Apostle Paul

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me

We conclude the examination of the letters that the Tradition puts under Paul’s authority with a Special on that great apostle. Paul was «circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee» (Phil 3,5); his life completely changes with the Lord’s meeting on the way to Damascus. There, Jesus reproaches him for the persecution against the nascent Church: He is indeed so present in it that the one who hurts a Christian, hurts Jesus in person. «I myself most certainly thought that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. This I also did in Jerusalem. I both shut up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, and when they were put to death I gave my vote against them. Punishing them often in all the synagogues, I tried to make them blaspheme. Being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities. Whereupon as I traveled to Damascus with the authority and commission from the chief priests, at noon [...] I saw on the way a light from the sky, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who traveled with me. When we had all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? [...]’ I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But arise, and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose: to appoint you a servant and a witness both of the things which you have seen, and of the things which I will reveal to you» (Acts 26,9-16).
That experience will always remain in Paul’s heart and it will push him to proclaim everywhere the message of God’s free love in Jesus Christ (the «grace»), the same love that converted him without any merit from «child born at the wrong time» (1Cor 15,8) to apostle of Gentiles. «[Among the children of disobedience] we also all once lived in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ [...]; for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, that no one would boast» (Eph 2,3-5.8-9).
Paul keeps the gift of the Faith, that he freely received from Jesus and he freely gave to other persons, as the precious treasure to which he devoted his whole life. «Five times from the Jews I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. I have been a night and a day in the deep. I have been in travels often, perils of rivers, perils of robbers, perils from my countrymen, perils from the Gentiles, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among false brothers; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are outside, there is that which presses on me daily, anxiety for all the Churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak?» (2Cor 11,24-29). He takes from Christ and from the Faith all the energy necessary for his demanding ministry: «I can do all things through him who strengthens me» (Phil 4,13).



«For the love of Christ urges us on» (2Cor 5,14), Paul writes to the Corinthians, and he first lived that love towards the brothers and sisters who were entrusted to him. «Our mouth is open to you, Corinthians. Our heart is enlarged. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections. Now in return, I speak as to my children, you also be open wide» (2Cor 6,11-13); «But we were caring among you, like a nursing mother cherishes her own children. Even so, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you, not the Gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because you had become very dear to us» (1Thess 2,7-8); «As you know, as a father with his own children, we exhorted, comforted, and implored every one of you» (1Thess 2,11-12).
Paul will die in Rome, by decapitation, probably in Emperor Nero’s persecutions against Christians. His life, transfigured by the meeting with Christ, is a model of evangelical testimony to Christians of all times and a fulfillment of that adoption as sons which God realized in Jesus: «I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me» (Gal 2,20).