25/01/2022
๐๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ผ๐ป๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐ผ๐ณ ๐ฆ๐. ๐ฃ๐ฎ๐๐น
๐๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ผ๐ป๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐ผ๐ณ ๐ฆ๐. ๐ฃ๐ฎ๐๐น
Saint Paulโs entire life can be explained in terms of one experienceโhis meeting with Jesus on the road to Damascus. In an instant, he saw that all the zeal of his dynamic personality was being wasted, like the strength of a boxer swinging wildly. Perhaps he had never seen Jesus, who was only a few years older. But he had acquired a zealotโs hatred of all Jesus stood for, as he began to harass the Church: โโฆentering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonmentโ (Acts 8:3b). Now he himself was โentered,โ possessed, all his energy harnessed to one goalโbeing a slave of Christ in the ministry of reconciliation, an instrument to help others experience the one Savior.
One sentence determined his theology: โI am Jesus, whom you are persecutingโ (Acts 9:5b). Jesus was mysteriously identified with peopleโthe loving group of people Saul had been running down like criminals. Jesus, he saw, was the mysterious fulfillment of all he had been blindly pursuing.
From then on, his only work was to โpresent everyone perfect in Christ. For this I labor and struggle, in accord with the exercise of his power working within meโ (Colossians 1:28b-29). โFor our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and [with] much convictionโ (1 Thessalonians 1:5a).
Paulโs life became a tireless proclaiming and living out of the message of the cross: Christians die baptismally to sin and are buried with Christ; they are dead to all that is sinful and unredeemed in the world. They are made into a new creation, already sharing Christโs victory and someday to rise from the dead like him. Through this risen Christ the Father pours out the Spirit on them, making them completely new.
So Paulโs great message to the world was: You are saved entirely by God, not by anything you can do. Saving faith is the gift of total, free, personal and loving commitment to Christ, a commitment that then bears fruit in more โworksโ than the Law could ever contemplate.
Source: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/conversion-of-saint-paul
