The Conversion of St. Paul

Homily Given by Monsignor Kevin Sullivan

World Peace Day, January 25, 2009
Cathedral of St. Patrick, NYC

Whenever two important events occur simultaneously, such as the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul and World Day of Peace, their importance can be either diluted or complemented. At first glance, today’s scriptural readings seem to distract from today’s events.

The readings focus on the conversion of St. Paul and his mission. The first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, is an eyewitness account of St. Paul’s conversion while traveling to Damascus. Today’s Gospel from St. Mark records Jesus’ mandate to preach the message Paul zealously sought to destroy.

The second reading, from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, like the first reading and the Gospel, does not mention “peace.” So, perhaps the readings are a distraction; perhaps they do dilute the theme of peace on which we are to reflect today.

Let’s look more closely at those readings. First, Paul’s conversion: Paul was an educated Jew who fervently persecuted the followers of Jesus as disloyal and heretical Jews. He was a zealot on his way to Damascus to do further destruction when, according to his own account, the light strikes. Stunned, Paul is brought to another devout observer of the law, Aninias, who explains the meaning of Paul’s experience.

The results of Paul’s conversion make it one of the most unlikely and farthest-reaching religious experiences of his or any time. The conversion was so unlikely that many believers were fearful and skeptical of Paul. With his history, how could they believe his preaching about Jesus? What entrapment was he planning?

Even more shocking than Paul preaching the message of Jesus was Paul preaching that belief in Jesus Christ and salvation in his name was open to all or, as he put it, to Jews and Greeks as co-heirs. Neither then nor now does a person or a group that think they are sole heir to a “treasure” relish the inclusion of others--co-heirs. So, this persecutor of the way, this willing witness to the death of the first Christian martyr, not only claims apostolic mission directly designated by Jesus, but also changes the rules of game.

This is quite an audacious claim and quite an accomplishment. It results in nothing less than Paul becoming the most prodigious New Testament writer and most successful Apostle in terms of his journeys, their impact and legacy. While the New Testament attributes two letters to Peter, it attributes more than a dozen to Paul. There are few Sundays during the year on which the Christian people do not hear a reading from one of the Pauline letters. Not a shabby accomplishment for a bad guy turned good guy; for a persecutor turned preacher.

So what does this have to say about our marking this morning as World Day of Peace? Are we distracted from this theme by the greatness of Paul’s conversion? I think not.

Our guests from the United Nations know far better than most of us about the complexity of the world today and the challenges to peace. In Pope Benedict’s early January address to the diplomatic corps, he touched on strife in countries from east to west and north to south. Ironically, those lands where Paul preached the peaceful message today vie for consideration as the least peaceful and most violent.

This is precisely why the juxtaposition of the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul and World Peace Day is such a providential coincidence.

Many reasonable persons would say world peace is a utopian dream. The best we can hope to do is to take cover and minimize our losses, to hunker down, defend ourselves and our children against the inevitable civil and international violence that plagues all our houses now and in the foreseeable future.

But allow me to offer an analogy. Yet, here you are celebrating that unlikely conversion of Saul of Tarsus as something that actually happened. If we want another analogy, only a few years ago, Americans It is as reasonable to hope for world peace today, as it was reasonable 2,000 years ago to hope for the conversion of that murderous accomplice, Saul of Tarsus, and for him to become a great Christian apostle. and citizens of other countries believed that it was impossible for a Black man to be elected President of the United States.

We need to recognize that, as the great hymn sings, there’s a wideness in God’s mercy that is broader than the human mind and cynical vision. There is a hope that is not bound by the limited vision we often bring to the table. There is a future that can be different than the scars and wounds that enslave us to the false ways of the past. And there is the advice from an Angel given to a teenage girl in Galilee whose heart was troubled: “with God nothing is impossible.” This hope, however, is tempered by the urgency for us to recommit ourselves to the task of creating a more peaceful world.

Our second reading this morning is from Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians. Paul doesn’t use the word “peace,” but his words speak to the urgency of the task before us. “I tell you my brothers and sisters, the time is running out. The world in its present form is passing away.”

A more direct message could not be spoken to our guests from the United Nations and to their many colleagues here in New York, Geneva and in the many dangerous places throughout the world. You know these challenging times far better the most of us. You know “hot spots” ready to erupt into war and violence. You know the proliferation of new weapons – nuclear, biological and chemical - that have even greater capacity to destroy human life.

Listen to the words the Holy Father addressed to the diplomatic corps just a few weeks ago: “Despite so many efforts, the peace we so desire still remains distant! Faced with this reality, we must not grow discouraged or lessen our commitment to a culture of authentic peace, but rather redouble our efforts on behalf of security and development.”

Our hope and work for peace often goes unmentioned and unattended by many, but not by Pope Benedict XVI. Our Holy Father chose this point as the theme for his 2009 World Day of Peace message. The title of his message, almost says it all: “Fighting Poverty to Build Peace.” He quotes his predecessor Pope Paul VI, the first Pope to address the United Nations in 1965 and restates the profound assertion: “The new name for peace is development.”

Pope Benedict echoed this theme in his recent address to the diplomatic corps. He said with the utmost clarity: “To build peace, we need to give new hope to the poor.”

How often do we see emblazoned in bold print and haunting videos the bloody horrors of war and violence. Yet, hidden in the smallest print and briefest video clip is the poverty, indignity and hopelessness that afflict peoples in the lands of conflict – often times on both sides of the battle line. Many can identify the precise number of fatalities in Gaza and Israel and other war torn places. We lament these deaths. But how many know the causalities caused by unemployment and poverty rates in those same places? Perhaps if we mourned these as much, we would see less of violence and death. Would that we see security and development inextricably bound to work for a more peaceful world!

Paul clearly preached that Jews and Greeks were co-heirs of the kingdom of God. Would that we might proclaim both security and development as essential, inseparable co-collaborators. Both are necessary to world of peace.

One final reflection: most of us here today are not entrusted with the noble work of the United Nations. However, that does not permit us to be idle or uninvolved in building a peaceful world. We are not exempt from reflecting on toady’s theme and acting upon it in our own lives and spheres of influence. Personal respect, harmony within families, fostering the protection of human rights, concern for the poor and needy through works of charity and justice are, although sometimes in relatively small ways, capable of being big building blocks for a peaceful world. The acts each of us do and the words we speak, or refrain from speaking, in our own personal lives, though often unnoticed, can build up or tear down the common good. They either mire us further in the world of too much poverty and too much violence and disrespect or they build a more secure and developed world in which the dignity or each person is respected as made in the image and likeness of God. There can be no idle by-standers in building a more peaceful world.

As we mark World Day of Peace, peace can seem unlikely. There is so much strife, so much dissention, so much need. Today, in celebrating the feast of the conversion of St. Paul, we also noted the unlikelihood of Paul’s conversion. And yet it came to pass.