THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL

Thursday is the feast of this great event, in which Saul the Pharisee and fanatical persecutor of the Church was struck from his horse outside the gates of Damascus and heard a voice addressing him: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”.

     Blinded by the light and yet recognizing the power and authority of the voice, Saul asked, “who are you, Lord?” The voice replied, “I am Jesus, and you are persecuting me!”

     From this moment Saul fully accepted:

1. a) that Jesus was indeed God the Lord;
2. b) that He was not dead but alive in glory; and
3. c) that He identifies Himself with His suffering Church.

     As well as St Paul’s own account of all this in the first chapter of his Letter to the Galatians, we have two accounts by St. Luke in his second book, “The Acts of the Apostles”, which Luke narrates himself in chapter 9, and puts into St. Paul own mouth in a speech in chapter 26.  

              ~   Fr. Paul Dobson