The Conversion of Saint Paul
JANUARY 25TH, CONVERSION OF SAINT PAUL
Month of the Most Holy Name of OLJC.
For your edification today, I am going to provide part of a sermon that Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople and Doctor of the Church, preached on the praises of Saint Paul. But, before I do, I want to provide, by way of background, two points of reflection.
First, after Saul gets knocked down (the Scriptures do NOT actually say that he got knocked off a horse) on his way to Damascus, he is led into the city and spends three days fasting from bread AND water. The Lord sends to him a man (a priest?) named Ananias (who is also remembered today in the Roman Martyrology). For Saul to receive his sight again, Ananias must go and lay his hands on Saul and baptize him (this he becomes Paul). So, the first point is: learn that Saul does not become a Christian (a Catholic) by reading some text or praying the sinners prayer or any other Protestant trash like that. Saul had to receive the ministrations of the mediator chosen by Christ the Lord and the Sacrament He instituted. In other words, it was through the Church that Saul became Paul. It was not a personal project of his own.
Second, when Ananias wines (okay, so it's true that Saul was "breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord" Acts 9:1) about going because of the danger of death, the Lord Jesus waves away his objections as worthless. He says, "Get going! for this man is to me a chosen vessel, to carry My Name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.
For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name's sake" (Acts 9:15-16). In other words, OLJC has chosen Paul, who had brought so much suffering to others, as a man who would suffer, and through his sufferings, to spread the Faith. There is a lesson for us, gentlemen.
Okay, now Saint John Chrysostom:
From a homily by Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop and Doctor
(Hom. 2 de laudibus sancti Pauli; PG 50: 477-480)
Paul, more than anyone else, has shown us what a man really is, and in what our nobility consists, and of what virtue this particular animal is capable. Each day Paul aimed ever higher; each day he rose up with greater ardor and faced with new eagerness the dangers that threatened him. He summed up his attitude in the words: I forget what is behind me and push on to what lies ahead. When he saw death imminent, he bade others share his joy: Rejoice and be glad with me! And when danger, injustice and abuse threatened, he said: I am content with weakness, mistreatment and persecution. These he called the weapons of righteousness, thus telling us that he derived immense profit from them.
Thus, amid the traps set for him by his enemies, with exultant heart he turned their every attack into a victory for himself; constantly beaten, abused and cursed, he boasted of it as though he were celebrating a triumphal procession and taking trophies home, and offered thanks to God for it all: Thanks be to God who is always victorious in us! This is why he was far more eager for the shameful abuse that his zeal in preaching brought upon him than we are for the most pleasing honors, more eager for death than we are for life, for poverty than we are for wealth; he yearned for toil far more than others yearn for rest after toil. The one thing he feared, indeed dreaded, was to offend God; nothing else could sway him. Therefore, the only thing he really wanted was always to please God.
The most important thing of all to him, however, was that he knew himself to be loved by Christ. Enjoying this love, he considered himself happier than anyone else; were he without it, it would be no satisfaction to be the friend of principalities and powers. He preferred to be thus loved and be the least of all, or even to be among the damned, than to be without that love and be among the great and honored.
To be separated from that love was, in his eyes, the greatest and most extraordinary of torments; the pain of that loss would alone have been hell, an endless, unbearable torture.
So too, in being loved by Christ he thought of himself as possessing life, the world, the angels, present and future, the kingdom, the promise and countless blessings. Apart from that love nothing saddened or delighted him; for nothing earthly did he regard as bitter or sweet.
Paul set no store by the things that fill our visible world, any more than a man sets value on the withered grass of the field. As for tyrannical rulers or the people enraged against him, he paid them no more heed than gnats. Death itself and pain and whatever torments might come were but child’s play to him, provided that thereby he might bear some burden for the sake of Christ.
Commentary by Fr. D.B. Thompson