Today is May 9, Friday of the Third Week of Easter.
We read at today’s Mass, “Immediately things like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight. He got up and was baptized, and when he had eaten, he recovered his strength” (Acts 9:18).
Today, we’re invited to reflect on the remarkable call to faith — especially through the lens of the conversion of Saul, which we hear about in today’s Mass readings.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the papacy — about what it means to be pope — especially as we pray for our Holy Father Leo XIV. Praying before the tomb of Pope Francis recently, I was struck anew by the weight of that office. It’s a burden that requires deep humility, the kind of humility Saul showed when he submitted himself to Jesus Christ and came before the Church after his dramatic encounter on the road to Damascus.
That same weight is something popes have spoken about with great reverence. Almost 30 years ago now, Pope St. John Paul II reflected on it in his remarkable book “Crossing the Threshold of Hope.” Maybe you have a copy of it on your shelf.
‘Confronted with such a truth’
In that book, he wrote:
“Confronted with such a truth — that is, confronted with the pope, the papacy — one must choose, and for many the choice is not easy. Was it so easy for Peter? Was it easy for any of his successors? Is it easy for the present Pope? To choose requires man’s initiative. Christ says, ‘Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.’ This choice, therefore, is not only a human initiative but an act of God, who works and reveals himself through man.”
I find that so powerful. The papacy reminds us that faith itself is a choice — not a blind one, but one illuminated by grace. Faith is an assent: the will, prompted by the intellect, choosing to believe. And this choice isn’t made once and for all. It’s made daily.
Just as Saul chose Christ, just as Peter chose to lead, just as every pope chooses to govern the Church under Christ, we, too, must choose daily to live by faith. To believe. To follow Christ.
May God grant the grace to make that choice well.
Let us pray,
Grant, we pray, almighty God, that we, who have come to know the grace of the Lord’s Resurrection, may, through the love of the Spirit, ourselves rise to newness of life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
