Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney
Mob: 0417 279 437
Mob: 0417 279 437
Assistant Priest: Fr Paschal Okpon
Mob: 0438 562 731
paschalokpon@yahoo.com
Priest in Residence: Fr Phil McCormack
Mob: 0437 521 257
Mob: 0437 521 257
Postal Address: PO Box 362
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160
Email: merseyleven@aohtas.org.au
Secretary: Annie Davies
Finance Officer: Anne Fisher
Finance Officer: Anne Fisher
Parish Mass times for the Month: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
Weekly Homily Podcast: mikedelaney.podomatic.com
Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.
PLENARY COUNCIL PRAYER
Come, Holy Spirit of Pentecost.
Come, Holy Spirit of the great South Land.
O God, bless and unite all your people in Australia
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future,
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age.
Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.
Come, Holy Spirit of the great South Land.
O God, bless and unite all your people in Australia
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future,
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age.
Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.
Parish Prayer
Heavenly Father,
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we strive to bear witness
to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.
Amen.
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus
Benediction with Adoration Devonport: First Friday each month - commences at 10am and concludes with Mass
Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart Church Community Room, Ulverstone
Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – Mondays 7pm Community Room Ulverstone
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we strive to bear witness
Amen.
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Baptism: Arrangements are made by contacting Parish Office. Parents attend a Baptismal Preparation Session organised with a Priest.
Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist: Are received following a Family–centred, Parish-based, School-supported Preparation Program.
Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: prepares adults for reception into the Catholic community.
Marriage: arrangements are made by contacting one of our priests - couples attend a Pre-marriage Program
Anointing of the Sick: please contact one of our priests
Reconciliation: Ulverstone - Fridays (10am - 10:30am), Devonport - Saturday (5:15pm– 5.45pm)
Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus
Benediction with Adoration Devonport: First Friday each month - commences at 10am and concludes with Mass
Benediction with Adoration Devonport: First Friday each month - commences at 10am and concludes with Mass
Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart Church Community Room, Ulverstone
Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – Mondays 7pm Community Room Ulverstone
Weekday Masses 14th - 17th May, 2019
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe
Friday: 11:00am Mt St Vincent Nursing Home
Next Weekend 18th & 19th May, 2019
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin
6:00pm Devonport (LWwC)
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell
9:00am Ulverstone (LWwC)
10:30am Devonport
11:00am Sheffield (LWwC)
5:00pm Latrobe
Ministry Rosters 18th & 19th May, 2019
Devonport:
Readers: Vigil: M Kelly, R Baker, B Paul
10:30am A Hughes, E Barrientos, P Piccolo
Ministers of Communion: Vigil T Muir, M Davies, D Peters, J Heatley
10.30am: B & N Mulcahy, K Hull
Cleaners 17th May: P & T Douglas 24th May: F Sly, M Hansen, I Hunter
Piety Shop 18th May: A Berryman 19th May: D French
Ulverstone:
Reader/s: B O’Rourke Ministers of Communion: B Deacon, K Reilly, E Stubbs
Cleaners: M Swain, M Bryan Flowers: M Swain Hospitality: M & K McKenzie
Penguin:
Greeters J Garnsey Commentator: J Barker Readers: Y Downes, K Fraser
Ministers of Communion: M Hiscutt, M Murray Liturgy: Sulphur Creek J
Setting Up: S Ewing Care of Church: M Murray, E Nickols
Latrobe:
Reader: M Eden Minister of Communion: I Campbell Procession of Gifts: M Clarke
Port Sorell:
Readers: L Post, T Jefferies Ministers of Communion: P Anderson Cleaners: A Hynes
Readings This Week: Fourth Sunday of Easter – Year C
PREGO REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL:
Readings Next Week: Fifth Sunday of Easter – Year C
Your prayers are asked for the sick:
Christina Okpon, Robert Luxton, Adrian Drane, Fred Heazlewood, Jason Carr, Thomas & Frances McGeown, Charlotte Milic, John Kelly, David Cole, Rose Stanley & …
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Margaret Nolan, Jean Vanier, Heather Mahoney, Cheryl Hicks, Myra Goss, Bernard Wendt, Ian Wright.
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 9th – 15th May
Epie Howlett, Lauris Pullen, Don Burrows, Felicia Periera, Kanina Locket, Joan Bonner, Elaine Milic, John Nickols, Anthony Smith, Ernest Wilkins, Norah Lillas, Emily Reynolds, Mary Coad, Ethel Dooley, Audrey Enniss, Marian Hamon, Tas Glover & Madeleine Castles.
May they Rest in Peace
Weekly
Ramblings
Last
weekend I included a list of the Lay Liturgical Leaders who are currently
serving our Parish and made two incredible blunders: I completely omitted Ester
Petts and gave Yvonne Downes the wrong surname – my deepest apologies to both
ladies. The correct list is here: Yvonne Downes, Mandy Eden, Jenny Garnsey,
Clare Kiely-Hoye, Anne Landers, Elizabeth Nickols, Maureen O’Halloran and Ester
Petts.
I received
a text from Fr Paschal earlier this week saying that his mother is having
regular dialysis and this is helping her condition but will require constant
care. Please keep her in your prayers as Fr Paschal prepares to return to
Tasmania by next weekend. Because of the challenges of long distance
international flights there will need to be Liturgy of the Word with Communion
Services at Penguin, Ulverstone and Sheffield on 18th/19th as Fr Phil has a
prior engagement.
Mother’s Day Prayer
We pray for all mothers, who give life and tend to our every need;
May they be blessed with patience and tenderness to care for their families and themselves with great joy.
We remember mothers who are separated from their children for whatever reason. May they feel the loving embrace of our God who wipes every tear away.
We pray for women who are not mothers but still love and shape us with motherly care and compassion.
We remember mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers who are no longer with us but who live forever in our memory and nourish us with their love.
Amen.
LEGION OF MARY: All Parishioners are invited to the Legion of Mary annual Acies (Consecration to Our Lady) at Sacred Heart Church, Alexandra Road Ulverstone Sunday 19th May at 2pm with benediction, followed by afternoon tea in the Community Room.
MACKILLOP HILL - Spirituality in the Coffee Shoppe.
Monday 27th May 2019 10.30 – 12 noon
Come along and enjoy a lively discussion over morning tea! All welcome! We look forward to your company at 123 William Street, FORTH. Phone: 6428 3095 No bookings necessary. Donation appreciated.
FOOTY MARGIN RESULTS:
Round 7 (Friday 3rd May) Collingwood won by 39 points. Congratulations to the following winners; John Charlesworth, Margaret Wood & Terry Bird.
