I remember joining RCIA like it was yesterday. I had grown up culturally Jewish, but at college I began to attack the Christian faith once I recognized what it preached. When I was younger, I associated Christianity with classmates in middle school who would bully me for my family’s Jewish heritage. As a skeptic in college at a public university, I was confronted with intellectual evangelical Protestant Christians whose presentation of the basics of Christianity were winsome. After discovering the truth of the Catholic faith, I knew God was calling me home to the Catholic Church. I could pick no finer model than St. Paul, whom I chose as my confirmation saint. Like St. Paul, I found that God had reclaimed my life.
From persecutor to apostle
We read about St. Paul’s conversion in the Acts of the Apostles, first in Acts 9. St. Paul, a tent-maker by trade (Acts 18:3), had been known by his Hebrew name, Saul. Both he and his namesake, King Saul, the first king of Israel, came from the tribe of Benjamin. The Saul of the Acts of the Apostles was a member of the Pharisees and was bent on persecuting Christians anywhere he could find them. Here’s his later testimony about his background (Acts 22:3-5):
Saul was not just well-educated in the Judaism of his day, he was a zealous Pharisee. He was not only a Pharisee, but a student of Gamaliel, arguably the greatest Jewish sages of Jesus’ day, revered as one of the greatest Jewish teachers in history! Indeed, in his Letter to the Philippians, St. Paul boasts of his early background in Judaism prior to God reclaiming him for Jesus: “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (3:4-6).
In his Letter to the Galatians, it is enough for him to write, “I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors” (1:14).
Eventually, Saul became St. Paul, an apostle called directly by Christ. He would go on to become the most prolific author of the New Testament and would be attributed throughout the early tradition with having written Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon and the Letter to the Hebrews, though his authorship of some of these is disputed.
We first read about St. Paul’s conversion in the Acts of the Apostles 9. Saul, as he was then known, was “still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (9:1). Having secured appropriate letters from the high priest in Jerusalem, Saul left for Damascus, “so that if he found any who belonged to the Way,” as Christianity was then called, “men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem” (9:2).
It was on his way to persecute Christians, thinking that he was giving honor and glory to God, that Saul had his radical encounter with Jesus. Although we don’t know if he fell from a horse, a donkey, or just was knocked off his feet as a pedestrian — despite later artwork depicting Saul falling from a horse — he ended up knocked to the ground. Jesus then spoke the following words: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4). In response to his question of who is speaking, Saul hears, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5). And the rest is history.
Reclaiming Saul
Jesus doesn’t ask our permission to enter our lives; he simply enters and waits for our response, our “yes.” Jesus said of St. Paul, “he is an instrument whom I have chosen” (Acts 9:15). We can find the most complete story of St. Paul’s life in the Acts of the Apostles. St. Paul himself gives us insight into his life throughout many of the letters he wrote to churches and to individuals. In his Letter to the Philippians, St. Paul tells us, after recounting his advanced standing in Judaism, “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (3:7-8).
This is high praise from St. Paul, who was both an expert pupil of a masterful teacher and also an apostle who suffered a variety of torments from persecution and the many challenges that beset him throughout his ministry. He tells the Church at Corinth of this:
Despite his numerous sufferings because of his fidelity to Jesus and the Gospel message — not to mention his eventual martyrdom by beheading under the reign of Emperor Nero — St. Paul recognizes all of it as worthwhile because of his friendship with God in Christ.
After his encounter with Christ, St. Paul spent time in Arabia (Gal 1:17), which is where it was thought Mount Sinai was located. Perhaps St. Paul was hoping to gain insight into salvation history with the new light he had received. Mount Sinai was where Moses had had his encounter with God and where he received the Ten Commandments. It was also the location of the Prophet Elijah’s intimate encounter with God (1 Kgs 19). I like to think of St. Paul re-reading through Scripture at this time. We know that St. Paul knew the Scriptures well. Gamaliel’s students were renowned for having memorized much of the Old Testament in Hebrew and sometimes in other translations as well.
We also know that St. Paul knew the basic Christian message and also the Christian understanding of salvation history pointing to the coming of Christ. How do we know this? Because in Acts 7 Stephen recounts salvation history from the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, through Moses and the exodus to King David, to the coming of Christ. When Acts relates St. Stephen’s martyrdom, immediately after his recounting of salvation history, it informs us that, “the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul” (7:58). This Saul is none other than the future St. Paul, who stood by as St. Stephen preached, and as Stephen lost his life and gained his heavenly reward. St. Paul was thus already familiar with the Christian story, because he had heard it from the lips of St. Stephen.
