Conversion of St. Paul

 In 1948, (a very good year, by the way) Hank Williams Sr. wrote a song called "I Saw the Light."  Thanks be to God, I'm not going to sing it, but listen to some of the words.

I  wandered so aimless life filed with sin
I wouldnt let my dear Saviour  in
ThenJesus came like a stranger in the night
Praise the lord  I saw the light.

Just like a blind man I wandered along
Worries and fears I claimed for my own
Then like the blind man that God gave back his sight
Praise the lord I saw the light.

I was a fool to wander and stray
Straight is the gate and narrow the way
Now I have traded the wrong for the right
Praise the lord I saw the light.

Sadly, just four years after Williams wrote this song, on New Years Eve, 1952, he died in a car crash on the way to a performance.  The next day his band went ahead with a scheduled show in Canton, OH.  They opened the show with the curtain closed and just a single spot light shining on the stage while the band played "I Saw the Light."

If you know anything about country music you know that Hank Sr. struggled with alcohol and drugs throughout his career, but he always included at least one hymn in every performance.  The story goes that the inspiration for the song came one night when Williams' mother was driving him home from a concert in his usual drunken state.  His mother said "We're almost home" and he answered, "I know.  I saw the light." 
[pause]
Today we commemorate the day when Saul, who was to become St. Paul, saw the light.  In the first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, he tells us about it in his own words.  It's a familiar story.

He was on his way to Damascus to persecute some more Christians when he was knocked to the ground and blinded by a great light.  Of course we know that the blindness was temporary and that when he recovered his sight he saw so much more than he had ever seen before.  He saw the truth.  Not only did he see the truth, but he came to understand that he was being called to witness to the whole world.  Like the song says, "Praise the Lord, he saw the light."

We're in the middle of the year of St. Paul.  It's sort of a year-long 2,000th birthday party that will end at the end of this-coming June.  That's why we're celebrating the feast of his conversion today rather than the 3rd Sunday of Ordinary time.  That's why Father Gary and I are wearing white and gold, so-called "festive colors" instead of the seasonal green.  When Pope Benedict proclaimed this special year, he reminded us that St. Paul's amazing success in spreading the Gospel didn't come because of his great gift of speech or his amazing good looks.  In fact, Paul himself tells us that he wasn't a gifted speaker and wasn't much to look at.  Some scholars even believe he suffered from some kind of speech impediment.  Paul's gift, given to Him by Christ was his profound conversion; his radical change from one of the worst persecutors of the early Church to it's greatest evangelist.  This wasn't a guy who just went from doubting Christ to being a believer.  Saul was the guy who threw Christians in jail.  He led the crowd in stoning St. Stephen to death, making Stephen the first Christian martyr.  He wasn't a non-Christian.  He was violently anti-Christian.  Then he saw the light.

He took Christ's words seriously as he made three very long a difficult trips throughout the middle-east telling Jesus' story and establishing churches.  In the process he wrote letters to these new churches, either to follow up with them, or in the case of Romans, to introduce himself before his arrival.  What did he get for his trouble?  He was stoned.  He was imprisoned.  He was shipwrecked.  He was martyred.  Ironically, he suffered from the very things that he had inflicted on the early Church before his conversion.

It's a rare Sunday when we don't read the words of St. Paul at mass.  Much of what we know and understand about our faith comes from Paul's letters.  He leads us by word and by example.  He wrote to the Phillippians, "Live in Christ.  Your attitude must be that of Christ."  In his letter to the Collossians he tells them "Make every man complete in Christ."  "Whatever we do, whether in speech or in action, we are to do  it in the name of the Lord Jesus."  He wrote to the Galatians "Christ is living in me."

Once Saul saw that light and heard Christ ask, "Why are you persecuting me?" his life was changed.  Notice that Christ didn't ask Saul why he was persecuting the Christians, why he was persecuting the new Church.  He said, "Why are you persecuting ME?"  That's because He lives in every one of us who believes in Him.  That point is very central in all of Paul's teachings.  In Ephesians 5:23 Paul writes that Christ is "head of his body, the Church, as well as its Savior." 

