Fr. JC Maximilian

["The Conversion of St. Paul" by Caravaggio, 1600/01]

As I was reflecting on this weekend’s readings for the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, I thought of two men that I met while in the seminary.

Allan was literally a “rocket scientist.” He had a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from Princeton. Allan sometimes described himself as “the pagan who married the good Irish Catholic girl who never went anyplace without her Rosary.” I think Allan said that he was married for about 10 years. Clearly he and his wife were very much in love, though he did not share her Christian faith. While I don’t think that Allan worshipped the pagan gods, I do think he was like so many people in our society — our world — who dismiss anything spiritual and only focused on the material world.

Yet something happened to Allan. Basically his marriage worked. See, marriage is one of the two sacraments for the good of the Church; the other is Holy Orders. In the sacrament of marriage, the husband and wife witness to the love that Christ has for His Bride, the Church. Through their married life, the husband and wife testify to a love that is permanent, faithful, fruitful and involves the sharing of a life of communion, just as Jesus’ love for the Church is permanent, faithful, fruitful, and invites us to share in His divine life. The vocation of marriage is for the husband and wife to make each other holier, and Allan’s wife did just that.

On vacations she would take him into the great, old churches in Europe where he appreciated the architecture and beautiful works of art. However, while God is certainly reflected in all works of beauty, Allan’s real encounter with Christ Jesus was through his wife. And in that encounter he recognized the Mystery which fulfilled the deepest longing of his heart, his deepest desires. He came to recognize that this ultimate fulfillment was not his wife in herself, but rather in the Mystery, the Person, she followed — Jesus Christ.

Allan entered the RCIA, and entered the Catholic Church on the Easter Vigil. He was so very happy, and his wife rejoiced that their life would now share this common faith. About a month after Allan became a Catholic his wife was diagnosed with cancer, and she died about six months later. Of course Allan was filled with grief over the death of his wife, but he saw the grace of God even in his grief. He realized that Jesus had called him into the Church so that he would have a family of faith to support him during his grief. A few years later, Allan heard Christ calling him to the priesthood, and now he is Fr. Allan.

My other friend is named Paolo. He was not raised with any kind of religious faith. As a young man he joined the Navy, and while in the Navy he got hurt. He was in the base hospital, in a lot of pain. The next morning he found some pamphlets by his bed talking about offering one’s suffering to Jesus. Paolo found out that the man in the bed next to him, despite being in a lot of pain himself and barely able to walk, had gone down to the chapel to get them for Paolo, hoping that they would help him. Nothing in the pamphlets touched Paolo, but he was touched by the action of this stranger, and as Paolo puts it, he started his journey to Christ by stealing a Bible from the hospital chapel on his way out. It was in the action of that anonymous Christian, and in the pages of the Bible that Paolo encountered Jesus Christ, and he became a Catholic. While after a few years in the seminary Paolo decided that God was not calling him to priesthood, and he is now married with two children, Paolo continues, with his wife, to bare witness to Jesus Christ in the ordinary activities of his life.

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. Paul was not a bad man before he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus. He was a devout Jew. He was a man of the covenant, and he recognized that God had entered into a specially relationship with the Jewish people, and Paul lived that covenantal life to the best of his ability. His heart yearned for the coming of the promised Messiah. He just did not recognize right away that Jesus was the fulfillment of that promise. Paul saw this new “Way” as a threat to living a life faithful to the covenant with God, and in his zeal for God he persecuted the Church. On that road to Damascus, Paul was given a great grace — he had a profound encounter with Jesus Christ. In that encounter, Paul recognized the Messiah and his life was never the same. He continued to make his living as a tent-maker, but the real fire in his life was proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead. As St. Paul writes himself in one of his letters, “it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me.” Paul was filled with new life, the life of Jesus. This is the reality of the Church; not merely the institution and buildings, but the new life of Christ Jesus in all who follow Him.

All of us have also had a conversion. Maybe it has not been as dramatic as St. Paul’s, or even Allan’s and Paolo’s, but we have all been filled with the new life of Jesus Christ at our baptism. Sadly, for many of us, that new life did not get to really enliven us for a long time. Maybe we did not go to church for a long time, or going to Mass was just a duty to fulfill. However, I am sure that for many, and hopefully all of us, we had our own “road to Damascus” experience in which we had an exceptional encounter with Jesus Christ. Maybe it was when we were breaking free from an addiction, or excessive materialism. Maybe it was when facing a serious illness, or a death of a loved one. Maybe in was through a friendship with someone who is just so alive with the Holy Spirit. All of those moments are moments of conversion, of turning our lives over to Christ Jesus so that it is “no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me.”

Today’s Gospel tells us to make disciples of all the nations. We do not need to go to Africa or China to do that. What we need to do is live our faith boldly and courageously. When we are gathered around the office water cooler or coffee room and the gossip begins, we can follow the words of St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, and “say only the good things that people need to hear, things that will really build them up.” We can join with the thousands who this week traveled to Washington or Trenton to witness to the sanctity of human life from conception until natural death. We can allow the love of Jesus to shine through by our compassion to the poor, to those who are discriminated against. When we live the new life of Christ, the life that IS the Church, then others encounter Jesus Christ in us and are invited to accept the grace of conversion.