St. Paul was thus well prepared for his mission to the Gentiles, for which God had specially chosen him: “for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:15-16). This suffering was to be an important part of St. Paul’s ministry, in which he would suffer for love, turning that suffering into prayer for others as Jesus had transformed his own suffering into prayer, love and sacrifice. Jesus chose Saul to become St. Paul; our Lord reclaimed Saul, who was already following God. He reclaimed him for Christ.
Reclaiming our lives for Christ
We may look at our own lives and think, “I’m no St. Paul. God hasn’t chosen me.” We may not be St. Paul, but we are called to live charity to the fullest and follow Christ with the complete commitment St. Paul had. St. Paul himself tells us, “he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love” (Eph 1:4). This is what is referred to as the universal call to holiness since the Second Vatican Council. Everyone is called to the fullness of charity. Everyone is called to become a saint. This is true for you, and it’s true for me as well.
We all have challenges in our lives that may make it difficult at times to follow Jesus. St. Paul, too, had his obstacles to following Jesus. It was not only that Saul didn’t believe the Christian message; he was actively persecuting Christians. Regardless of our own challenges, whether they are as serious as Saul’s or whether they are on a much smaller scale, God is calling each of us to allow him to reclaim our lives for Christ. Some of us may have stories of life-changing conversions, like St. Paul’s. Others might have been following Jesus from earliest memory. Regardless, we need to open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit and recognize the ways in which we must continually turn to the Lord at every moment, each day. We will always remain in need of growth in our relationship with God. Such growth, which often involves beginning again, is an intrinsic part of allowing oneself to be reclaimed by God.
The field of our lives is wide open for opportunities to let God in and do his work, since each one of us, like St. Paul, is specially chosen for a mission only we can fulfill. God has made each one of us for a purpose he intends us to complete; none of us is an accident in God’s mind. We must let God in to reclaim us in our family relationships, our friendships and in our relationships of work and service. Our particular struggles and bad habits need to be reclaimed for God so that we serve him fully in all the corners of our life, even the darkest corners.
St. Paul himself provides us with several tips on how to facilitate our continual conversion. Perhaps this is no clearer than in St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. St. Paul instructs us to put “away falsehood” and replace it with speaking “the truth to our neighbors” (4:25). He acknowledges that we may become angry but encourages us not to sin through our anger: “do not let the sun go down on your anger” (4:26). St. Paul reminds those who once stole to “give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy” (4:28). He goes on to admonish Christians, “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear” (4:29).
In Ephesians 4-5, St. Paul lays out the basics of the Christian life. He encourages believers to “be imitators of God, as beloved children” (5:1) and to “live in love, as Christ loved us” (5:2). Christians must not even speak about impurity or obscenity, but should replace such language with thanksgiving (5:3-4). How are we to know if we are living this way? St. Paul tells us clearly, “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise” (5:15). We have to examine ourselves. We have to “be careful how” we live, examining how we are doing and then trying to correct our course just like the course of a ship needs periodic correction to reach its final destination. And our final destination is heaven. St. Paul further instructs Christians to make “the most of the time” (5:16). We have to use our time well — for God — because our time is so limited and therefore precious.
St. Paul closes his Letter to the Ephesians with advice about putting on the armor of God to fight the spiritual battle we all have to fight as Christians. St. Paul exhorts his audience to “be strong in the Lord,” relying upon the strength of God’s power (6:10). St. Paul encourages believers to “Put on the whole armor of God” (6:11) and then he explains what this entails. He uses the example of battle armor to explain the Christian life, with each armor component representing a different aspect of Christian prayer and faith: The belt is truth (6:14); the breastplate is righteousness (6:14); the shoes are “whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace” (6:15); the shield is faith (6:16); the helmet is salvation (6:17); and the sword is the “word of God” (6:17). It is in this context that St. Paul encourages us to “pray in the Spirit at all times” (6:18).
To sum up St. Paul’s advice, if we are serious about our ongoing conversion, we need to examine how we live. We have to ask ourselves if we are living the Christian virtues in our day-to-day life. We should use our time well. Then we need to pray at all times and in all places, striving to live righteously, in light of our faith, immersing ourselves in the word of God. In this way, we will be empowered to make progress on the ongoing conversions necessary in the Christian life.
The beautiful thing is that Jesus has given us all of the means we need to be reclaimed by him. We not only have the moment of our baptism, when God first claimed us, but we have the repeatable sacraments of the Eucharist, which nourishes us spiritually, and confession, which empowers us to live love more fully, specifically in the areas in which we’ve fallen short. Getting to know God and his plan better through Scripture and turning to God in the intimacy of our hearts in daily prayer helps facilitate the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. What’s more, we have the assistance of all the angels and Saints to help us along our journey.
