(Acts 22:3-16/Acts 9:1-22; Psalm 117; Mark 16:15-18)
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The readings, including both versions of Acts, for today’s feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, focus on his encounter with Jesus and the Great Commission that Jesus gave to his disciples.
The message for us is to encounter Jesus as did St. Paul, and be witnesses to him to the whole world, was St. Paul.
Because Paul was already a zealous Jew, educated in the law, I prefer to see this event more as a transformation than a conversion experience. Sr. Teresita Kambeitz OSU, who followed the footsteps of St. Paul in and around Greece, speaks not so much of the conversion of St. Paul but of his transformation through his encounter with the Risen Lord on the road to Damascus. Basically, for her, he “fell in love with Jesus.”
A brilliant light blinded him, then he heard the voice of Jesus identifying himself with the Christians Saul was persecuting. Through the ministry of Ananias, Saul was healed of his blindness and learned what had happened to him: “The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear his voice; for you will be his witness to all the world … Get up, be baptized and have your sins washed away, calling on his name.”
The transformation of Saul
This encounter challenged Saul’s whole belief system. He was convinced Jesus was a dead imposter and blasphemer, and his followers deluded apostates. Now he had literally “seen the light” of Christ and heard Jesus address him by name. The blindness symbolized the ignorance of his previous zealous Jewish faith. The three days of fasting without food or drink suggest that this was a passion, death and resurrection experience – the passion of realizing how mistaken his faith was, dying to that old understanding, and rising to a new world view centered the “will of the God of his ancestors,” and that was to believe in and witness to Jesus as Risen Lord and Messiah.
As the Messiah, Jesus had a two-fold role: to redeem and sanctify, to forgive and to heal. By being baptized, Saul received forgiveness of all his sins. Through the restoration of his sight, Saul was healed of his blindness. So, through forgiveness and healing, that encounter was not just with Jesus as Risen Lord, but also an experience of Jesus as the Messiah.
If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we must also encounter the Risen Lord like St. Paul and be open to inner transformation. The key is to see Jesus and hear his voice. In short, we must also encounter him in our own lives. Christianity is not just a new moral code or a philosophy, but an encounter with a person. We can encounter Christ as Risen Lord in the reading of sacred Scripture, in prayer and in the liturgical life of the Church. We can touch the Messiah’s heart and feel him touch ours as we receive his forgiveness and experience healing of our painful emotions, negative attitudes and our addictions. Only in this personal relationship with Christ the Messiah, the anointed one, and only in this encounter with Jesus the Risen One, do we really become Christians and empowered to witness to Jesus by sharing our experience with others.
Sr. Macrina Wiederkehr wrote in the Living With Christ on this feast some years back the following, “Scripture tells us that Jesus showed us in many convincing ways that he was alive after he rose from the grave. Now it is our turn to show in many convincing ways that he is alive in us. The gospel, the Good News we are to proclaim is that our lives have been changed because of the One who lives on in us and continues to rise from the tombs of our lives. To be alive means more than taking up bodily space in this world. Am I truly alive with the life of Christ? Has my life changed because I have known Jesus in the scriptures, in the sacraments, in others, and in the depths of my own heart?”
Someone whose life was transformed by Jesus is Viola. She had been estranged from her very abusive husband for years, for her own safety. One day he severely verbally abused her over the phone. Formerly, such an incident would have thrown her into total confusion. Her recent involvement with the church, however, had helped her to meet Jesus. She had taken a Christopher Leadership course, a Cursillo weekend, an addictions awareness workshop and had completed a year-long study of the lay formation program entitled Builders of a New Earth. In the process she had learned to “communicate with love” based on the teaching of Jesus in Mt 18:15 (“If your brother wrongs you, go to him alone and tell him how you feel.”) and Mt 5:44 (“Love your enemies.”). So instead of acting out of anger, I encouraged her to write a letter to her ex-husband describing what he had said, and expressing her feelings of hurt and anger in a positive manner, with love. Then she went with her daughter to deliver the letter to him at a meeting he was attending.
His reaction upon reading the letter was to stand there, open mouthed and speechless, then he said simply “Okay” and returned to the meeting. Her daughter said with awe in her voice, “Mom.” She had never seen her mother relate to her father in this way before – it has always been a fight. Returning home, Violet was filled with a mysterious joy. Sorting out her emotions afterwards with me on the phone, she realized what she had done – she had loved her enemy, had communicated with love, had actually forgiven him in the process and was free from fear, anger and resentment.
With excitement, I pointed out that she was experiencing the signs in today’s gospel that Jesus told the disciples would accompany them: “They will cast out demons, speak a new language, pick up snakes in their hands and not be hurt, be unharmed should they drink deadly poison, and heal the sick.”
In writing that letter she had picked up a deadly snake and it had not harmed her. In delivering the letter to her abuser she drank deadly poison and it did not hurt her. In communicating her feelings to her estranged husband with love, she had used a new language so effectively that her daughter marveled at her. When he was dying of cancer some years later, she was the only one of his family who cared for him, and was healing the relationship. In the end she had cast out the demon of fear, anger and codependency from her life. She was truly a disciple who was experiencing the reign of God and the power of the resurrection in her life.
The Eucharist makes present for us this powerful love of Christ shown to us through his passion, death and resurrection. When we celebrate it with faith, it has the power to transform us into his Body, his disciples, sent out to witness to the world the power of God’s love working in and through us
May we follow the example of St. Paul and let our encounter with Jesus as Risen Lord and Messiah transform us, forgiven and healed, into his witnesses to all the world.
Well, thanks for the homilies and teachings about the experience of St. Paul , how he transformed into a new person since he was blind and a persecuter . Saul was his name who never believe in Jesus Christ and he thought he was a imposter. He thought he was fake , you are not the son of God and sent by God to heal people from any sickness . Also save people from sins until he saw Jesus Christ being resurrected and he healed his blindness. We will be healed if we forgive others and love other people as we love ourselves. We learn to love our enemies. This is what the Lord likes and wants each one of us to do. Blessings!
Thanks you thank you for the messages about loving our enemies no matter what had happened in the past and you still have negative thoughts about them and you cannot forgive them. But, we have to forgive ourselves first then go out help our neighbors over come theirs problems and situations. Amen