BINGO THURSDAY 16th May – Eyes down 7:30pm.
Callers Tony Ryan & Graeme Rigney
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
WALK WITH CHRIST – Hobart City, Sunday 23rd June 1:15pm to 3:00 pm.
Celebrate the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ by walking with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament through the city of Hobart.
Be at St Joseph's Church (Harrington St) by 1.15 pm, and walk with us to St Mary's Cathedral for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction concluding at 3:00pm. There will be a 'cuppa' afterwards. If you can't do the walk come to the Cathedral at 2:00pm for prayer and Adoration.
Experience our rich Catholic heritage in solidarity with Catholics all over the world and through the ages, by bearing public witness to our Lord and Saviour.
Can't join us in person? Prayer intentions written in the 'Book of Life' in your parish will be taken in the procession and presented at the Cathedral.
The Kingdom of Heaven
This article is taken from the Daily Emails from Fr Richard Rohr OFM and the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the emails here
Guest writer and CAC faculty member Cynthia Bourgeault continues exploring Jesus as a wisdom teacher.
Throughout the Gospel accounts, Jesus uses one particular phrase repeatedly: “the Kingdom of Heaven.” The words stand out everywhere. “The Kingdom of Heaven is like this,” “The Kingdom of Heaven is like that,” “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you,” “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Whatever this Kingdom of Heaven is, it’s of foundational importance to what Jesus is trying to teach.
So, what is the Kingdom of Heaven? Biblical scholars have debated this question for almost as long as there have been biblical scholars. Many Christians, particularly those of a more evangelical persuasion, assume that the Kingdom of Heaven means the place you go when you die—if you’ve been “saved.” But the problem with this interpretation is that Jesus himself specifically contradicts it when he says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you” (that is, here) and “at hand” (that is, now). It’s not later, but lighter—some more subtle quality or dimension of experience accessible to you right in the moment. You don’t die into it; you awaken into it.
Others have equated the Kingdom of Heaven with an earthly utopia. The Kingdom of Heaven would be a realm of peace and justice, where human beings lived together in harmony and fair distribution of economic assets. For thousands of years, prophets and visionaries have labored to bring into being their respective versions of this kind of Kingdom of Heaven, but somehow these earthly utopias never seem to stay put for very long. Jesus specifically rejected this meaning. When his followers wanted to proclaim him the Messiah, the divinely anointed king of Israel who would inaugurate the reign of God’s justice upon the earth, Jesus shrank from all that and said, strongly and unequivocally, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).
Where is it, then? Author Jim Marion’s wonderfully insightful and contemporary suggestion is that the Kingdom of Heaven is really a metaphor for a state of consciousness; it is not a place you go to, but a place you come from. [1] It is a whole new way of looking at the world, a transformed awareness that literally turns this world into a different place.
Marion suggests specifically that the Kingdom of Heaven is Jesus’ way of describing a state we would nowadays call “nondual consciousness” or “unitive consciousness.” The hallmark of this awareness is that it sees no separation—not between God and humans, not between humans and other humans. These are indeed Jesus’ two core teachings, underlying everything he says and does.
[1] See Jim Marion, Putting on the Mind of Christ: The Inner Work of Christian Spirituality (Hampton Roads Publishing Company: 2000; 2nd ed., 2011).
Adapted from Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind—A New Perspective on Christ and His Message (Shambhala: 2008), 29-31.
Who Goes to Hell and who Doesn't
This article is taken from the Archives of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find the original article and many other by clicking here
Hell is never a nasty surprise waiting for a basically happy person. Nor is it necessarily a predicable ending for an unhappy, bitter person. Can a happy, warm-hearted person go to hell? Can an unhappy, bitter person go to heaven? That’s all contingent upon how we understand hell and how we read the human heart.
A person who is struggling honestly to be happy cannot go to hell since hell is the antithesis of an honest struggle to be happy. Hell, in Pope Francis’ words, “is wanting to be distant from God’s love.” Anyone who sincerely wants love and happiness will never be condemned to an eternity of alienation, emptiness, bitterness, anger, and hatred (which are what constitute the fires of hell) because hell is wanting not to be in heaven. Thus there’s no one in hell who’s sincerely longing for another chance to mend things so as to go to heaven. If there’s anyone in hell, it’s because that person truly wants to be distant from love.
But can someone really want to be distant from God’s love and from human love? The answer is complex because we’re complex: What does it mean to want something? Can we want something and not want it all at the same time? Yes, because there are different levels to the human psyche and consequently the same desire can be in conflict with itself.
We can want something and not want it all at the same time. That’s a common experience. For instance, take a young child who has just been disciplined by his mother. At that moment, the child can bitterly hate his mother, even as at another, more inchoate, level what he most desperately wants is in fact his mother’s embrace. But until his sulk ends he wants to be distant from his mother, even as his deepest want is to be with his mother. We know the feeling.
Hatred, as we know, is not opposite of love but simply one modality of love’s grieving and so this type of dynamic perennially plays itself out in the befuddling, complex, paradoxical relationship that millions of us have with God, the church, with each other, and with love itself. Our wounds are mostly not our own fault but the result of an abuse, a violation, a betrayal, or some traumatic negligence within the circle of love. However this doesn’t preclude them doing funny things to us. When we’re wounded in love, then, like a reprimanded, sulking child who wants distance from his mother, we too can for a time, perhaps for a lifetime, not want heaven because we feel that we’ve been unfairly treated by it. It’s natural for many people to want to be distant from God. The child bullied on the playground who identifies his or her bullies with the inner circle of “the accepted ones” will understandably want to be distant from that circle – or perhaps even do violence to it.
However that’s at one level of soul. At a deeper level, our ultimate longing is still to be inside of that circle of love which we at that moment seemingly hate, hate because we feel that we’ve been unfairly excluded from it or violated by it and hence deem it to be something we want no part of. Thus someone can be very sincere of soul and yet because of deep wounds to her soul go through life and die wanting to be distant what she perceives as God, love, and heaven. But we may not make a simplistic judgment here.
We need to distinguish between what at a given moment we explicitly want and what, at that same moment, we implicitly (really) want. They’re often not the same. The reprimanded child seemingly wants distance from his mother, even as at another level he desperately wants it.
Many people want distance from God and the churches, even as at another level they don’t. But God reads the heart, recognizes the untruth hiding inside a sulk or a pout, and judges accordingly. That’s why we shouldn’t be so quick to fill up hell with everyone who appears to want distance from love, faith, church, and God. God’s love can encompass, empathize with, melt down, and heal that hatred. Our love should too.
