St. Paul is the only holy individual in the entire history of the Church whose conversion to the faith has its own liturgical feast, celebrated every January 25.
We can easily understand the rationale for such a unique honor given to St. Paul when we study the life and personality of this pivotal figure, who played such an essential role in the very theological and ecclesial foundations of Christianity.
A tentmaker by trade, Saul was a Pharisee, born of the Tribe of Benjamin, a Jew zealous in his practice of the Mosaic Law.
Viewing the early Christian movement as an aberration, indeed as a heresy, he persecuted the followers of Jesus, even being complicit in the stoning of St. Stephen and the jailing of other believers.
On the road to Damascus, intending to throw more Christians into prison, Saul hears a Heavenly voice and sees a blinding light.
“‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ He said, ‘Who are you, Sir’ The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do.’” (Acts 9: 4-6).
Blind and unable to eat or drink for three days, Saul receives Ananias, a Christian leader sent by the Lord in a vision who baptizes Saul with the new name of Paul and receives him into the Church.
A life transformed
These extraordinary events completely transformed Paul’s life.
He went from persecuting the Christians to being their leader and teacher.
Paul began to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles.
He founded communities in the cities in which he visited and wrote his letters to them in his absence.
These epistles, combined with the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, form the core of the New Testament.
Paul suffered imprisonment, shipwreck, beatings, stoning, calumny, betrayal, and ultimately martyrdom for this new faith which he had so ardently tried to stamp out in his former life.
Consider the challenging context of Paul’s life and ministry.
He never knew Jesus in the flesh, so could not rely on his own personal experience of the Lord. He learned much from spending time with the Apostles, especially Peter, but was not part of the original Twelve.
The Gospels were not written yet, so Paul had no written scripture to utilize as a roadmap to understand the faith and to preach it.
Because of his former hostility, many members of the Church did not trust him initially.
Despite these daunting obstacles, Paul spread the faith and the Church throughout Asia Minor, and was the first theologian of Christianity, as he brilliantly articulated the centrality, consequences, and particulars of Jesus’ death and Resurrection; the reality of Original Sin; the importance of baptism and the Eucharist; the primacy of faith, hope, and love; the definition of grace and salvation; the meaning of redemptive suffering; and the glorification of the body and the mystery of Heaven.
So many fundamental elements of our Catholic belief flow from Paul’s writings, that we cannot imagine the Church without him. He is that important.
Additionally, he prevails in a central theological argument with St. Peter, concerning circumcision and whether the Christian faith was for the Gentiles as well or only for the Jews.
Reflecting on St. Paul
The only way to explain and understand the wonder of St. Paul’s life is to reflect on his own words at the beginning of his Letter to the Galatians.
“Now I want you to know, brothers, that the Gospel preached by me is not of human origin. For I did not receive it from a human being, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 1: 11-12).
God must have appreciated Saul’s passion for religion and his fiery temperament and decided to convert the person who was giving Him the hardest time in the establishment of the Church, redirecting all of that energy and feeling to the promotion and growth of the Gospel, rather than to its destruction!
The source of St. Paul’s extraordinary wisdom, courage, tenacity, and faith was his ongoing astonishment that God knew him in an absolute way, and that in the person of Jesus Christ, who spoke to him on the road to Damascus, loved him unto death on the cross.
Knowing that he was loved by Jesus was the only thing that mattered to Paul, and he wanted every single person to come to that same knowledge and that glorious salvation.
When we know, not only in our head as a beautiful idea but also in our heart and soul as a passionate conviction, that the eternal Son of God traded His life for ours on the cross so that we can live forever, then we get a glimpse of the vision and faith which so seized this Saul of Tarsus, tentmaker and Pharisee.
No wonder we celebrate the conversion of this man!
“I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given Himself up for me.” (Galatians 2: 19-20).