THE MYSTERY AND MIRACLE OF CONVERSION

January 31, 2009

This past week the Church celebrated the conversion of St. Paul the Apostle. The celebration is an annual one, but is especially noteworthy this year for two reasons.

First, the Church is currently celebrating a Jubilee Year in honor of St. Paul, as proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI. The feast of his conversion, then, provides a fitting moment to celebrate that dramatic event which led to his dynamic apostolic journeys and writings. In fact, so important was Paul’s conversion to the growth of the early Church that this is the only day of the Church’s year of worship set aside to celebrate a saint’s conversion. Second, St. Paul’s conversion is important because of the inspiration and insight it provides into the mystery and miracle of conversion.

Let us first recall the event. Paul originally bore the name Saul, and was, according to the evidence available to us, born of an influential Jewish family, was highly educated, and was a Roman citizen. He was a man of strong character and firm determination, and when he encountered the Christian message, he viewed it as a threat to the truth and to proper order, as he perceived them. In consequence, he set out to destroy the religion. While on his mighty crusade of persecution, “breathing murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1), he was struck from his horse and blinded by the light of the risen Christ, who asked him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4). Saul asked the glorified Lord who he was, and he said “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5). The Lord then directed him to go to the city he was heading toward, Damascus, where he would be told what to do. This marked the great beginning of the great Christian apostolate of Saul, who changed his name to Paul so that his name would feel more familiar to the Gentile nations, to whose evangelization he dedicated himself.

What can we learn from this great event?

We should never underestimate the power of God to change lives, and never lose hope for conversions to Christ and his Church! This includes not only those who seem most bored and indifferent to Christianity, but also, yes, those who are most militantly opposed to the Christian message, and most ready to carry out acts of prejudice, persecution, violence, and terror against the Church. In spite of the highly secularized and irreligious character of today’s culture, we should never abandon hope that those who have turned their backs on God can once again turn their faces back toward him.

Like Paul, some people today are threatened by the Church and want to destroy it. Some are offended at the Church’s claims that Jesus is divine Lord and Savior of the world. Some, like Carl Marx, claim all religion is nothing but a psychological crutch for those who can’t handle life. Others, like Richard Dawkins, seem to harbor blind anger toward the Church because of the past sins and moral failures of some of those who have borne the name Christian. Some deeply resent the Church’s moral pronouncements, and try to portray the Church as a menace to people’s freedom of expression and enjoyment of the pleasures of the flesh and the world.

Throughout the world the Church is persecuted. She is persecuted by atheistic or dictatorial regimes who seek to squelch her voice because she speaks for the poor and oppressed. She is persecuted by fanatical and extremist segments of other world religions who are threatened by her strength. Elsewhere, she is mocked and spit upon with contempt by those who consider themselves enlightened and the Church ignorant. She suffers today what she suffered from Paul before his conversion.
No one can rationally explain this hatred and persecution. It began with the crucifixion of the one perfect man, Jesus Christ, and it continues today. There were more martyrs for the Christian faith in the 20th century than in all the previous 19 combined, and there may be yet more in the 21st century.

Yet, we who form the Church never despair, because we have the Lord. We make of lives and our suffering, our deprivation and our rejection into a living sacrifice of praise to the Father. Moreover, the memory of the conversion of St. Paul sustains us in our indomitable hope that all can be converted, and all can be saved.

In our individual lives, most of us probably have at least one friend or family member who seems to be a lost cause. What we should do is what St. Monica did with regard to the lost cause in her family – her son, Augustine. She prayed and prayed, wept and wept, and insisted and insisted with him that he leave the path of sin and self-destruction, and turn to the Lord. In God’s good time, and by God’s grace, eventually he did.

God is attentive to all our prayers, but he is especially attentive to prayers like Monica’s. Each of us needs to be like Monica with regard to the one who is the lost cause in our family or circle of friends.
No matter how far away, how resistant, or even how hostile all those “lost causes” of our day may appear to be, the message of the conversion of St. Paul remains: never lose hope; never cease praying for conversion of all; never cease witnessing the Christian faith! The miracle and mystery of conversion goes on every day all over the world, hidden from its eyes. It goes on because the world holds no power greater than the power of Christ’s divine love and saving grace.

+Bishop Raymundo J. Peña

last updated 11-Jan-2010 8:22 sitemap