Conversion of Paul of Tarsus

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St. Paul the Apostle Wikipedia commons.

Today our reading from Acts of the Apostles recalls an historic conversion.

“Saul, still breathing murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord,
went to the high priest and asked him
for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, that,
if he should find any men or women who belonged to the Way,
he might bring them back to Jerusalem in chains.
On his journey, as he was nearing Damascus,
a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him.
He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him,
“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)

The statue of Paul at the entrance to the ancient  church of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome is one of my favorites. Paul’s portrayed as an old man, clothed in a heavy traveler’s cloak, bent and tired from coming a long way. He holds a great sword firmly in hand, but he’s not a military man. It’s the sword of faith he’s holding, a symbol of the faith that won hearts and banished darkness. 

He has “fought the good fight” and “kept the faith;” his earthly journey’s ended. Pictures on the church doors recall his final hours, when Paul died decapitated by an executioner’s sword not far from this spot, after a period of imprisonment in Rome.  

Did he review his own life then? I’m sure Paul wondered at the mystery of it all, especially the time a blinding light threw him from his horse on the way to Damascus, and then those hard journeys to towns and cities where he labored hard to bring faith in Jesus to so many. I don’t think he spent much time fighting old battles, though. Like those he had with the rival teachers who invaded his turf in Corinth.

When it’s all said and done, it’s not our judgment that counts at the end.  It’s God’s judgment that counts. 

Looking higher up on the façade of that great church that bears the apostle’s remains, we can see Paul the Apostle, pictured in the light of glory, his traveling days done. With Peter, a fellow disciple, he sits at the feet of Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord whom he loved so much. “Who are you, Lord?” Paul once cried, thrown to the ground. Now he knows,  granted the grace, unmerited like all others, to see Jesus face to face. 

The Conversion of Paul

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National Gallery, 15th century, Style of Ambrogio Bergognone

In this week’s readings from Acts of the Apostles, the death of Stephen and the persecution of the Greek-speaking Jewish Christians result in the church’s growth beyond Jerusalem. Philip the deacon and others bring the neighboring Samaritans to the faith and send off the Ethiopian eunuch to Africa with the good news. Peter reaches out to the Roman centurion Cornelius and baptizes him and his household.

For Luke, however, the conversion of Paul, recalled in today’s readings, is more important than any of these events. Paul will be the one he uses to tell how the gospel spread to the ends of the earth. He recalls Paul’s conversion three times in the Acts of the Apostles, indicating Paul’s importance in bringing God’s word to the Gentiles.

Jesus himself appears to Paul and speaks to him “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” All three accounts in Acts insist that Paul is divinely chosen for his mission by the Risen Jesus.

Paul also shows us our capabilities, how far we can rise, from the depths to the heights. That’s why the church recalls his conversion a number of times in the church year. As he himself acknowledges, he rose from being a persecutor of the church to became a powerful force for its growth in the world through God’s grace.

St. John Chrysostom says of him: 

“Paul, more than anyone else, has shown us what we really are, and in what our nobility consists, and of what virtue a human being is capable. Each day he aimed ever higher; each day he rose up with greater ardour 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…The most important thing of all to him, however, was that he knew himself to be loved by Christ.”

Paul’s letters were circulated and read among the early Christian churches for their spirituality and their teaching. In the early Roman church, those newly baptized in the church of St. John Lateran at Easter were told to visit the church of St. Paul outside the walls on the Tuesday after their baptism and constantly seek his wisdom and guidance.

May we still seek Paul’s wisdom and may God raise up the Paul in us.

We Seek Your Face, O Lord

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Here’s St. Anselm, who sees himself a “little man” seeking God:

“Little man, rise up! Flee your preoccupations for a little while. Hide yourself for a time from your turbulent thoughts. Cast aside, now, your heavy responsibilities and put off your burdensome business. Make a little space free for God; and rest for a little time in him.

Enter the inner chamber of your mind; shut out all thoughts. Keep only thought of God, and thoughts that can aid you in seeking him. Close your door and seek him. Speak now, my whole heart! Speak now to God, saying, I seek your face; your face, Lord, will I seek.

And come you now, O Lord my God, teach my heart where and how it may seek you, where and how it may find you.

Lord, if you are not here, where shall I seek ? If you are everywhere, why do I not see you here? Yes, you dwell in unapproachable light. But where is unapproachable light, or how shall I come to it? Or who shall lead me to that light and into it, that I may see you in it? Again, by what signs, under what form, shall I seek you? I have never seen you, O Lord, my God; I do not know your face.

