Last week we reflected on the Pope’s audience about witness as the first way of evangelization. In his following audiences, Pope Francis begins looking at great men and women throughout the history of the Church who bore exemplary witness to the Gospel.
To start, he considers St. Paul of Tarsus, honing in on his encounter with Jesus on his conversion to the Chrisitian faith, and the paradox that existed in him prior to this conversion. Notably, Pope Francis devotes two separate audiences to reflecting on St. Paul. The next issue will focus on the second audience on St. Paul.
St. Paul’s story is a fundamental example of how Jesus transforms our lives. One critical point Pope Francis hopes for us to take away is that Paul’s “zeal for the Gospel appears after his conversion, and takes the place of his previous zeal for Judaism . . . Christ converts his zeal: From the Law to the Gospel”. His zeal “was not annihilated, but transformed”. The Holy Father compares this redirection of zeal to what occurs in the Eucharist: The bread and wine don’t disappear, but become the Body and Blood of Christ.
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, from the moral point of view, passion is neither good nor evil: Its virtuous use makes it good, and sin makes it bad (Quaestio “De veritate” 24, 7). Prior to his conversion, Paul sought to destroy the Church; he intensely persecuted Christians. Afterwards, he becomes a follower of Jesus, preaching about Him in the synagogues of Damascus and seeking to build up the Church.
So, what exactly changed for Paul? Pope Francis explains that it was not an idea or a conviction, nor was it a matter of comprehension or study. Although studies are helpful, they don’t generate the life of grace, and they don’t inspire passion for the Gospel. St. Ignatius of Loyola says, “For it is not knowing much, but realizing and relishing things interiorly, that contents and satisfies” (Spiritual Exercises, Annotations, 2, 4). What changes Paul is life itself, an encounter with the risen Lord. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17). This same change happened to all the saints, who go on to live heroically virtuous lives after finding Jesus. Pope Francis explains that if you are truly a Christian, your heart changes. In many ways, we must go through the same experience of Paul’s “fall and resurrection”.
Pope Francis notes that there is a sort of paradox that exists in Paul prior to his encounter with Christ. We know that the human mind is capable of justifying and rationalizing many actions, even those that may lead to our own destruction or the destruction of others.
Pope Francis says of Paul, “As long as he feels he is righteous before God, he feels authorized to persecute, to arrest, even to kill, as in the case of Stephen; but when, enlightened by the Risen Lord, he discovers he was a “blasphemer and persecutor”, it is after this realization that Paul becomes truly capable of loving.
Though many of us are not going out and committing blatantly terrible acts, this does not mean we are truly following Christ. When we simply view ourselves as doing the right things, assuming we are a good person because we don’t commit major sins, we are relying on a path of self-sufficiency. Pope Francis says “It is a path that does not justify you, it makes you an elegant Catholic, but an elegant Catholic is not a holy Catholic.” Instead, “the true Catholic, the true Chrsitian, is one who receives Jesus within.” We are further reminded that someone who only finds the idea of Jesus will remain an ideologue of Christianity. People who are Christian in only appearance have not had their heart changed. We can pray, we can follow the commandments, we can be a religious person, but this doesn’t mean we have Jesus in our lives. Remember: The idea of Jesus does not save; it is only Jesus himself who saves us. The Holy Father challenges us to ask ourselves: Am I keeping Jesus just within reach but preventing Him from getting close? Have I let Him enter my heart? Have I let myself be changed by Him? Ultimately, at the heart of missionary zeal is a personal, living encounter with the Lord. May you encounter Jesus this Lent and allow Him to transform you from within so that you may be a loving witness to others.