Christian hope asks us to believe things that go against our natural instincts and emotions and one of these is that God’s love is so powerful that, just as it did at Jesus’ death, it can descend into hell itself and there breathe love and forgiveness into both the most wounded and most hardened of souls. Hope asks us to believe that the final triumph of God’s love will be when the Lucifer himself converts, returns to heaven, and hell is finally empty.
Fanciful? No. That’s Christian hope; it’s what many of our great saints believed.
Yes, there’s a hell and, given human freedom, it’s always a radical possibility for everyone; but, given God’s love, perhaps sometime it will be completely empty.
The Conversion of St Paul
On Friday (10th May) we heard the account of the Conversion of Saint Paul, the event in which the ‘most ferocious enemy of the Church became its most zealous son and missionary’. How is Paul’s conversion described in the New Testament, in his own words and in the accounts in the Acts of the Apostles? Marcel Uwineza SJ looks closely at how Paul and Luke portray the change affected in Paul on the Damascus Road. Marcel Uwineza SJ is a Jesuit scholastic studying at the Jesuit School of Theology, Hekima College, Nairobi. You can find this article and many others on the ThinkingFaith.org website by clicking here
On 25 January each year, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul. The accounts of the experience according to Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, and the details offered by Paul himself in his epistles, are varying and give us much information about the ‘conversion’ we celebrate, as well as raising many questions about the event and what it meant for Paul. In this article I will look at what we can learn from each account of Paul’s conversion.
Paul in his own words
‘To understand the importance of the Damascus experience as conversion, in the proper sense of the word, it is necessary to briefly look at what Paul was before it and what he became after it.’[1] What was it that Saul objected to about Jesus and his followers? What were the circumstances that led Saul to persecute the Church?
Paul was ‘circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the Church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless’ (Phil 3:5-6). It was the scandal of the cross that compelled Paul to act against Jesus’s followers: he could not imagine that an acclaimed Jewish Messiah should have been put to death by crucifixion on a Roman cross (1 Cor 1:23; Gal 5:11). ‘Nowhere in the orthodox of the Torah was there room for a crucified Christ.’[2] Paul’s persecution of Christians was entailed by his Jewish understanding of the Messiah: he was waiting for the Anointed One – the Messiah – and he could not tolerate the fragmented loyalties that were taking place within the nation with the rise of a new sect that looked to Jesus as the awaited Messiah.[3] Paul had a firm commitment to the Jewish religion and his wholehearted acceptance of the Pharisaic interpretation of that religion.
Paul’s own letters can help us understand what he became after his conversion experience. One thing is clear: ‘Paul tells us little about himself. He is not self-preoccupied, self-reflective, introspective, or narcissistic.’[4] He refers to his experience only in contexts where he is addressing other issues: in defending the Gospel he proclaimed to his Gentile converts in Gal 1:13-17; in countering certain ‘supra-spiritual’ believers who were attempting to denigrate him in 1 Cor 9:1 and 15:8-10; and in rebutting certain Jewish Christians who were trying to ‘judaize’ his converts in Phil 3:4-11. But in these indirect references, does Paul set out the essential feature of his conversion?
In 1 Cor 9:1, Paul says that he has ‘seen Jesus our Lord.’ In 1 Cor 15:5-7, he puts what he saw on a par with all of Jesus’s post-resurrection appearances, whether to Peter and ‘the Twelve’, or to five hundred believers, to James, or to all the apostles. Yet what Paul experienced was of the nature of revelation (Gal 1:11-12, 16a): Christ was the agent of that revelation (Gal 1:12); the content of that revelation was God’s Son; and the ultimate purpose of his revelation was ‘so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles’ (Gal 1:16). Christ’s appearance had a revolutionary effect on his life. He came to consider ‘everything as loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord’ and to focus only on ‘knowing Christ’ with all that such a consuming passion involved (Phil 3:7-11).
Paul never refers to his own experience as a ‘conversion’. In fact, in his letters, there is no clear mention of a trip to Damascus and no narrative detailing what took place, as there is in Acts, as we shall see. There is ‘no light, no voice, no companions, no Ananias to interpret the significance of it all.’[5] However, the descriptions in Galatians (1:13-17) and Philippians (3:4-7) suggest that what Paul experienced was a change of commitment, values and identity that was sudden and unexpected. Is this what we mean by ‘conversion’?
Paul makes no reference to terms such as repentance or turning or conversion in relation to his own experience, although he uses the verbs ‘to turn’ and ‘to believe’ with respect to the reception of the Gospel by others (2 Cor 3:15-16, 1 Thess 1:9-10) and the verb ‘to be transformed’ in admonition to believers (Rom 12:1-2). In Gal 1:15, that God‘set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace’ suggests the experience might have been less a conversion and more a call to a particular service – his Gentile mission, which compares to the call of Old Testament prophets (Jer 1:5) and the servant of Yahweh (Isa 49:1-6). From the letter to the Romans, Paul’s life is seen as ‘set apart for the Gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures… to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name’ (Rom 1:1-5). These Pauline verses follow a pattern: ‘the call, the response and the mission’[6], just like the calling of Jacob (Gen 46:2-3) and the call of Moses (Ex 3:4, 10).
While there may be intimations in Paul’s letters, then, that his experience was in some ways a ‘call’, the event we celebrate today is the conversion of St Paul. So if we understand his experience in this way, we can ask: from what and to what was Paul converted? Paul’s experience ‘was certainly not that of the religiously destitute. It was not the conversion of someone who had nothing and came upon unexpected riches.’[7] Paul was proud of his belonging to the people of Israel, his being a Hebrew born of Hebrews, his Pharisaim, his zeal for the law and his blamelessness under it (Phil 3:5-6). ‘The incident on the way to Damascus, judged by what Paul himself says about it, was a conversion, a complete turning away from what was genuinely good to its everlasting enemy, the better.’[8] Paul’s experience was not like that of Mary Magdalene, or the bitter tears of a remorseful Peter after denying Jesus, or the repentance of the good thief. What Paul possessed and what he was ‘before was neither bad nor nothing. It was simply ‘loss’ or, as he himself more boldly says, ‘refuse’ [rubbish] (Phil 3:8).’[9] Paul’s conversion was different: its starting point was not the valley of humiliation, ‘but the high plateau of pride in genuine achievement.’[10] In summary, the essence of Paul’s conversion is that ‘all he was, all that he had achieved, all that of which he was justly proud and in which he could rightly boast, he now counted as ‘refuse’ … Whatever happened to Paul radically reversed the scale of his values and made his vision of all things utterly new.’[11] This was his conversion.
