Story of st paul conversion feast

Saint of the Day for January 25

The Story of the Conversion of Saint Paul

Saint Paul’s entire life can be explained in terms of one experience—his meeting with Jesus on the road to Damascus. In an instant, he saw that all the zeal of his dynamic personality was being wasted, like the strength of a boxer swinging wildly. Perhaps he had never seen Jesus, who was only a few years older. But he had acquired a zealot’s hatred of all Jesus stood for, as he began to harass the Church: “…entering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonment” (Acts 8:3b). Now he himself was “entered,” possessed, all his energy harnessed to one goal—being a slave of Christ in the ministry of reconciliation, an instrument to help others experience the one Savior.

One sentence determined his theology: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5b). Jesus was mysteriously identified with people—the loving group of people Saul had been

•

Ordinary Time: January 25th

Move to: Previous Day | Next Day

Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Apostle

MASS READINGS

January 25, 2022 (Readings on USCCB website)

COLLECT PRAYER

O God, who taught the whole world through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Paul, draw us, we pray, nearer to you through the example of him whose konvertering we celebrate today, and so make us witnesses to your truth in the world. 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.

Recipes (8)

Activities (8)

Prayers (7)

Library (8)

Blog & Podcasts (1)

» Enjoy our Liturgical Seasons series of e-books!

The Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul celebrates St. Paul turning away from persecution of Christians to promoting Christianity. St. Paul, named Saul at his circumcision, a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, was born at Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia. He was a Roman citizen. He was brought up as a strict

•

Why do we celebrate the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul?

On January 25, the faithful celebrate the Conversion of St. Paul, one of the great events of the early Church. Saul, a student of the great Pharisee rabbi Gamaliel, had persecuted Christians but was suddenly converted on the road to Damascus when Our Lord appeared to him in His resurrected glory (see Acts 9:1-9). From this point, he took the name Paul and would become the “Apostle to the Gentiles.”

“[I]t was not simply a conversion … but rather a death and a resurrection for Paul himself. One existence died and another, new one was born with the Risen Christ.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

“Thus St. Paul was not transformed by a thought but by an event, by the irresistible presence of the Risen One whom subsequently he would never be able to doubt, so powerful had been the evidence of the event, of this encounter. It radically changed Paul’s life in a fundamental way; in this sense, one can and must speak of a c