CALLED TO KNOW AND PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL


THE CONVERSION SAINT PAUL, APOSTLE

Acts 22:3-16; Ps 117; Mk 16:15-18

Proclamation of the Gospel of the New Covenant

Celebrating the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul brings us to a deeper reflection on the meaning and implication of the new covenant in Jesus Christ. As Paul himself narrated in the first reading to his people in Jerusalem, he was so zealous in the practice of Judaism, the religion of his fathers, that his eyes were closed to the new realities and relations God had brought into existence. Though these new realities and relations were prophesied by the prophets and the Law pointed to them, Paul and many of his contemporaries were blind to them. His words are: “I am a Jew and was born at Tarsus in Cilicia. I was brought up here in this city. I studied under Gamaliel and was taught the exact observance of the Law of our ancestors. In fact, I was as full of duty towards God as you are today.” These words of Paul testify that zeal without the knowledge of the will of God will only lead to doom and disaster.

Hebrews states the reason why God set the old covenant aside to be the people’s ignorance of his will due to their inattention to his word. Thus, the worship and service they were rendering God was demeaning the glory of God and the greatness of his name and will. Paul’s zealous service to God was doing this, as the Lord revealed to him. “I was on that journey and nearly at Damascus when about midday a bright light from heaven suddenly shone round me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” I answered: Who are you, Lord? And he said to me, “I am Jesus the Nazarene, and you are persecuting me.” The words of our Lord here are very illuminating for us, as always. Paul’s persecution of the believers in the name of Jesus Christ amounts to direct persecution of Jesus the Nazarene. The humanity of our Lord is the origin of his mystical body—the Church—constituted of all who become one with him through their baptismal profession of faith in the Incarnation and are baptised in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Paul was completely dumbfounded by this experience. How was he blind to the new realities and relations God had brought into existence in his own time? The light of Jesus Christ shown around him revealed the true state of life: he was blind to God’s will. His question reveals this and his willingness to be enlightened. “What am I to do, Lord?”

We should make Paul’s question ours daily as we wake in the morning. We should always wait on God to know the Father’s will, which he reveals to us. The question strikes at the core of the new covenant in Jesus Christ. Our core religious duty in the new covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ is to enquire, discern, and do the will of the Father, and the core role of the Eternal Word made man for us is to reveal the most holy will of the Father to us. The Lord will always reveal the Father’s will to us if we humbly and prayerfully beseech him, as he revealed to Paul. “The Lord answered, ‘Stand up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told what you have been appointed to do.” The words of Ananias, who came to meet Paul at Damascus, underscores this primary religious duty. “The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will, to see the Just One and hear his own voice speaking, because you are to be his witness before all mankind, testifying to what you have seen and heard.” He sums up the will of God for all men and women. Many of us want to serve God in our way and according to our taste. God reveals his will for us through Jesus Christ, the Just One, and the doing of the divine will revealed to us is a holy religious worship. The doing of the divine will is the new covenant in his blood; it is the Gospel he sent the disciples, and all of us to proclaim. The forces of evil give way to the Father’s will and to us when we carry and proclaim the divine will. May the prayers of Saint Paul bring us to true conversion in the new covenant.

Let us pray: O God, who taught the whole world through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Paul, draw us, we pray, nearer to you through the example of him whose conversion we celebrate today, and so make us witnesses to your truth in the world. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

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