Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)
For: Friday, January 25, 2008
2nd Week in Ordinary Time
Feast: Conversion of St Paul, Apostle
From: Acts 9:1-22 (Alternate)
Saul on His Way to Damascus
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[1] But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the
Lord, went to the high priest [2] and asked him for letters to the synagogues
at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he
might bring them bound to Jerusalem. [3] Now as he journeyed he approached
Damascus, and suddenly a light from Heaven flashed about him. [4] And he fell
to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute
Me?" [5] And he said, "Who are you, Lord?" And He said, "I am Jesus whom
you are persecuting; [6] but rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you
are to do." [7] The men who were travelling with him stood speechless, hearing
the voice but seeing no one. [8] Saul arose from the ground; and when his eyes
were opened, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him
into Damascus. [9] And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor
drank.
Ananias Baptizes Saul
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[10] Now there was a disciple at Damascus called Ananias. The Lord said to him
in a vision, "Ananias." And he said, "Here I am, Lord." [11] And the Lord said to
him, "Rise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas
for a man of Tarsus named Saul; for behold, he is praying, [12] and he has seen
a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain
his sight." [13] But Ananias answered, "Lord, I have heard from many about this
man, how much evil he has done to Thy saints at Jerusalem; [14] and here he has
authority from the chief priests to bind all who call upon Thy name." [15] But the
Lord said to him, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry My name
before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; [16] for I will show him how
much he must suffer for the sake of My name." [17] So Ananias departed and
entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord
Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came, has sent me that
you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit." [18] And immediately
something like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight. Then he rose
and was baptized, [19] and took food and was strengthened.
For several days he was with the disciples at Damascus.
Paul Begins His Apostolate
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[20] And in the synagogues immediately he proclaimed Jesus, saying, "He is
the Son of God." [21] And all who heard were amazed and said, "Is not this the
man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called on this name? And he
has come here for this purpose to bring them bound before the chief priests."
[22] But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who
lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.
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Commentary:
1-3. Roman authorities recognized the moral authority of the Sanhedrin and even
permitted it to exercise a certain jurisdiction over members of Jewish communities
outside Palestine--as was the case with Damascus. The Sanhedrin even had the
right to extradite Jews to Palestine (cf. I Maccabees 15:21).
Damascus was about 230-250 kilometers (150 miles) from Jerusalem, depending
on which route one took. Saul and his associates, who would probably have been
mounted, would have had no difficulty in doing the journey in under a week. This
apparition took place towards the end of the journey, when they were near
Damascus.
2. "The Way": the corresponding word in Hebrew also means religious behavior.
Here it refers to both Christian lifestyle and the Gospel itself; indirectly it means
all the early followers of Jesus (cf. Acts 18:25ff; 19:9, 23; 22:4) and all those who
come after them and are on the way to Heaven; it reminds us of Jesus' words,
"The gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it
are few" (Matthew 7:14).
3-19. This is the first of the three accounts of the calling of Saul--occurring probably
between the years 34 and 36--that are given in the Acts of the Apostles (cf. Acts
22:5-16; 26:10-18); where important events are concerned, St. Luke does not mind
repeating himself. Once again the Light shines in the darkness (cf. John 1:5). It
does so here in a spectacular way and, as in every conversion, it makes the
convert see God, himself and others in a new way.
However, the episode on the road to Damascus is not only a conversion.It marks
the beginning of St. Paul's vocation: "What amazes you seems natural to me:
that God has sought you out in the practice of your profession!
"This is how He sought the first, Peter and Andrew, James and John, beside their
nets, and Matthew, sitting in the custom-house.
"And--wonder of wonders!--Paul, in his eagerness to destroy the seed of the
Christians" (St J. Escriva, "The Way", 799).