You and I are the Church.  Every Catholic in the world is the Church.  And Jesus is the head of the body.

We've heard the Church as body analogy so many times that we probably take it for granted.  What does it really mean?    You may or may not agree, but here's my take on it.  Most people would probably agree that certain parts of the body perform certain tasks that might be considered more important.  For example, you can't live without a head.  You can't get a brain transplant.  Lose your head and you're pretty much done. 

Then there are a few other parts, like your tonsils, or your appendix, that really don't seem to serve much of a purpose.  You can have them removed and life goes on. 

Then there's everything else.  I was talking to one of my sons the other day about the time I had my shoulder operated on.  Fortunately it was my left shoulder and since I'm right handed, I didn't really think it would be much of an inconvenience.  Wrong!!!  I thought I could drive.  And I could.  The problem was that I couldn't open and close the car door.  I couldn't type or read the newspaper.  And try putting your pants on with just one hand.  I missed the supposedly unimportant left arm more than I could have imagined.

Or what about your little toe.  What good it that?  Other than that "this little piggy" thing, it really doesn't seem to have much of a place in our lives.  But drop something  heavy on it and see what happens.  Your whole body suffers.  Everything hurts.  That one small, aparently useless digit can shut down the whole operation.

And isn't that really the point?  No matter who you are, no matter what you think of yourself, even if you think you're the little toe on the left foot of the Church, when you hurt we all hurt.  When you're in pain, we're all in pain.  And when you're not here, the body is incomplete.  That's why we help the poor.  That's why we give money to foreign missions.  That's why we care if someone else has an abortion.  When one part of the body suffers, the whole body suffers.

Like most analogies, this one isn't perfect.  I suppose someone who's struggling or in pain could say, "If the Church is a body, then I'm a tonsil.  Nobody will miss me if I'm gone."  That's the kind of thinking that can lead to withdrawel, even suicide.  But that's the beauty of God's plan.  You and I may think a tonsil has no purpose, but we also know that God does everything for a reason.  There's a reason why we have tonsils, and appendixes, and ear lobes, we just don't know what it is.  We're human beings and we just don't have the intellect to figure out all the little details of God's plan.

Make no mistake.  Every single one of us is a vital part of God's design, and we're all critical to the life of His Body, the Church.

As we commemorate Saul's conversion, we're all called to be St. Paul in our little corner of the world.  Paul could have said "Hey, I made a mistake.  This Christ guy is for real.  I'm not going to persecute Him and his Church any more.  I'm going to start going to Church once a week."
Then he could have gone home and had lunch and called it a day. 

But that wasn't what Jesus had in mind.  Ananias told him "you will be his witness before all."  Not just all the people he knew.  Not just the people in his town, but before all, with a capital A.  He spent the rest of his life doing just that.  He didn't just witness to the people of his own  time because through his letters, he's still witnessing today, 2,000+ years later.  What's he telling us?  The same thing he told the Collossians, "Make every man complete in Christ.  Whatever we do, whether in speech or in action, we are to do it in the name of the Lord Jesus." 

Jesus told the Apostles in today's Gospel, "Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature."

In a few minutes we'll all gather around this table to receive the Body and Blood of Christ.  Every Catholic in every Catholic Church everywhere in the world can share in this same meal.  One of the great mysteries in our faith journey is that the Body of Christ actually nourishes the Body of Christ. 

Paul was blinded by a light that caused him to see the truth.  Hank Williams saw a light that let him know that he was almost home.  People who have had so-called "near-death experiences" universally tell of seeing a bright light.  We all hope to see that ligtht at the end of our earthly days.  But there are glimpses of that light all around us if we just take the time to see them. 

You and I may not have the gift of writing or preaching but we can all act in a way that embodies Paul's teachings.  We may value Paul for what he wrote, but we also have to admire him for what he did.  Maybe the best way for us to see the light is for us to be the light for others.  The light we see might just be our own light reflected back to us.