Paul’s conversion in the Acts of the Apostles
Does the Acts of the Apostles paint a different or a similar picture of Paul’s conversion experience than do his letters? There are three accounts in Acts 9, 22 and 26. Scholars argue that this is significant in that Luke ‘employs repetitions only when he considers something extraordinary and wishes to impress it memorably on the reader.’[12]
In chapter 9, we have a straightforward narrative in the third person; in chapter 22, an testimony by Paul himself to his fellow Jews; and in chapter 26, a formal defence by Paul before King Agrippa and Festus in Caesarea. There are some important common points in the three accounts:
- Paul persecuted the people of the Way (Acts 9:2; 22:4; 26:10);
- Christ is the one who brought about Paul’s Gentile ministry. It was not a plan of Paul or a task given to him by another. His mission came directly from Christ, just as he commissioned the Eleven in Acts 1:4-8;
- The location of the event: Paul was ‘approaching’(Acts 9:3; 22:6) or ‘travelling to’ (26:12) Damascus.
In the first account (Acts 9:1-9) Paul insists that he actually saw the Risen Christ. This is important because it was Paul, not any of the original apostles, who would carry out Christ’s explicit instruction to bring the Christian message out of the confines of Israel, thus realising its universal nature; and Paul’s insistence that he saw Christ put him on equal footing with the other apostles.
The purpose of the second account (Acts 22:3-11) is to show that Paul’s eyes become blind for a reason. The cause of Paul’s blindness is not just because of the light he saw: the Greek word for the cause of his blindness is sometimes translated as ‘brightness’ but more often as ‘glory.’ The expression that Paul saw the ‘glory of the light’ indicates that, ‘the Christ revealed to Paul on the Road to Damascus was not just the Christ of post-resurrection appearances, but the Christ exalted at the Father’s right hand. The vision of the exalted Christ rendered Paul sightless.’[13] This was what is called ‘theophany,’ the appearance of the glory of the Lord, like those to Abraham, Jacob and Moses. In fact, ‘It is a Lucan characteristic to reserve the appearances of the risen Lord specifically – perhaps even exclusively – to the Twelve (see Lk 24 and Acts 1:3-4).’[14] The description in this second account is also a Lucan way of expressing Paul’s helplessness in the face of divine action: God is irresistible. Prophets attest to this truth; Jeremiah speaks of God’s action upon him as enticement (Jer 20:7). Paul’s Damascus experience turned his life upside down and inside out. The most ferocious enemy of the Church became its most zealous son and missionary.[15]
The third account (Acts 26:12-18) is an attempt to portray Paul as a prophet and to prove that his mission is the extension of the mission of the servant of God in the book of Isaiah. Luke insinuates that the Damascus event is to be considered as Paul’s inaugural prophetic vision. Like Ezekiel, Paul is asked to stand up, for the Lord has appeared to him for the purpose of appointing him as a servant and witness to the Gentiles, just like Ezekiel is asked to stand up and is sent to the people of Israel (Ez 2:1-3; Acts 26: 16-17). Paul is also sent, ‘to open their eyes that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God’, just as in Isaiah: ‘A light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind … I will turn the darkness before them into light’ (Acts 26:18 & Is 42:6-7,16). Luke therefore intends to show that the promises of the Old Testament are fulfilled with the Gentile mission which begins with Paul.
The three accounts give an almost identical account of Paul’s Damascus Road experience, but there are small discrepancies between them, and between these accounts and those in Paul’s own letters. However, ‘As a companion of Paul, Luke must often have been told the story, but the accounts of such an experience are bound to vary in detail when related at different times.’[16] The differences in the accounts can act as proof that the story was not prepared beforehand, and allow us to have a more or less full picture of everything that took place at the conversion.
A conversion par excellence
So what did Paul’s conversion involve? First, ‘Paul had to transcend his narrow constructs, his pre-conditionings and stubborn beliefs by changing his conviction about the ethnic superiority of the Jewish people, with whom alone God made a covenant.’[17] For Paul to accept that God offers his gift of salvation to all peoples, regardless of race, it was necessary to go beyond his thinking that the Jews were ethnically superior to all nations. The Greek word metanoia (translated as ‘going beyond the mind’) seems to capture the essence of Paul’s conversion experience.
Second,Paul had to change his idea of the Jewish Messiah. His mental picture of the Messiah was that of a mighty leader who would triumph against Israel’s enemies and restore the nation to prosperity and bliss. A crucified Messiah was absurd and inconceivable. Paul had believed that Jesus was an impostor with false claims to be a Messiah, but the vision on the Damascus Road overturned his notions and expectations about the Messiah.[18] He had to overcome his misconceptions about Jesus of Nazareth and accept him as truly God’s instrument of salvation, not only for Israel but for the rest of the world. This was conversion in its most real sense.
We have looked at how Paul’s experience on the Damascus Road is described in his own letters and in the Acts of the Apostles, in terms of who Paul was before his conversion and the change that was affected in him. Paul’s experience teaches us that to be Christ’s messenger, we need a profound encounter with the Risen Lord. This encounter transforms and makes us accept that we can look foolish in the eyes of the world and wise in the sight of God. Paul’s conversion experience had as its starting point the revelation received from the one he persecuted, a call to us to continually discover who the Risen Lord is for us, as Jesus himself put it in his ever relevant question to his disciples: ‘But who do you say that I am?’ (Mk 8:29)
[1] Stanley B. Marrow, Paul, His Letters and His Theology: An Introduction to Paul’s Epistles (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), 30.
[2] Ben F. Meyer, The Early Christians: Their World Mission and Self-Discovery (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1986), 162.
[3] A.F. Segal, Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 22.
[4] Richard N. Longenecker, ed., The Road from Damascus: The Impact of Paul’s Conversion on his life, Thought and Ministry (Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 26.
[5] Gerhard Lohfink, The Conversion of Saint Paul: Narrative and History in Acts (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1976), 22.
[6] Marrow, Paul, his Letters and his Theology, 22.
[7] Ibid., 31.
[8] Ibid., 32.
[9] Ibid., 32.
[10] Ibid., 33.
[11] Ibid., 35-36.
[12] Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, trans. R. McL. Wilson (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971), 327.
[13] David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shift in Theology of Mission (New York: Orbis Books, 1998), 125.
[14] Marrow, Paul, his Letters and his Theology, 27.