The background to St. Luke's concise account is easy to fill in. There would have
been no Hellenist Christians left in Jerusalem: they had fled the city, some going
as far afield as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch. Many had sought refuge in
Damascus, and Saul must have realized that their evangelizing zeal would win
many converts among faithful Jews in that city. Saul genuinely wanted to serve
God, which explains his readiness to respond to grace. Like most Jews of his
time, he saw the Messiah as a political liberator, a warrior-king, a half-Heavenly,
half-earthly figure such as described in the apocryphal "Book of Enoch", 46: "It
is impossible to imagine how even his glance terrifies his enemies. Wherever
he turns, everything trembles; wherever his voice reaches everything is over-
whelmed and those who hear it are dissolved as wax in fire." A hero of this
type does not fall into the power of his enemies, much less let them crucify him;
on the contrary, he is a victor, he annihilates his enemies and establishes an
everlasting kingdom of peace and justice. For Saul, Jesus' death on a cross
was a clear proof that He was a false messiah; and the whole notion of a
brotherhood of Jews and Gentiles was inconceivable.
He has almost reached Damascus when a light flashes; he is thrown onto the
ground and hears a voice from Heaven calling his name twice, in a tone of sad
complaint.
Saul surrenders unconditionally and places himself at the Lord's service. He
does not bemoan his past life; he is ready to start anew. No longer is the Cross
a "scandal": it has become for him a sign of salvation, the "power of God", a
throne of victory, whose praises he will sing in his epistles. Soon St. Paul will
learn more about this Way and about all that Jesus did and taught, but from this
moment onwards, the moment of his calling, he realizes that Jesus is the risen
Messiah, in whom the prophecies find fulfillment; he believes in the divinity of
Christ: he sees how different his idea of the Messiah was from the glorified, pre-
existing and eternal Son of God; he understands Christ's mystical presence in
His followers: "Why do you persecute ME?" In other words, he realizes that he
has been chosen by God, called by God, and immediately places himself at his
service.
4. This identification of Christ and Christians is something which the Apostle will
later elaborate on when he speaks of the Mystical Body of Christ (cf. Colossians
1:18; Ephesians 1:22f).
St. Bede comments as follows: "Jesus does not say, `Why do you persecute My
members?', but, `Why do you persecute Me?', because He Himself still suffers
affronts in His body, which is the Church. Similarly Christ will take account of the
good actions done to His members, for He said, `I was hungry and you gave Me
food...' (Matthew 25:35), and explaining these words He added `As you did it to
one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me' (Matthew 25:40)" ("Super
Act. Expositio, ad loc.").
5-6. In the Vulgate and in many other translations these words are added between
the end of verse 5 and the start of verse 6: "It is hard for thee to kick against the
goad. And he, trembling and astonished, said: "Lord, what will Thou have me to
do? And the Lord said to him". These words do not seem to be part of the original
sacred text but rather a later explanatory gloss; for this reason the New Vulgate
omits them. (The first part of the addition comes from Paul's address in Acts
26:14).
6. The calling of Saul was exceptional as regards the manner in which God called
him; but the effect it had on him was the same as what happens when God gives
a specific calling to the apostolate to certain individual Christians, inviting them to
follow Him more closely. Paul's immediate response is a model of how those who
receive these specific callings should act (all Christians, of course, have a
common calling to holiness and apostolate that comes with Baptism).
[Pope] Paul VI describes in this way the effects of this specific kind of vocation
in a person's soul: "The apostolate is [...] an inner voice, which makes one both
restless and serene, a voice that is both gentle and imperious, troublesome and
affectionate, a voice which comes unexpectedly and with great events and then,
at a particular point, exercises a strong attraction, as it were revealing to us our
life and our destiny. It speaks prophetically and almost in a tone of victory, which
eventually dispels all uncertainty, all timidity and all fear, and which facilitates--
making it easy, desirable and pleasant--the response of our whole personality,
hen we pronounce that word which reveals the supreme secret of love: Yes; Yes,
Lord, tell what I must do and I will try to do it, I will do it. Like St. Paul, thrown
to the ground at the gates of Damascus: What would You have me do?
"The roots of the apostolate run deep: the apostolate is vocation, election, interior
encounter with Christ, abandonment of one's personal autonomy to His will, to His
invisible presence; it is a kind of substitution of our poor, restless heart, inconstant
and at times unfaithful yet hungry for love, for His heart, the heart of Christ which
is beginning to pulsate in the one who has been chosen. And then comes the
second act in the psychological drama of the apostolate: the need to spread, to
do, to give, to speak, to pass on to others one's own treasure, one's own fire. [...]
