Tuesday, January 27, 2009

The Conversion of St. Paul

I've written a few posts on St. Paul, and now I have a good reason to add one more.

This past weekend, Catholics celebrated the conversion of this great Apostle. It is the only "conversion" the church officially celebrates.

In fact, Pope Benedict issued an extraordinary decree, allowing parishes to use the prayers and readings of this feast day instead of the normal readings from the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time.

What does that mean?

Well, for me, it means I got to hear one of my favorite Gospel passages (Acts 9:1-22). That passage tells us how Paul became a follower of Jesus.

I am in awe every time I hear it. Not only because of its importance in our history, but because of the lesson found within.

Paul was one of the most outspoken opponents of early Christianity, persecuting early followers of Jesus. Luke even tells us he approved and watched Steven's stoning.

And yet, God forgave him. (Not only forgave, but gave him a pretty important job to do!)

So this weekend I was reminded not only of Paul's great works, but that God will always forgive us, no matter how bad our sins are.

All we have to do is ask.

God Bless.

4 comments:

Anne said...

Nice post. I didn't know that Paul's conversion was the only one the church celebrated. I never really thought about that until you mentioned it here in your post. But it is a very moving story indeed. My parish priest gave an excellent homily on that particular Sunday. But your right, no matter are sin, the Lord will forgive us as long as we are truely sorry.

Anonymous said...

Hello,
I just wanted to say I think you have a beautiful blog. I can see you have put a lot of thought into. I enjoyed reading your post about St Paul's conversion.

Michael said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Michael said...

Anne thank you for your post, and Carol, thank you for your very kind words. God Bless both of you!