What, O most high Lord, shall this man do, an exile far from you? What shall your servant do, anxious in his love of you, and cast out far from your presence? He is breathless with desire to see you, and your face is too far from him. He longs to come to you, and your dwelling-place is inaccessible. He is eager to find you, but does not know where. He desires to seek you, and does not know your face.

Lord, you are my God, and you are my Lord, and never have I seen you. You have made me and renewed me, you have given me all the good things that I have, and I have not yet met you. I was created to see you, and I have not yet done the thing for which I was made.”

The Ethiopian Eunuch

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Philip eunuch

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Rembrandt’s biblical subjects are always interesting. As a child he used to sit with his mother while she prayed and look at the illustrations in her prayerbook. All his life the painter was attracted to the bible. Even without a commission, he’d sketch a biblical story that caught his eye.

Here’s the Ethiopian eunuch–our reading from Acts for today– kneeling and looking intently at the stream of water, waiting to be baptized by Philip the deacon. He’s been profoundly moved by the story he’s been told.

His servant stands behind him holding his rich outer garments. He’s the queen’s treasurer, don’t forget, but something greater awaits him now.  An imposing guard on horseback, armed to the teeth, maybe an Ethiopian security agent, looks on. The rest of his retinue stand back, maybe puzzled by it all and anxious to get on their way on the long trip home from Jerusalem.

Like Zacchaeus — another rich man Luke recalls — the Ethiopian sees something greater than riches in Jesus and the water promising life.

Though visibly absent, the Holy Spirit who orchestrated this scene is here too. .

How does it all turn out, we wonder? When they get home, does the eunuch get sacked because the security agent turns him in for foolish behavior? Does the servant who watched the baptism become a follower of Jesus too? Did the eunuch tell the Queen the story of Jesus? Did he ever get back to Jerusalem again?

Luke is a wonderful story-teller. In his day Ethiopia was the end of the world, and so the gospel reaches there. In this account, he invites us to think about another path taken in the spread of the gospel.  Luke is a wonderful story-teller, and Rembrandt is too.

Learning from Plants, Trees and Flowers

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I discovered on Google books an old study of plants and trees by Richard Folkard, an English botanist. (Plant Lore, Legends and Lyrics, London 1884)  It’s a treasure of information.

Folkard says that from earliest times people saw religious meaning in plants, flowers and trees. He writes especially about how they were seen in medieval times.

“In the dark ages the Catholic monks , who cultivated with assiduity all sorts of herbs and flowers in their monastic gardens , came in time to associate them with traditions of the Church , and to look upon them as emblems of particular saints . Aware , also , of the innate love of humanity for flowers , they selected the most popular as symbols of the Church festivals , and in time every flower became connected with some saint of the Calendar , either from flowering at the time of the saint’s day , or from being connected with the saint in some old legend…

But it was more especially upon the Virgin Mary that the early Church bestowed their floral symbolism … The poetry no less than the piety of Europe has inscribed to her the whole bloom and colouring of the fields and hedges.  The choicest flowers were wrested from the classic Juno , Venus , and Diana , and from the Scandinavian Bertha and Freyja , and bestowed upon the Madonna , whilst floral offerings of every sort were laid upon her shrines . 

Her husband , Joseph , has allotted to him a white Campanula , which in Bologna is known as the little Staff of St. Joseph . In Tuscany the name of St. Joseph’s staff is given to the Oleander. A  legend recounts that the good Joseph possessed originally only an ordinary staff , but that when the angel announced to him that he was destined to be the husband of the Virgin Mary , he became so radiant with joy , that his very staff flowered in his hand…

A Catholic writer complained that at the Reformation the very names of plants were changed in order to divert men’s minds from the least recollection of ancient Christian piety A  Protestant writer of the last century , bewailing the ruthless action of the Puritans in giving to the ” Queen of Beauty ” flowers named after the ” Queen of Heaven , ” says :’Botany , which in ancient times was full of the Blessed Virgin Mary , is now as full of the heathen Venus .’ ” 

Folkard reminds us that the monks were good catechists. That work of theirs is largely ignored today. If you consult Wikipedia’s listings of trees and plants, there’s  hardly a trace of that Catholic tradition. I wonder if we shouldn’t mine that tradition again as we try to enhance our care of the earth. Clover .spearmint, foxglove, lupine,  campanula, marigolds, cowslip, Lady’s mantel, Lady’s bedstraw are more than a genus and species. They once spoke of the mysteries of God. 

Can we learn from them again?

