Homily for Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul

Homily for the Feast of the
Conversion of St. Paul

Jan. 25, 2022
Collect
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph Residence, New Rochelle

“O God, … draw us nearer to you thru the example of him whose conversion we celebrate today” (Collect).

Remains of an image of St. Paul

at St. Paul Outside the Walls, Rome

Apart from our Blessed Mother, it’s a rare saint who has 2 feastdays in the calendar:  John the Baptist, Peter, and Paul.  They’re that fundamental to the Faith, the 1st building blocks of the Church laid upon the foundation of Jesus Christ.

In Paul’s case, we celebrate his conversion.  That event was so important in the early Church that it merited to be reported 3 times in Acts, 2 versions of which are the options for our 1st reading.  Christ chose Paul as his special instrument for the evangelization of the nations (Acts 9:15), and he was so effective that some brand him as the 2d founder of Christianity (often with some animus, implying that he doesn’t represent the authentic mind of Jesus).

The Collect today speaks of “the example” of Paul.  That could include his fiery zeal, his passionate friendships, his endurance in trials, his preaching and writing abilities, his efforts to identify with Christ.  His 1st example for us is just what we observe today:  conversion.

Generally, we think Paul underwent an instant, complete conversion.  Evidently he did commit himself completely to Christ in a total reversal of what he had been doing—the sine qua non step in conversion.  But if we follow his career in Acts and in his letters, we discover ongoing weakness and failure, e.g., his “violent quarrel” with Barnabas and John Mark (Acts 15:36-39), his discouraging “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor 12:7), and his contentious attitude toward various adversaries—no Francis de Sales was he!

So Paul struggled to perfect his conversion to a life and way of thinking and acting that conformed to Jesus Christ.  Like us!  No matter how old we are, no matter how long we’ve been professed as religious, we’re in a state of ongoing conversion or ongoing formation.  We have so much room for growth into that person fully formed in the image of Christ (cf. Gal 4:19), and so many opportunities given to us:  daily encounters with God’s Word, the sacraments, spiritual reading, retreats, prayer.

It was a long, slow process for Paul after he got knocked off his feet (the accounts never mention a horse), and so it is with us.  May God give us patience to persevere on our own roads toward Damascus and toward eternal life in Christ.