[15] Bernardita Dianzon, Glimpses of Paul and His Message (Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa, 2010), 19.
[16] Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, 35.
[17] Dianzon, Glimpses of Paul and His Message, 22.
[18] Ibid., 22.
Weekday Masses 14th - 17th May, 2019
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe
Thursday: 10.30am Karingal Nursing Home
Friday: 11:00am Mt St Vincent Nursing Home
Friday: 11:00am Mt St Vincent Nursing Home
Next Weekend 18th & 19th May, 2019
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin
6:00pm Devonport (LWwC)
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell
9:00am Ulverstone (LWwC)
10:30am Devonport
11:00am Sheffield (LWwC)
5:00pm Latrobe
Devonport:
Readers: Vigil: M Kelly, R Baker, B Paul
10:30am A Hughes, E Barrientos, P Piccolo
Ministers of Communion: Vigil T Muir, M Davies, D Peters, J Heatley
10.30am: B & N Mulcahy, K Hull
Cleaners 17th May: P & T Douglas 24th May: F Sly, M Hansen, I Hunter
Piety Shop 18th May: A Berryman 19th May: D French
Ulverstone:
Reader/s: B O’Rourke Ministers of Communion: B Deacon, K Reilly, E Stubbs
Cleaners: M Swain, M Bryan Flowers: M Swain Hospitality: M & K McKenzie
Penguin:
Greeters J Garnsey Commentator: J Barker Readers: Y Downes, K Fraser
Ministers of Communion: M Hiscutt, M Murray Liturgy: Sulphur Creek J
Setting Up: S Ewing Care of Church: M Murray, E Nickols
Latrobe:
Reader: M Eden Minister of Communion: I Campbell Procession of Gifts: M Clarke
Port Sorell:
Readers: L Post, T Jefferies Ministers of Communion: P Anderson Cleaners: A Hynes
Readings This Week: Fourth Sunday of Easter – Year C
First Reading: Acts 13:14 – 43-52
Second Reading: Apocalypse 7:9 – 14-17
Gospel: John 10:27-30
PREGO REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL:
I begin this time of prayer conscious that I
desire to come before the Lord with deep trust. Like the sheep of the text, I
wish to follow the Lord, to be with him, to stay close beside him. I read the
Gospel slowly, stopping often and pausing to allow the words to sink deep
within me. I take my time. I may like to ponder the ’one-ness’ of Father and
Son … what is it like to be called to have a share in this unity? I am not
excluded, not forgotten, nor lost or stolen away. I am known by the Lord. I
belong to him. How does this make me feel? As I ponder being known in this way,
being protected by him, I might notice a desire in me to respond to the Lord in
some way. How do I listen to him in my daily life? In what ways do I already
follow him? How would I like to respond more deeply? Perhaps I imagine myself
and the Lord, together, safely in the sheepfold. We are resting in the warmth
of the sunshine. What do I want to say to him now? Perhaps I have a sense of
him wanting to say something to me. Or we simply spend some moments enjoying
each other’s company. When ready, I end slowly: Our Father …
Readings Next Week: Fifth Sunday of Easter – Year C
First Reading: Acts 14:21-27
Second Reading: Apocalypse 21: 1-5
Gospel: John 13:31-35
Your prayers are asked for the sick:
Christina Okpon, Robert Luxton, Adrian Drane, Fred Heazlewood, Jason Carr, Thomas & Frances McGeown, Charlotte Milic, John Kelly, David Cole, Rose Stanley & …
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Margaret Nolan, Jean Vanier, Heather Mahoney, Cheryl Hicks, Myra Goss, Bernard Wendt, Ian Wright.
Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 9th – 15th May
Epie Howlett, Lauris Pullen, Don Burrows, Felicia Periera, Kanina Locket, Joan Bonner, Elaine Milic, John Nickols, Anthony Smith, Ernest Wilkins, Norah Lillas, Emily Reynolds, Mary Coad, Ethel Dooley, Audrey Enniss, Marian Hamon, Tas Glover & Madeleine Castles.
May they Rest in Peace
Weekly
Ramblings
This
weekend as we celebrate Mother’s Day I am sure that you would agree with me
that there are no words that can ever express all that we ‘owe’ to our parents
and especially Mothers for the care and love they bestow on us. For those
Mothers who are with us this weekend we express our love and appreciation for
gifts to us and for all those who have gone before us we pray that they
experience the unbounded love of God as they share in the rewards of eternal
joy.
Last
weekend I included a list of the Lay Liturgical Leaders who are currently
serving our Parish and made two incredible blunders: I completely omitted Ester
Petts and gave Yvonne Downes the wrong surname – my deepest apologies to both
ladies. The correct list is here: Yvonne Downes, Mandy Eden, Jenny Garnsey,
Clare Kiely-Hoye, Anne Landers, Elizabeth Nickols, Maureen O’Halloran and Ester
Petts.
I received
a text from Fr Paschal earlier this week saying that his mother is having
regular dialysis and this is helping her condition but will require constant
care. Please keep her in your prayers as Fr Paschal prepares to return to
Tasmania by next weekend. Because of the challenges of long distance
international flights there will need to be Liturgy of the Word with Communion
Services at Penguin, Ulverstone and Sheffield on 18th/19th as Fr Phil has a
prior engagement.
We pray for all mothers, who give life and tend to our every need;
May they be blessed with patience and tenderness to care for their families and themselves with great joy.
We remember mothers who are separated from their children for whatever reason. May they feel the loving embrace of our God who wipes every tear away.
We pray for women who are not mothers but still love and shape us with motherly care and compassion.
We remember mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers who are no longer with us but who live forever in our memory and nourish us with their love.
Amen.
LEGION OF MARY: All Parishioners are invited to the Legion of Mary annual Acies (Consecration to Our Lady) at Sacred Heart Church, Alexandra Road Ulverstone Sunday 19th May at 2pm with benediction, followed by afternoon tea in the Community Room.
MACKILLOP HILL - Spirituality in the Coffee Shoppe.
Monday 27th May 2019 10.30 – 12 noon
Come along and enjoy a lively discussion over morning tea! All welcome! We look forward to your company at 123 William Street, FORTH. Phone: 6428 3095 No bookings necessary. Donation appreciated.
Round 7 (Friday 3rd May) Collingwood won by 39 points. Congratulations to the following winners; John Charlesworth, Margaret Wood & Terry Bird.
BINGO THURSDAY 16th May – Eyes down 7:30pm.