Earth Day: God So Loved the World

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Today is Earth Day. For Christians this is a day to see the earth through eyes of faith. The earth is God’s creation

God created and cares for more than the human family. You are the “hope of all the earth and of far distant isles”, Psalm 65 says. “You uphold the mountains with your strength, you still the roaring of the seas…The ends of the earth stand in awe at the sight of your wonders. The lands of sunrise and sunset you fill with your joy.

“You care for the earth, give it water, you fill it with riches. Your river in heaven brims over to provide its grain. And thus you provide for the earth; you drench its furrows; you level it, soften it with showers; you bless its growth. You crown the year with your goodness. Abundance flows in your steps, in the pastures of the wilderness it flows. The hills are girded with joy, the meadows covered with flocks, the valleys are decked with wheat. They shout for joy, yes they sing.” (Psalm 65, Tuesday. Morning Prayer, week 2)

Along with the human family, the earth praises God, its creator,. The natural world, as a vital part of God’s creation, shouts for joy and sings. There’s even surprise in the psalms that God, the Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, could have a special care for the human family. “When I see the heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and the stars which you arranged, what is man that you should keep him in mind, mortal man that you care for him?”  ( Psalm 8, Saturday Morning, week 2, 4 )

The view of God’s close engagement with the natural world proclaimed by the psalms and the scriptures fell into disfavor when science became the primary way of looking at the natural world with the age of the Enlightenment. Science became our guide and the human world became the center that controls everything. God’s engagement with the natural world and the human world came into question. The scriptural accounts were just poetry.

But poetry can also be true.  

As we hear the Risen Jesus in the Easter season using the great images of bread from heaven, the shepherd, the vine, we shouldn’t miss their cosmic import. Images point out many things. Certainly “bread from heaven” points to the sacrament of the Eucharist; the shepherd and vine point to the life of the church and the intimacy we enjoy as branches grafted into the vine that is Jesus Christ.

But let’s not forget God’s rule over the whole world. We know so much more about it now. We also know how endangered it has become because of human neglect. More than ever, we need to acknowledge its dignity before God, who still covers the meadows with flocks, “the valleys are decked with wheat.” The natural world shouts for joy and sings during the Easter season. Its Shepherd guides it; it receives daily bread.  It shares in the promise of the Risen Christ.  

San Stefano Rotondo

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We’re reading the story of St. Stephen these days in our liturgy. He’s the early church’s first martyr and, as I indicated in my previous blog, his death sparked a Christian persecution that led to a remarkable growth in the church.

A couple of years ago, I visited the Church of San Stefano Rotondo in Rome, built in honor of St. Stephen in the 5th century. It has an interesting history.

The Hellenists’ Complaint

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We began reading from the 6th chapter of Luke’s Acts of Apostles last Saturday, which describes  a social problem that never disappears. Some newcomers to Christianity are being treated unfairly. “As the number of disciples continued to grow, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.”( Acts 6:1) 

If we substitute “Immigrants” for “Hellenists” a more familiar situation emerges in this story.  New-comers are not treated fairly in this story. Probably the poorer song them especially.

The “Hebrews” were the first followers of Jesus, mostly Jews from Galilee. They’re Jewish Christians at home in the Jewish world; they fit into the religious and political Judaism of the time in spite of the friction that came from following Jesus of Nazareth.

They’re the establishment.

In every age immigrants, once they gain a little footing in their new home tend to speak out for their needs. The Hellenists, led by Stephen, began to speak out. Stephen’s fiery words seem to be only about  religious matters, but he’s also criticizing the closed world of Judaism. 

Is it also the closed world of early Jewish Christianity as well? 

Stephen’s criticism cost him his life and initiated the Jewish reaction that led to the expulsion of many of the Christian Hellenists. They become immigrants again but, as Luke notes, they bring the gospel to new peoples.

How did Christianity spread early on? Certainly not to the apostles and  genius of Paul alone. The Acts of the Apostles this week reminds us there were others, like the deacon Philip, who brought the gospel to Samaria. (Wednesday)

Then, there’s the Ethiopian official Philip baptizes. He surely brought the gospel to Africa. (Thursday) There were many others, not just apostles, but immigrants like Stephen, who fulfilled a divine plan they hardly understood. 

We are in the midst of an age of massive immigration, due to wars, climate change, religious discrimination and other issues. We tend to see these issues only in social or political terms.

This week’s readings from Luke remind us there’s more. God’s plan is also being fulfilled in many other ways.  

