"This is the day the lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad." Please take the time to read Chapter 9, verses 1-22 in the Acts of the Apostles. As you read, perhaps a second or third time, imagine that you are standing nearby, seeing and hearing what St. Luke has recorded for all history to experience. For Christians of every faith practice, these are momentous words and events. But before you read these words, recall for just a few seconds the story from Jeremiah 18, known as the Potter's Wheel story. What you read in Acts is a clear example of God working as a potter with the clay of one man, Saul of Tarsus. This event in Saul's life and subsequent teachings is, I believe, why Pope Benedict dedicated an entire Church year to the study and reflection on the man the Church calls the Apostle to the Gentiles, St. Paul.
As your reflect on the historic event of Saul of Tarsus' conversion, let your heart and mind see in this story how God works in and through us. Paul became the clay in the divine potter's hands. See in this event God's extraordinary action of entrusting the faith of the early Church into thel ife and dynamism of a most questionable man. What we have learned is that Jesus did not sit back, waiting for the fledgling faith community to get itself organized as we would expect. No, the crucified and risen Jesus Christ knew what would be best for the new Church and its future. He took the firebrand Jew, Saul the tent maker, who persecuted the same early Church, and molded in into Paul, preacher and teacher extraordinaire.
Do you know that great surprise ending of this event and story? I am tempted to not to say but here it is: it has not ended! Today and throughout the centuries since that unique day in the life of one person on the road to Damascus, Jesus Christ has continued, through the Holy Spirit, to lead people from their blindness to a conversion. You may not be struck blind while riding a horse (!!!) but for sure you may find yourself blinded by one thing or another that holds you back from becoming a contemporary St. Paul. Jesus has been coming to each of us every day of our lives trying to bring us to be like Paul in truly know Jesus Christ and proclaiming him as the Son of God so that others might likewise have the gift of knowing Jesus better because of YOU.
