Father Lawrence Lew, OP via Flickr, licensed cc
Paul Encounters Christ
Today we remember the conversion of Saul to Paul, later St. Paul the apostle, and the biggest evangelist the world has ever known.
The story is well-known and familiar. Saul, an educated man, Roman citizen, and a Pharisee, persecuted the followers of Christ with relish and enthusiasm. He even presided over the execution of the church’s first martyr, St. Stephen.
As he was traveling to the city of Damascus to pursue more Christians with “murderous threats” he had a rather swift and severe “Come to Jesus” moment. Paul was struck down with a flash of brilliant and blinding light and heard the voice of the Lord asking him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
Paul replied, “Who are you Lord?” and Jesus answered him, ” I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do.”
On the way to Damascus – What was Paul thinking?
And that was that. The scriptures don’t tell us what Paul was thinking on the way to Damascus. He was physically blind, so he was probably scared. He also had to depend on the help of the very Christians he had persecuted, which must have been a very humbling experience. As an added bonus, the Lord left him this way for three entire days, to emphasize the point.
All about conversion
As my kids were growing up, I warned them that conversion was best done in small increments and simple acceptances. But if you dwell too long in willful ignorance you risk experiencing a St. Paul conversion, which is effective, but very painful. I am particularly concerned about some of our Catholic, pro-abortion politicians and how difficult their repentance could be.
Yet as believers, it’s not our job to “bring the pain.” As much as we would like to see quick conversions among the people we debate and converse with over social media, those kinds of conversions are extremely rare. In my 20 years of discussion and debate on message boards and social media, I have only seen a handful of conversions, most of which took months or years to come. Half of those came about when the people I had corresponded with were no longer in contact with me, but they contacted me later to thank me for at least setting them on the path.
One year when the March for Life was all over Twitter, my eldest son got into some pretty heated debates with some pro-abortion atheists. He held his own and kept his cool, showing more grace than I sometimes manage, and certainly a lot more than I ever did at his age!! But when he expressed his frustration at not being able to change hearts or minds, or even get small concessions when he made a good point, I reminded him that those St. Paul moments, don’t happen very often. But our job is to speak the truth, in love, without anger or frustration, and just let the seeds we scatter do their jobs. Sometimes those seeds take root, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes we find out that we helped, but most times we don’t. We are just called to be part of the New Evangelization.
@SensiblCentrist @mrsL @worldpolicies well good luck with that. But I’ll pry for you bro you’re on my list.— Calvin La Medic ن (@calvinlav) January 25, 2016
Accepting the Converted
The story of St. Paul’s conversion is incomplete without mentioning Ananias. The Lord tells Ananias to visit St. Paul to lay his hands on him and restore his sight. Ananias is understandably reluctant! Afterall, Paul had the authority to arrest and persecute Christians. Could he be trusted? Would he accept a visit from him?
I had a friend in high school who was a regular girl. We had lots of fun together and she liked to have fun. We kept in touch. In her 30s I noticed a profound change. She was an avid bible reader, churchgoer, and prayer warrior – quite different from the gal I remembered. Obviously, she had experienced a great conversion of some kind.
We never talked about it. I accepted it, was grateful for it, and in fact she helped me further with my own conversion of heart. Like Ananias, I think it’s best to leave the past sins and problems in the past. God will sort those out. It’s better to accept the new reality and continue to grow and encourage each other in our Christian faith.