Callers Tony Ryan & Graeme Rigney
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
WALK WITH CHRIST – Hobart City, Sunday 23rd June 1:15pm to 3:00 pm.
Celebrate the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ by walking with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament through the city of Hobart.
Be at St Joseph's Church (Harrington St) by 1.15 pm, and walk with us to St Mary's Cathedral for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction concluding at 3:00pm. There will be a 'cuppa' afterwards. If you can't do the walk come to the Cathedral at 2:00pm for prayer and Adoration.
Experience our rich Catholic heritage in solidarity with Catholics all over the world and through the ages, by bearing public witness to our Lord and Saviour.
Can't join us in person? Prayer intentions written in the 'Book of Life' in your parish will be taken in the procession and presented at the Cathedral.
The Kingdom of Heaven
This article is taken from the Daily Emails from Fr Richard Rohr OFM and the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the emails here
Guest writer and CAC faculty member Cynthia Bourgeault continues exploring Jesus as a wisdom teacher.
Throughout the Gospel accounts, Jesus uses one particular phrase repeatedly: “the Kingdom of Heaven.” The words stand out everywhere. “The Kingdom of Heaven is like this,” “The Kingdom of Heaven is like that,” “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you,” “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Whatever this Kingdom of Heaven is, it’s of foundational importance to what Jesus is trying to teach.
So, what is the Kingdom of Heaven? Biblical scholars have debated this question for almost as long as there have been biblical scholars. Many Christians, particularly those of a more evangelical persuasion, assume that the Kingdom of Heaven means the place you go when you die—if you’ve been “saved.” But the problem with this interpretation is that Jesus himself specifically contradicts it when he says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you” (that is, here) and “at hand” (that is, now). It’s not later, but lighter—some more subtle quality or dimension of experience accessible to you right in the moment. You don’t die into it; you awaken into it.
Others have equated the Kingdom of Heaven with an earthly utopia. The Kingdom of Heaven would be a realm of peace and justice, where human beings lived together in harmony and fair distribution of economic assets. For thousands of years, prophets and visionaries have labored to bring into being their respective versions of this kind of Kingdom of Heaven, but somehow these earthly utopias never seem to stay put for very long. Jesus specifically rejected this meaning. When his followers wanted to proclaim him the Messiah, the divinely anointed king of Israel who would inaugurate the reign of God’s justice upon the earth, Jesus shrank from all that and said, strongly and unequivocally, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).
Where is it, then? Author Jim Marion’s wonderfully insightful and contemporary suggestion is that the Kingdom of Heaven is really a metaphor for a state of consciousness; it is not a place you go to, but a place you come from. [1] It is a whole new way of looking at the world, a transformed awareness that literally turns this world into a different place.
Marion suggests specifically that the Kingdom of Heaven is Jesus’ way of describing a state we would nowadays call “nondual consciousness” or “unitive consciousness.” The hallmark of this awareness is that it sees no separation—not between God and humans, not between humans and other humans. These are indeed Jesus’ two core teachings, underlying everything he says and does.
[1] See Jim Marion, Putting on the Mind of Christ: The Inner Work of Christian Spirituality (Hampton Roads Publishing Company: 2000; 2nd ed., 2011).
Adapted from Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind—A New Perspective on Christ and His Message (Shambhala: 2008), 29-31.
Who Goes to Hell and who Doesn't
This article is taken from the Archives of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find the original article and many other by clicking here
Hell is never a nasty surprise waiting for a basically happy person. Nor is it necessarily a predicable ending for an unhappy, bitter person. Can a happy, warm-hearted person go to hell? Can an unhappy, bitter person go to heaven? That’s all contingent upon how we understand hell and how we read the human heart.
A person who is struggling honestly to be happy cannot go to hell since hell is the antithesis of an honest struggle to be happy. Hell, in Pope Francis’ words, “is wanting to be distant from God’s love.” Anyone who sincerely wants love and happiness will never be condemned to an eternity of alienation, emptiness, bitterness, anger, and hatred (which are what constitute the fires of hell) because hell is wanting not to be in heaven. Thus there’s no one in hell who’s sincerely longing for another chance to mend things so as to go to heaven. If there’s anyone in hell, it’s because that person truly wants to be distant from love.
But can someone really want to be distant from God’s love and from human love? The answer is complex because we’re complex: What does it mean to want something? Can we want something and not want it all at the same time? Yes, because there are different levels to the human psyche and consequently the same desire can be in conflict with itself.
We can want something and not want it all at the same time. That’s a common experience. For instance, take a young child who has just been disciplined by his mother. At that moment, the child can bitterly hate his mother, even as at another, more inchoate, level what he most desperately wants is in fact his mother’s embrace. But until his sulk ends he wants to be distant from his mother, even as his deepest want is to be with his mother. We know the feeling.
Hatred, as we know, is not opposite of love but simply one modality of love’s grieving and so this type of dynamic perennially plays itself out in the befuddling, complex, paradoxical relationship that millions of us have with God, the church, with each other, and with love itself. Our wounds are mostly not our own fault but the result of an abuse, a violation, a betrayal, or some traumatic negligence within the circle of love. However this doesn’t preclude them doing funny things to us. When we’re wounded in love, then, like a reprimanded, sulking child who wants distance from his mother, we too can for a time, perhaps for a lifetime, not want heaven because we feel that we’ve been unfairly treated by it. It’s natural for many people to want to be distant from God. The child bullied on the playground who identifies his or her bullies with the inner circle of “the accepted ones” will understandably want to be distant from that circle – or perhaps even do violence to it.
However that’s at one level of soul. At a deeper level, our ultimate longing is still to be inside of that circle of love which we at that moment seemingly hate, hate because we feel that we’ve been unfairly excluded from it or violated by it and hence deem it to be something we want no part of. Thus someone can be very sincere of soul and yet because of deep wounds to her soul go through life and die wanting to be distant what she perceives as God, love, and heaven. But we may not make a simplistic judgment here.
We need to distinguish between what at a given moment we explicitly want and what, at that same moment, we implicitly (really) want. They’re often not the same. The reprimanded child seemingly wants distance from his mother, even as at another level he desperately wants it.
Many people want distance from God and the churches, even as at another level they don’t. But God reads the heart, recognizes the untruth hiding inside a sulk or a pout, and judges accordingly. That’s why we shouldn’t be so quick to fill up hell with everyone who appears to want distance from love, faith, church, and God. God’s love can encompass, empathize with, melt down, and heal that hatred. Our love should too.
