CONVERSION:

CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL

INTRODUCTION

Today the Church celebrates the feast of the conversion of St. Paul. This is quite interesting. Most of the time, when we celebrate a Saint’s Day, we celebrate his or her whole life, but today we just celebrate a moment: the conversion of St. Paul.

OUR CONVERSION MOMENTS

For a thought for today, I ask you to look at your life. When were the moments of change? When were the conversion moments? 

Hopefully, all of us can pick out some significant moments when we changed.

ONE OF MY CONVERSION MOMENTS

I remember talking with a friend of mine once -- talking one to one. He was a bit overweight and he said to me, “Did you ever notice how many people who are overweight are always giving tips to other people who are overweight, on how to lose weight?”

I said, “No!”

He continued, “Did you ever notice how many people who are not overweight are always needling overweight people about being overweight?”

I said, “No!”

He wasn’t trying to correct me. I was thinner at the time. He was just sounding off. 

Well, after that I became more conscious and more aware of what he was saying.

We were all living in a big community, and sure enough, he was right. I began to notice people who needled him, grabbed his love handles, and often gave him suggestions on how to lose weight.

I reflected even more. I realized how much the weight comments hurt him, that he was quite sensitive about his weight. Well, from that day to that day I never again kidded this guy about his weight. I was converted. I have also been working on not kidding  other people.

That conversation by him was a conversion moment for me.

What are your conversion moments?

THE NAGGING HUSBAND

I remember a father telling me once that it took a good 25 fights with his wife for him to finally see that he was constantly on the case of his oldest son, but his youngest son was getting away with murder. 

He was the oldest son in his family. While growing up he was constantly being nagged by his father and hated it. 

He didn’t see he was doing the same thing to his son.  He didn’t realize history was repeating itself. 

Finally, he saw the light. Finally, he saw what his wife was trying to tell him all the time.

He was able to laugh at himself, when he finally saw the light.

CONVERSION – MAJOR ISSUE

Today, then, we are celebrating a moment or an event in the life of Paul. It’s a major moment, a major event, a major experience, in the life of a great person.

Conversion is a major issue in life. 

Conversion is the major issue of the upcoming second session of Renew. 

Conversion time is significant changes in our lives time.

Conversion means we make major shifts, major changes within us. So today’s feast day is a significant feast day.

CONVERSION OF PAUL

T. F. Manson said that Paul was a missionary and preacher and prophet like Ezechiel, Isaiah or Jeremiah. He was less like a philosopher, like Aristotle or Plato. 

Paul was a preacher. Today is a preacher’s feast. Redemptorists preach conversion, so this is a significant feast for us to study.

In many paintings of this moment, Paul is pictured as falling off a horse. We don’t even know if he was on a horse. The scriptures just tell us he fell to the ground.

In conversion conversations, as in AA, we get the phrase, “to hit bottom”. Paul hit bottom – the bottom of himself. Paul hit the ground, the ground from which the God of Genesis scraped us together. Paul hit the dirt – towards which we’re all going to eventually crumble into.

MAJOR ELEMENT OF CONVERSION

The key ingredient in any conversion is the death of self. The major element is the emptying of self – the thing that God did when we became human – described so dramatically in the great hymn of God’s self emptying in Philippians 2:5b-11.

Conversion for starters means self-emptying – death to self.

Isn’t one of the best scenes where we see this meaning of conversion in the great message of St. John the Baptist? It describes Paul’s conversion perfectly. “I must decrease. He must increase.”

Basically that’s what conversion is all about: the emptying of oneself.

As John McCall put it, the air has to be let out of our tire. We are filled with hot air. We are inflated with self. John McCall says, “In psychological terms, it’s called ‘ego reduction’.”

Swami Sachannawanda said it almost the same way. He said that the “I” must go. As he liked to say it, “E Go. Let it go. Go.”

In Philippians 3: 4-10, Paul gives his credentials. He says: I am a Hebrew. I was circumcised. I grew up a Benjaminite. I was a Pharisee. I was righteous. Notice it was all I’s. I, I, I,

In his conversion, the I went. His eyes went. He became blind. He who thought what he saw was right, became blind.

He really hit bottom and down there in his deepest darkness, he saw the light. He saw that Christ was the light of the world. He began to know Christ.

As he continues in Philippians 3: 7, “But because of Christ, I have come to consider all these advantages that I had as disadvantages. Not only that, but I believe nothing can happen that will outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For him I have accepted the loss of everything, and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him. I am no longer trying for perfection by my own efforts, the perfection that comes from the Law, but I want only the perfection that comes  through faith in Christ, and is from God and is based on faith. All I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to share his sufferings by reproducing the pattern of his death. That is the way I can hope to take my place in the resurrection of the dead.”

That’s a conversion. A person who was dead, has come back to life.

That’s what happened to Paul. That’s what we celebrate today.

CONCLUSION

That is enough, there will be plenty more on another day.