Jan 25th - Conversion of St. Paul

  

Today is the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. As a great persecutor of Christians, he was responsible for the stoning of St. Stephen. On the road to Damascus, a great light suddenly shone around him. Blinded by the light, he fell to the ground, and a heard a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, Why do you persecute me?” Saul, eventually regained his eyesight, and became baptized. He changed his name to Paul, as a sign of his conversion to Christ. St. Paul went about the whole known world to spread the Good News. He became the apostle to the Gentiles.

We are likewise called to conversion. At times, we too are blinded. We sometimes can persecute those around us, by way of our idiosyncrasies, by our sins, and by our faults. We can be blinded by our sinfulness, and how we are burdens to others.

Here are some more examples of ways in which we can be blinded by our own behavior. We may be arrogant and look down upon others, because of our pride. Or we try to control everyone around us, because of our selfishness and insecurity. We can make uncharitable comments towards others because of our impatience. We can be passively aggressive towards others, and make subtle comments, because we fear confrontation. We can complain all the time, because of our lack of gratitude for what we have. We can be envious of the material things of others because we fail to see everything we have is a gift from God. We can desire attention from others, because we feel unloved. There are those who tell everyone what they think, and say things in a cold and uncaring manner and will say to themselves, “At least everyone knows where I stand.” Or we can be a workaholic, because think the whole world revolves around us and because we are afraid to enjoy life.

All of us, at one time, or another, need to be knocked off, the horse, of our pride, and gaze into the light of Christ. Our eyes need to be opened to our sinfulness, our faults, and hidden impure motivations.

Today, as prepare to receive Jesus in Holy Communion, let us beseech the Lord and His Holy Mother and ask them to help us, to know ourselves.

When we receive Jesus in the Eucharist--- in the silence of our heart, we will hear the voice of the Lord, telling us how we need to change our life.

And we can respond as St. Paul, by having a true conversion of heart, in which we come to know the greatness of God’s love for us, and therefore respond by changing our lives to reflect our understanding, that the way we treat others, is the way, we treat Jesus.