Christian hope asks us to believe things that go against our natural instincts and emotions and one of these is that God’s love is so powerful that, just as it did at Jesus’ death, it can descend into hell itself and there breathe love and forgiveness into both the most wounded and most hardened of souls. Hope asks us to believe that the final triumph of God’s love will be when the Lucifer himself converts, returns to heaven, and hell is finally empty.
Fanciful? No. That’s Christian hope; it’s what many of our great saints believed.
Yes, there’s a hell and, given human freedom, it’s always a radical possibility for everyone; but, given God’s love, perhaps sometime it will be completely empty.
The Conversion of St Paul
On Friday (10th May) we heard the account of the Conversion of Saint Paul, the event in which the ‘most ferocious enemy of the Church became its most zealous son and missionary’. How is Paul’s conversion described in the New Testament, in his own words and in the accounts in the Acts of the Apostles? Marcel Uwineza SJ looks closely at how Paul and Luke portray the change affected in Paul on the Damascus Road. Marcel Uwineza SJ is a Jesuit scholastic studying at the Jesuit School of Theology, Hekima College, Nairobi. You can find this article and many others on the ThinkingFaith.org website by clicking here
On 25 January each year, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul. The accounts of the experience according to Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, and the details offered by Paul himself in his epistles, are varying and give us much information about the ‘conversion’ we celebrate, as well as raising many questions about the event and what it meant for Paul. In this article I will look at what we can learn from each account of Paul’s conversion.
Paul in his own words
‘To understand the importance of the Damascus experience as conversion, in the proper sense of the word, it is necessary to briefly look at what Paul was before it and what he became after it.’[1] What was it that Saul objected to about Jesus and his followers? What were the circumstances that led Saul to persecute the Church?
Paul was ‘circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the Church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless’ (Phil 3:5-6). It was the scandal of the cross that compelled Paul to act against Jesus’s followers: he could not imagine that an acclaimed Jewish Messiah should have been put to death by crucifixion on a Roman cross (1 Cor 1:23; Gal 5:11). ‘Nowhere in the orthodox of the Torah was there room for a crucified Christ.’[2] Paul’s persecution of Christians was entailed by his Jewish understanding of the Messiah: he was waiting for the Anointed One – the Messiah – and he could not tolerate the fragmented loyalties that were taking place within the nation with the rise of a new sect that looked to Jesus as the awaited Messiah.[3] Paul had a firm commitment to the Jewish religion and his wholehearted acceptance of the Pharisaic interpretation of that religion.
Paul’s own letters can help us understand what he became after his conversion experience. One thing is clear: ‘Paul tells us little about himself. He is not self-preoccupied, self-reflective, introspective, or narcissistic.’[4] He refers to his experience only in contexts where he is addressing other issues: in defending the Gospel he proclaimed to his Gentile converts in Gal 1:13-17; in countering certain ‘supra-spiritual’ believers who were attempting to denigrate him in 1 Cor 9:1 and 15:8-10; and in rebutting certain Jewish Christians who were trying to ‘judaize’ his converts in Phil 3:4-11. But in these indirect references, does Paul set out the essential feature of his conversion?
In 1 Cor 9:1, Paul says that he has ‘seen Jesus our Lord.’ In 1 Cor 15:5-7, he puts what he saw on a par with all of Jesus’s post-resurrection appearances, whether to Peter and ‘the Twelve’, or to five hundred believers, to James, or to all the apostles. Yet what Paul experienced was of the nature of revelation (Gal 1:11-12, 16a): Christ was the agent of that revelation (Gal 1:12); the content of that revelation was God’s Son; and the ultimate purpose of his revelation was ‘so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles’ (Gal 1:16). Christ’s appearance had a revolutionary effect on his life. He came to consider ‘everything as loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord’ and to focus only on ‘knowing Christ’ with all that such a consuming passion involved (Phil 3:7-11).
Paul never refers to his own experience as a ‘conversion’. In fact, in his letters, there is no clear mention of a trip to Damascus and no narrative detailing what took place, as there is in Acts, as we shall see. There is ‘no light, no voice, no companions, no Ananias to interpret the significance of it all.’[5] However, the descriptions in Galatians (1:13-17) and Philippians (3:4-7) suggest that what Paul experienced was a change of commitment, values and identity that was sudden and unexpected. Is this what we mean by ‘conversion’?
Paul makes no reference to terms such as repentance or turning or conversion in relation to his own experience, although he uses the verbs ‘to turn’ and ‘to believe’ with respect to the reception of the Gospel by others (2 Cor 3:15-16, 1 Thess 1:9-10) and the verb ‘to be transformed’ in admonition to believers (Rom 12:1-2). In Gal 1:15, that God‘set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace’ suggests the experience might have been less a conversion and more a call to a particular service – his Gentile mission, which compares to the call of Old Testament prophets (Jer 1:5) and the servant of Yahweh (Isa 49:1-6). From the letter to the Romans, Paul’s life is seen as ‘set apart for the Gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures… to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name’ (Rom 1:1-5). These Pauline verses follow a pattern: ‘the call, the response and the mission’[6], just like the calling of Jacob (Gen 46:2-3) and the call of Moses (Ex 3:4, 10).
While there may be intimations in Paul’s letters, then, that his experience was in some ways a ‘call’, the event we celebrate today is the conversion of St Paul. So if we understand his experience in this way, we can ask: from what and to what was Paul converted? Paul’s experience ‘was certainly not that of the religiously destitute. It was not the conversion of someone who had nothing and came upon unexpected riches.’[7] Paul was proud of his belonging to the people of Israel, his being a Hebrew born of Hebrews, his Pharisaim, his zeal for the law and his blamelessness under it (Phil 3:5-6). ‘The incident on the way to Damascus, judged by what Paul himself says about it, was a conversion, a complete turning away from what was genuinely good to its everlasting enemy, the better.’[8] Paul’s experience was not like that of Mary Magdalene, or the bitter tears of a remorseful Peter after denying Jesus, or the repentance of the good thief. What Paul possessed and what he was ‘before was neither bad nor nothing. It was simply ‘loss’ or, as he himself more boldly says, ‘refuse’ [rubbish] (Phil 3:8).’[9] Paul’s conversion was different: its starting point was not the valley of humiliation, ‘but the high plateau of pride in genuine achievement.’[10] In summary, the essence of Paul’s conversion is that ‘all he was, all that he had achieved, all that of which he was justly proud and in which he could rightly boast, he now counted as ‘refuse’ … Whatever happened to Paul radically reversed the scale of his values and made his vision of all things utterly new.’[11] This was his conversion.