The Baptism of the Lord

Jesus' Baptism
Friday afternoon I took down the Christmas lights at home and today after 10:30 mass we'll "undecorate" the church.  We'll take down the trees and the Nativity scene.  Everything will go back into storage until November or December when we'll put it all up again.  Even though it's more work to decorate than to undecorate, taking everything down seems harder, probably because putting the decorations up is full of the expectations of things to come where taking it down means it's all over. But is it really?

Besides being the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, today is also the first Sunday of Ordinary Time.  Ordinary time.  It seems so, well, ordinary.  It's the time between Liturgical seasons.  This year there are seven ordinary Sundays between now and Lent.  Ash Wednesday falls on February 25 this year, with the first Sunday of Lent on March 1.  Then we'll have the Easter season and Pentecost, Trinity Sunday and the Feast of the Body and Blood.  After February 22, the next Ordinary Sunday isn't until June 21.  The calendar year will be more than half over.  It will be the day when we have the most possible sunlight.  By then some retailers will already be easing into Christmas mode.  Time flies.

It's no accident that the Church begins this period of "ordinary" time with the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.  The symbols of Christ's birth may be coming down, but today we begin to see the manifestation of His ministry.  The Son of God will be baptised in the Jordan like any ordinary man.  His cousin John is the baptizer.  This is the same John who lept for joy in his mother's womb at the mere presence of Jesus, still in his own mother's womb.

This is the John who was born of elderly parents just a few months before Jesus.  John's father Zechariah was mute during Elizabeth's entire pregnancy because he had questioned the angel's words that they would become parents.  After John's birth, whe Zechariah regained his speech  his first words to his new son were "You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sine."  It was only fitting that John would be the one to send Jesus off on the beginning of His ministry.

We don't know much about Jesus' relationship with John.  Since the scriptures are silent on most of the two boys growing up, we don't know if they were friends, if they ever played together, if they had any conversations about what was to come.  We know that Mary and Elizabeth had a close relationship.  When Mary became pregnant, the first thing she did was go off to visit Elizabeth.  It would seem reasonable that John and Jesus had contact while they were growing up.

On the other hand, we also know that Elizabeth was much older than Mary.  She gave birth to John after her child-bearing years while Mary was just a young girl when Jesus was born.  We don't know how long Elizabeth might have lived.  So we can only imagine that John and Jesus had some kind of relationship.

So, here's John, baptizing the people and telling them about the coming of the Christ and Jesus shows up at the Jorday, asking to be baptized.  Jesus, the Son of God, present at the creation of the universe, came down from heaven, wants John to baptize Him.  Why?  What's the point?  He's sinless.  He has absolutely no need for baptism.

Well, God sent His Son to be one of us.  He may be God but He's also a man.  He knew that actions speak louder than words.  He was to be like us in all things except sin.  He wanted us to be baptized so He showed us that even He must be washed in the water.  And of course, the result was the famous scene where the heavens opened up, the Spirit descended on Him and the voice came down from heaven saying "You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased!"

While we may not see the physical signs, isn't that exactly what happens to us when we're baptized?  Heaven is opened to us.  The Holy Spirit descends on us.  And God calls us His beloved sons and daughters and He is well pleased.


The workbook that we give to all our lectors, which gives a commentary on the day's readings, points out that we don't know if anyone besides Jesus heard God's voice.  In fact, the writer seems to think that only Jesus heard it.  I'm not so sure.  But either way, Jesus heard it and Mark is passing the story along to us in the Gospel.  Did the people present at the time have less information than we do?  We don't know.

What we do know is that Jesus was the Son and that His Father was encouraging Him.  At this point Jesus really hasn't done anything spectacular.  His mission is just beginning.  But we all have earthly parents and we know how important it is for them to give us encouragement.  We long to hear the words that Jesus heard that day. 

So we begin so-called ordinary time with words of encouragement to Jesus and to us.  We're God's beloved sons and daughters.  And because God is love, He's well pleased with us, even when we're not well pleased with ourselves.  We've followed Jesus' example and been washed in the waters of baptism.  We've received the Holy Spirit.  Like John, it's up to us to go before the Lord and prepare His way because He will be coming again.