3rd Week of Easter: Readings and Feasts

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The first readings this week at Mass from the Acts of the Apostles tell the story of the Greek-speaking deacon Stephen. His fiery preaching against temple worship and “stiff-necked” Jewish opposition to Jesus led to his death and a persecution that drove Greek-speaking Jewish Christians out of Jerusalem. (Monday and Tuesday) But Stephen’s death, like the death of Jesus, brings new life. The church grows. “The death of Christians is the seed of Christianity.” (Tertullian )

Philip the Deacon preaches to the Samaritans north of Jerusalem. Then, led by the Spirit, he converts the Ethiopian eunuch returning home after his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. (Wednesday and Thursday} Following Philip’s activity, Paul, the persecutor, is converted by Jesus himself. (Friday)

Before Paul’s ministry begins, Peter leaves Jerusalem to bless the new Christian communities near the coast; at Joppa he’s told by God to meet the Roman centurion in Caesarea Maritima. The mission to the gentile world begins with that meeting. (Saturday)

The Holy Spirit is at work. in this section of the Acts of the Apostles we see a changing church. The center of the Christian community moves from Jerusalem to Antioch in Syria. The Galilean apostles like Peter, James and John are joined by Stephen, Philip, Barnabas, and Paul, as God’s mysterious plan unfolds. Christian communities leave the Jewish synagogues to become churches on their own, led by bishops, elders, deacons. Christians are no longer only Jews, gentiles from different parts of the Roman world become followers of Jesus.

The Acts of the Apostles reveal a developing, changing church. Change, of course, is not limited to the early church: the church changes and develops in every age. It’s changing and developing now. 

The gospel readings this week, from St.John’s gospel– segments of Jesus’ long discourse on the Bread of Life to the crowd at Capernaum after the miracle of the loaves. (John 6) tell us that the Risen Christ remains with us Teacher and Lord in the Eucharist. He is with us in the times we live in.

Readings here.

Morning and Evening Prayer, 3rd week, here.

3rd. Sunday of Easter: On the Road

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This Sunday’s gospel is another great Easter story. Jesus appears, not at the tomb where he rose from the dead, or in Jerusalem or Galilee where he meets Peter and others, but on the road where he walks with two confused, discouraged disciples leaving the city. He speaks to them on the road. Were not our hearts burning as he talked to us on the road? They say.

Pope Leo is on the road these days. I go back to a time when popes never left Rome; people came to them. Beginning with Pope Paul VI in the 1960s the popes began to travel to all parts of the world. They went “on the road.”

The reason the popes began to travel extensively was because the Second Vatican Council in 1963 said that the church should be more actively involved in the problems of the world. They should try to bring together all the resources for good that they can. Remember in 1962 we had the Cuban Missile Crisis. The world was threatened with nuclear war.

Pope Leo is in Africa these days visiting a number of countries. He began his visit in Algeria, a largely Moslem state. Then, he visited Cameroon, in Central Africa, over 30 million people, one third Catholic, the rest Moslem or followers of a traditional religion.

Cameroon is suffering from civil war for the last ten years. The two sides agreed to a cease fire during the pope’s visit.

The pope began his visit in the cathedral in Cameroon where he listened to representatives from the country who came for “ A Meeting of Peace.” He heard from leaders of the traditional religion, two Moslem religious leaders, a leader of the Presbyterian church, and a number of Catholic sisters who are taking care of orphans and others injured by the war. They all spoke oof the sufferings war had caused and their hopes and efforts together to bring peace to their country.

The pope encouraged them all to keep working together for peace.

At the same time he spoke against the “masters of war” who don’t acknowledge that in war “it only takes a moment to destroy, yet often a lifetime is not enough to rebuild.”

The Pope lamented how those in power turn a blind eye to the billions of dollars spent on killing and devastation, “yet the resources needed for healing, education and restoration are nowhere to be found.”

He condemned outsiders for exploiting war to take away the rich resources of Africa. Africa has long been exploited for its people and its minerals. They’re “perpetuating an endless cycle of destabilization and death… We’re living in an upside-down world,” the pope said.

The president in Cameroon is 93 year and has been an authoritarian ruler over the country for almost 40 years. The pope didn’t hesitate to remind him that “Public authorities are called to serve as bridges, never as sources of division” and that “authentic peace arises when everyone feels protected, heard and respected, when the law serves as a secure safeguard against the whims of the rich and powerful.”

The pope is visiting Angola now, another country like Cameroon, torn apart by wars and corruption. I expect his message will be the same there too. Too political?

Sounds like the same things Jesus would say in a world as upside-down as our world is today.

It’s interesting that the pope told reporters on the plane yesterday to recognize he’s not involved these days  in a dispute with the American president but he talking to some hard hit countries of Africa. Don’t take him out of context. 

I’m happy that the pope is on the road, where so many are confused and discouraged. We need to pray for him. But I also think he should not be on the road alone. We need to support him. We need to work for peace in our world.