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Sunday
This past Wednesday was “the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle,” commemorating Saul/Paul’s famous epiphany as he was on the road to Damascus. Paul was in the process of persecuting Christ’s followers, pursuing them “even to foreign cities,” when the moment occurred. As he recounts the story, it was midday when he
saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions. When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, `Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.’ I asked, `Who are you, Lord?’ The Lord answered, `I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you. I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles– to whom I am sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’ (Acts 26:12-18)
It’s no surprise that Macolm Guite, who seems to have a sonnet for every Biblical occasion, has one for this one. The poem focuses on all the seeming contradictions that characterized Christianity’s greatest apostle.
St Paul
By Malcom Guite
An enemy whom God has made a friend,
A righteous man discounting righteousness,
Last to believe and first for God to send,
He found the fountain in the wilderness.
Thrown to the ground and raised at the same moment,
A prisoner who set his captors free,
A naked man with love his only garment,
A blinded man who helped the world to see,
A Jew who had been perfect in the Law,
Blesses the flesh of every other race
And helps them see what the apostles saw –
The glory of the Lord in Jesus’ face.
Strong in his weakness, joyful in his pains,
And bound by Love, who freed him from his chains.