Feast of the Day—The Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle

What can I say about St. Paul? In the bookcase on my left as I write this are more than a dozen books devoted exclusively to the Apostle to the Gentiles, and that's probably only a tenth of a tenth of a tenth of a tithe of of the books that have been written about him (the WorldCat lists 14,124). He's one of my principal patrons (Paul is my middle name), and as a convert myself, I'm particularly drawn to this feast.

My conversion was nothing like St. Paul's: no horse, no vision, no monitory blindness, no sudden 180-degree change; Forty-two years out of the font, it seems like I'm not very far down the road, and sometimes I'm not too sure in what direction I'm walking.

The second lesson for the Office of Readings (what used to be Matins) for today is from a sermon by St. John Chrysostom. Here is an excerpt:

The most important thing of all to him, however, was that he knew himself to be loved by Christ. Enjoying this love, he considered himself happier than anyone else; friend of principalities and powers. He preferred to be thus loved and be the least of all, or even to be among the damned, than to be without that love and be among the great and honored.

To be separated from that love was, in his eyes, the greatest and most extraordinary of torments; the pain of that loss would alone have been hell, and endless, unbearable torture.

I'm still trying to learn how to love Christ, and I'm still trying to know, in my heart as well as my head, that he loves me.

From the Roman Missal, 3rd edtion:

O God, who taught the whole world

through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Paul,

draw us, we pray, nearer to you

through the example of him whose conversion we celebrate today,

and so make us witnesses to your truth in the world.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.