer.  One of these first person accounts is that used for today’s First Reading, and the second is found in Galatians 1, 13-24.  The one most of us are familiar with is found in Acts 9.  Each of the accounts possesses details not found in the others, which tends to support their authenticity: no one tells the same story exactly the same way every time he tells it.

“As I drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from the sky suddenly shone around me. I fell to the ground.”  This is something to think about.  A “great light” “from” the sky suddenly shone around him around noontime.  Of course, at noon the sun is directly overhead and is at its brightest and hottest.  This “great light” would have outshone the sun, then.  The Greek text has an infinitive meaning that the light “flashed like lightning”.  The light shone all around him, so that he could not have seen anything beyond it.  The light came upon him as though with a physical force so that he was knocked to the ground.  It should be noted too that the light came on him suddenly, in an instant and without warning.  Though stunned, he had his wits about him, and when he heard a voice calling to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”, he was able to answer: “Who are you, sir?”  The Greek has Kyrie, which is better translated as “Lord”.  Paul knew very well that he was experiencing a supernatural event, and he identified the voice with the cause of the “great light”, but the reason for the light and the words of the voice were unclear to him.

“I am Jesus the Nazarene whom you are persecuting.”  We note that Jesus, identified himself as his Church, which Paul was persecuting.  Paul would later understand that the Church is Body or Christ, to which all the baptized belonged.  To persecute a Christian, or the Church of the Christians, is to persecute the Lord Jesus himself.  Here the Lord identifies himself in a way Paul would readily grasp: Jesus the Nazarene.  The Lord never spoke of himself in this way, instead using terms such as “the Son of Man”.  But for Paul, before his conversion, Jesus the Nazarene had died on a cross, executed by the Romans.  He was dead and gone.  His followers, at first scattered, somehow got together and started proclaiming that he was alive.  They had to be stopped because this man, from Nazareth, had claimed to be the Son of God, which was blasphemous.  

“What shall I do, sir?”  Rather, What shall I do, Lord?  Paul must have struggled to know what to say next, and the one whose voice he heard was plainly expecting him to respond.  His “What shall I do, Lord?” is a testimony to his faith in God.  And this is why God was able to use him as he did: because Paul genuinely wanted to do God’s will and was absolutely open to whatever it might be.  Thus, he was perfectly able to accept the fact that he had grievously erred in persecuting the Church — the Lord Jesus — and now only wanted to know how he was to be of service.  Another person might have been stuck in the mud of his pride and been unable to move.  Paul put the service of God above all else.  We see this later in all that he suffered willingly in order to spread the Gospel.

We learn from St. Paul so many things.  Along with his love and zeal for Christ, there is absolute lack of personal pride that could deceive him into serving himself while telling himself he was serving God, or that would lead him to argue with God himself, as many indeed do.  Throughout his long career as an Apostle, we never see him acting out of pride.  In fact, he abases himself publicly in order to make a point about the love of God, or about God’s Providence.  We can imitate this, with the help of God’s grace, and make God’s will paramount in our lives.