February 2, 2022 at 2:58 p.m.
Can we, like St. Paul, be redeemed by the Son of God?
Can we, like St. Paul, be redeemed by the Son of God?
While I tend to doubt that that particular description of Paul is entirely accurate (recall that the above-mentioned Lucian was a known satirist), the Apostle Paul was no doubt a character. He was certainly a brilliant man, someone who knew the Old Testament, and who was well trained both in secular and sacred knowledge. Saul, as he was known prior to his conversion to Christianity, tells us in his Epistle to Philemon 3:5, that he was of the Tribe of Benjamin, and, in fact, a Pharisee. While a young man, it seems that Saul of Tarsus, the future Apostle to the Gentiles was sent to Jerusalem, where he studied under one of the most influential rabbis of his day, Gamaliel. He certainly knew Hebrew, Aramaic, enough Latin to navigate through the Roman Empire, as well as koine Greek, which would be his primary language.
Yes, Paul was no slouch when it came to his knowledge and devotion to the Jewish faith. As we know from the Acts of the Apostles, he was a leader in the persecution of the followers of the Lord Jesus, actually inciting the violence against Stephen, the saint-deacon and proto-martyr.
Saul the Pharisee, the defender of the faith of Israel, thought that he had it all figured out, that he knew exactly who God was and what exactly God wanted from him. And yet, he is knocked to the ground on the road to Damascus, encountering the Jesus whose Body, the Church, he has been persecuting. Saul, now Paul, knows that he is, in his estimation (and most probably in the estimation of most of his contemporaries) the “least of the Apostles,” but since the Lord Jesus, gloriously risen from the tomb for us and for our salvation, had appeared to him, no less an Apostle is he. Paul is sent to preach the Gospel of Jesus the Christ to the Gentiles, while at the same time, to be involved with the other Apostles in the foundation of the Church, both for Gentiles and for the Jews.
When we read the Epistles of Paul, he seems again and again almost apologetic about his past and almost trying, in the best sense, to prove that his apostleship is just as authentic as the other Eleven (plus Matthias at this time). Perhaps this is just another example of the humanity of Paul, a man who is a sinner, yet who is redeemed in Christ Jesus the Lord.
For us who bear the name of Christian, we can look to Paul and identify with him. He is a man who has made some bad choices in his life, decisions that have hurt his brother and sister Christians and which have even led to the death of the Church’s deacon, Saint Stephen. Paul knows he is a sinner, but, perhaps even more importantly, he knows that he is redeemed by the Red Rain, which is the Precious Blood of Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, who loves him and who redeems him. Listen to his beautiful words:
But by the grace of God I am what I am,
and his grace to me has not been ineffective.
Indeed, I have toiled harder than all of them;
not I, however, but the grace of God that is with me.
Therefore, whether it be I or they,
so we preach and so you believed.
Can we, who have failed Jesus and his Church, who have wounded his Mystical Body, the Church, again and again, by our thoughts, words and deeds, have the same confidence in Christ Jesus and his power to forgive us? Each and every one of us is a sinner in need of the Lord Jesus’ power and redemption. This is a fact. Christ loves us back to life and heals us of our sins. Can we accept this?
In addition, can we accept when someone else whom we know has sinned or turned away from the Church, actually converts sincerely to the Lord Jesus? Can we accept that turn to the Lord without judgment, without suspicion, but with thanksgiving to the Christ who loves us all and who has given his life for us so that we might live eternally?
This is our task, this is our mission, this week laid out for us by Saint Paul, the least (but yet the greatest) of the Apostles.
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