"The apostolate becomes a continuous expansion of one's soul, the exuberance
of a personality taken over by Christ and animated by His Spirit; it becomes a
need to hasten, to work, to do everything one can to spread the Kingdom of God,
to save other souls, to save all souls" ("Homily", 14 October 1968).
8-11. Straight Street runs through Damascus from east to west and can still be
identified today.
13. Ananias refers to Christ's followers as "saints"; this was the word normally
used to describe the disciples, first in Palestine and then in the world at large.
God is THE Holy One (cf. Isaiah 6:3); as the Old Testament repeatedly says,
those who approach God and keep His commandments share in this holiness:
"The Lord said to Moses, `Say to all the congregation of the people of Israel, You
shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy'" (Leviticus 19:1-2).
The use of this term is an example of the spiritual sensitivity of our first brothers
and sisters in the faith: "What a moving name--saints!--the early Christians used
to address each other!...
"Learn to be a brother to your brothers" (St J. Escriva, "The Way", 469).
15-16. Our Lord calls St. Paul His "vessel of election", which is a Hebraicism
equivalent to "chosen instrument", and He tells Ananias how much the Apostle
will have to suffer on His account. A Christian called to the apostolate is also, by
virtue of this divine vocation, an instrument in the hands of God; to be effective he
must be docile: he must let God use him and must do what God tells him.
The task God has given him is far beyond Paul's ability--"to carry My name before
the Gentiles and kings and sons of Israel". In Acts we will see how Paul fulfills
his mission, with the help of God's grace and suffering a great deal on account of
His name. Down through the centuries, in diverse circumstance, those whom the
Lord elects to carry out specific missions will also be able to perform them if they
are good instruments who allow grace to act in them and who are ready to suffer
for their ideals.
19. In spite of the exceptional manner in which God called St. Paul, He desired
him to mature in the normal way--to be instructed by others and learn God's will
through them. In this case he chose Ananias to confer Baptism on Paul and
teach him the basics of the Christian faith.
In Ananias we can see a trace of the role of the spiritual director or guide in
Christian asceticism. There is a principle which states that "no one can be a
good judge in his own case, because everyone judges according to his own
inclinations" (cf. Cassian, "Collationes", XVI, 11). A person guiding a soul has
a special "grace of state" to make God's will known to him; and even if the guide
makes a mistake, the person who is being guided will--if obedient--always do the
right thing, always do God's will. In this connection St. Vincent Ferrer says: "Our
Lord Jesus Christ, without whom we can do nothing, will not give His grace to him
who, though he has access to an expert guide, rejects this precious means of
sanctification, thinking that he can look after on his own everything that touches
on his salvation. He who has a director, whom he obeys in everything, will reach
his goal more easily and more quickly than if he had acted as his own guide,
even if he be very intelligent and have the very best of spiritual books" ("Treatise
on the Spiritual Life", 2, 1).
On the spiritual guidance of ordinary Christians, who seek holiness and carry out
apostolate in the context of everyday life, Monsignor Escriva, writes: "A Director.
You need one. So that you can give yourself to God, and give yourself fully...by
obedience. A director who understands your apostolate, who knows what God
wants: that way he will second the work of the Holy Spirit in your soul, without
taking you from your place, filling you with peace, and teaching you how to make
your work fruitful" ("The Way", 62).
20-23. In his letter to the Galatians (cf. Galatians 1:16f) St. Paul tells of how he
went into Arabia after his conversion and then returned to Damascus. He spent
almost three years away, and it was on his return that he preached the divinity of
Jesus, using all his energy and learning, now placed at the service of Christ. This
surprised and confounded the Jews, who immediately began to take action against
him.
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Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase
The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.
"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." -- St Jerome
"The Father uttered one Word; that Word is His Son, and He utters Him forever
in everlasting silence: and in silence the soul has to hear it.
-- St John of the Cross