Paul’s conversion in the Acts of the Apostles
Does the Acts of the Apostles paint a different or a similar picture of Paul’s conversion experience than do his letters? There are three accounts in Acts 9, 22 and 26. Scholars argue that this is significant in that Luke ‘employs repetitions only when he considers something extraordinary and wishes to impress it memorably on the reader.’[12]
In chapter 9, we have a straightforward narrative in the third person; in chapter 22, an testimony by Paul himself to his fellow Jews; and in chapter 26, a formal defence by Paul before King Agrippa and Festus in Caesarea. There are some important common points in the three accounts:
- Paul persecuted the people of the Way (Acts 9:2; 22:4; 26:10);
- Christ is the one who brought about Paul’s Gentile ministry. It was not a plan of Paul or a task given to him by another. His mission came directly from Christ, just as he commissioned the Eleven in Acts 1:4-8;
- The location of the event: Paul was ‘approaching’(Acts 9:3; 22:6) or ‘travelling to’ (26:12) Damascus.
In the first account (Acts 9:1-9) Paul insists that he actually saw the Risen Christ. This is important because it was Paul, not any of the original apostles, who would carry out Christ’s explicit instruction to bring the Christian message out of the confines of Israel, thus realising its universal nature; and Paul’s insistence that he saw Christ put him on equal footing with the other apostles.
The purpose of the second account (Acts 22:3-11) is to show that Paul’s eyes become blind for a reason. The cause of Paul’s blindness is not just because of the light he saw: the Greek word for the cause of his blindness is sometimes translated as ‘brightness’ but more often as ‘glory.’ The expression that Paul saw the ‘glory of the light’ indicates that, ‘the Christ revealed to Paul on the Road to Damascus was not just the Christ of post-resurrection appearances, but the Christ exalted at the Father’s right hand. The vision of the exalted Christ rendered Paul sightless.’[13] This was what is called ‘theophany,’ the appearance of the glory of the Lord, like those to Abraham, Jacob and Moses. In fact, ‘It is a Lucan characteristic to reserve the appearances of the risen Lord specifically – perhaps even exclusively – to the Twelve (see Lk 24 and Acts 1:3-4).’[14] The description in this second account is also a Lucan way of expressing Paul’s helplessness in the face of divine action: God is irresistible. Prophets attest to this truth; Jeremiah speaks of God’s action upon him as enticement (Jer 20:7). Paul’s Damascus experience turned his life upside down and inside out. The most ferocious enemy of the Church became its most zealous son and missionary.[15]
The third account (Acts 26:12-18) is an attempt to portray Paul as a prophet and to prove that his mission is the extension of the mission of the servant of God in the book of Isaiah. Luke insinuates that the Damascus event is to be considered as Paul’s inaugural prophetic vision. Like Ezekiel, Paul is asked to stand up, for the Lord has appeared to him for the purpose of appointing him as a servant and witness to the Gentiles, just like Ezekiel is asked to stand up and is sent to the people of Israel (Ez 2:1-3; Acts 26: 16-17). Paul is also sent, ‘to open their eyes that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God’, just as in Isaiah: ‘A light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind … I will turn the darkness before them into light’ (Acts 26:18 & Is 42:6-7,16). Luke therefore intends to show that the promises of the Old Testament are fulfilled with the Gentile mission which begins with Paul.
The three accounts give an almost identical account of Paul’s Damascus Road experience, but there are small discrepancies between them, and between these accounts and those in Paul’s own letters. However, ‘As a companion of Paul, Luke must often have been told the story, but the accounts of such an experience are bound to vary in detail when related at different times.’[16] The differences in the accounts can act as proof that the story was not prepared beforehand, and allow us to have a more or less full picture of everything that took place at the conversion.
A conversion par excellence
So what did Paul’s conversion involve? First, ‘Paul had to transcend his narrow constructs, his pre-conditionings and stubborn beliefs by changing his conviction about the ethnic superiority of the Jewish people, with whom alone God made a covenant.’[17] For Paul to accept that God offers his gift of salvation to all peoples, regardless of race, it was necessary to go beyond his thinking that the Jews were ethnically superior to all nations. The Greek word metanoia (translated as ‘going beyond the mind’) seems to capture the essence of Paul’s conversion experience.
Second,Paul had to change his idea of the Jewish Messiah. His mental picture of the Messiah was that of a mighty leader who would triumph against Israel’s enemies and restore the nation to prosperity and bliss. A crucified Messiah was absurd and inconceivable. Paul had believed that Jesus was an impostor with false claims to be a Messiah, but the vision on the Damascus Road overturned his notions and expectations about the Messiah.[18] He had to overcome his misconceptions about Jesus of Nazareth and accept him as truly God’s instrument of salvation, not only for Israel but for the rest of the world. This was conversion in its most real sense.
We have looked at how Paul’s experience on the Damascus Road is described in his own letters and in the Acts of the Apostles, in terms of who Paul was before his conversion and the change that was affected in him. Paul’s experience teaches us that to be Christ’s messenger, we need a profound encounter with the Risen Lord. This encounter transforms and makes us accept that we can look foolish in the eyes of the world and wise in the sight of God. Paul’s conversion experience had as its starting point the revelation received from the one he persecuted, a call to us to continually discover who the Risen Lord is for us, as Jesus himself put it in his ever relevant question to his disciples: ‘But who do you say that I am?’ (Mk 8:29)
[1] Stanley B. Marrow, Paul, His Letters and His Theology: An Introduction to Paul’s Epistles (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), 30.
[2] Ben F. Meyer, The Early Christians: Their World Mission and Self-Discovery (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1986), 162.
[3] A.F. Segal, Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 22.
[4] Richard N. Longenecker, ed., The Road from Damascus: The Impact of Paul’s Conversion on his life, Thought and Ministry (Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 26.
[5] Gerhard Lohfink, The Conversion of Saint Paul: Narrative and History in Acts (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1976), 22.
[6] Marrow, Paul, his Letters and his Theology, 22.
[7] Ibid., 31.
[8] Ibid., 32.
[9] Ibid., 32.
[10] Ibid., 33.
[11] Ibid., 35-36.
[12] Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, trans. R. McL. Wilson (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971), 327.
[13] David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shift in Theology of Mission (New York: Orbis Books, 1998), 125.
[14] Marrow, Paul, his Letters and his Theology, 27.
[15] Bernardita Dianzon, Glimpses of Paul and His Message (Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa, 2010), 19.
[16] Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, 35.
[17] Dianzon, Glimpses of Paul and His Message, 22.
[18] Ibid., 22.
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