Falling from a horse is not required

Jan 25th - Conversion of St. Paul - readings of the day

© 2010 Bruce Denny Sculpture. All rights reserved.

Our life as followers of Jesus may or may not begin or have dramatic moments of conversions like Paul's. Although my personal life did not have moments as dramatic as Paul's, but I can certainly say that I had moments in which I faced truly the "Truth" that made me a different kind of person. All of us, therefore, have a moment in which we "convert," we become aware that we have to change our way and respond to God's love and grace.

The Conversion of Paul is recorded and given to us for many reasons: historically speaking, it's the event that represent the major turning point in the spreading of Christianity - Paul's strenuous effort to share his experience of Jesus Christ as risen from the dead gave birth to "the Church as we know it." It is also given to us for another reason: we are called  to convert constantly, to move from our opinions to God's will, from our sinfulness to God's grace. This has to happen over and over again.

Paul is a vivid example of what this conversion is all about. He put so many Christians to death because he couldn't understand how the Messiah could be put to death on the Cross. He was not an evil man, but simply unable to understand that God is bigger than himself. How many times I claim to know what God is doing and really become a hindrance to His grace. I pray to St Paul that he may pray with me and for me so that I, too, may "fall from the horse" and surrender to God's grace.

I like what Pope Benedict says about Paul's conversion:

"Paul's conversion matured in his encounter with the Risen Christ; it was this encounter that radically changed his life. What happened to him on the road to Damascus is what Jesus asks in today's Gospel: Saul is converted because, thanks to the divine light, "he has believed in the Gospel". In this consists his and our conversion: in believing in Jesus dead and risen and in opening to the illumination of his divine grace. In that moment Saul understood that his salvation did not depend on good works fulfilled according to the law, but on the fact that Jesus died also for him the persecutor and has risen. This truth by which every Christian life is enlightened thanks to Baptism completely overturns our way of life. To be converted means, also for each one of us, to believe that Jesus "has given himself for me", dying on the Cross (cf. Galatians 2: 20) and, risen, lives with me and in me. Entrusting myself to the power of his forgiveness, letting myself be taken by his hand, I can come out of the quicksands of pride and sin, of deceit and sadness, of selfishness and of every false security, to know and live the richness of his love." (from address given on January 25, 2009)

 As followers of Jesus, we are invited today to become aware of the great gift that God has given us: to be called to be members of His household, His body. It happened on the day of our Baptism, the moment in which a new creation happens in us.

Do I understand what it means to be a Baptized? Do I understand that everyday I have to renew this Baptism, and join in the death and resurrection of Christ? This is what it means to be converted: put the "old man" (as St Paul called the "old self," or as I call it, "the even twin," the part in me that wants to take over, do it my way...)


How can we convert ourselves? The death of the old self happens when we focus our mind fully on His Word. By letting the Gospel become "Good News" to us, we embrace His way and everytime the evil twins wants to come up, we can bless ourselves (if possible), or simply tell Jesus to help us to die to ourselves and give us the grace to rise up with Him.