![\"\"](\"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Conversion-of-Paul-241x300.jpg\")
The transformation of Saul<\/p><\/div>\n
This encounter challenged Saul\u2019s whole belief system. He was convinced Jesus was a dead imposter and blasphemer, and his followers deluded apostates. Now he had literally \u201cseen the light\u201d 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 \u2013 the passion of realizing how mistaken his faith was, dying to that old understanding, and rising to a new world view centered the \u201cwill of the God of his ancestors,\u201d and that was to believe in and witness to Jesus as Risen Lord and Messiah.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Sr. Macrina Wiederkehr wrote in the Living With Christ<\/em> on this feast some years back the following, \u201cScripture 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?\u201d<\/p>\n 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. <\/em>In the process she had learned to \u201ccommunicate with love\u201d based on the teaching of Jesus in Mt 18:15 (\u201cIf your brother wrongs you, go to him alone and tell him how you feel.\u201d) <\/em>and Mt 5:44 (\u201cLove your enemies.\u201d). 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.<\/p>\n His reaction upon reading the letter was to stand there, open mouthed and speechless, then he said simply \u201cOkay\u201d and returned to the meeting. Her daughter said with awe in her voice, \u201cMom.\u201d She had never seen her mother relate to her father in this way before \u2013 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.<\/p>\n With excitement, I pointed out that she was experiencing the signs in today\u2019s gospel that Jesus told the disciples would accompany them: \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s love working in and through us<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Acts 22:3-16\/Acts 9:1-22; Psalm 117; Mark 16:15-18) ********************************************************** The readings, including both versions of Acts, for today\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ordinary-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions\/777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}