The Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Tuesday, January 25, 2022

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 Nazorean 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.’ ” 

After a long missionary journey that took him through Asia Minor and into Greece (52-54 A.D.), St. Paul resolved to return to Jerusalem in time to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost there.  On the way there he and his companions, among whom was St. Luke, who provides us with eyewitness testimony in his Acts of the Apostles, were welcomed by the Christians of various towns.  Coming to Jerusalem, however carried some risk and those who loved him warned him about going there, for the Jewish leadership hated him and would be looking for him.  Indeed, his return to the city occasioned a riot so that the Roman authorities had to get involved.  At first mistaken by them for an Egyptian rebel, Paul identified himself as a Jew and as an educated man born in a city where Roman citizenship was conferred upon birth.  This established, and with the Romans confused about the cause of the riot, Paul persuaded them to allow him to speak to the people in their own language (whether Aramaic or Hebrew).  They did allow him, and the first reading for the Mass of the Feast of his Conversion is taken from that address, which St. Luke vividly recalls for us.

The story Paul tells of his Conversion is familiar to us, at least in its outline.  As Saul of Tarsus, a trained Pharisee, he breathed out murderous fury against the first Christians, who were converted Jews.  He saw them as blasphemers and as traitors who had made a mere man their God.  He saw himself as an avenging angel, an agent of God, delivering punishment on these men, women, and children.  His description of himself in these terms helps us to understand something of the attitude and actions of the Pharisees who schemed against Jesus during his lifetime.  This dark self-portrait also increases our amazement at Paul’s conversion and at his relentless devotion to Christ ever afterwards.  He went from approving the brutal murder of St. Stephen and subsequently “binding both men and women and delivering them to prison” so that they might also be stoned, to writing rapturously, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1, 21).

To change from a committed persecutor to one who embraces what he formerly hated is astounding to those who look on, and meditating upon the basic facts of Paul’s Conversion allows us to marvel at what he must have experienced.  We have all benefitted from his Conversion through his widespread preaching of the Gospel and from the theology which he set forth in his Letters, itself the result of divine revelation.  We pray for the conversion of the world and that all people will experience something of what Paul did so that they may bear joyful witness of the One for whom Paul lived and died.