Paul was first a persecutor and after
his conversion leader of Christianity.
The conversion happened on the road to Damascus
Invitation
May I hereby draw your attention to
the daily reading of the Gospel?
This invitation wants to share with You the joy
of the Gospel. Everyone, no one excepted,
can experience that joy by opening their hearts
to the healing power of God’s word.
Available every day
Consideration
Paul travelled a long way: from tireless persecutor of Christians to ardent proclaimer of the risen Lord. On the one hand, it is one of the greatest conversions or even the greatest that we know of, which shaped the evolution of world Christianity. On the other hand, it can hardly be called a conversion. Paul himself felt it as if he was -turning away from a sinful life: persecuting and killing Christians. But this was in any case ignorance, and inspired by a Pharisaic perfectionism that wanted to be faithful to the Law, the Torah of God. Rather,we can see it as a toe-turn. He has turned towards Christ and this with an unconditionality that has no equal. In this kind of conversion Paul precedes every Christian. Turning to Christ daily is the only search that really matters.
Paul’s way is a way we recognise: believing in the Christ also means for us at the crucial moments in our lives trial and error, hesitation and surrender to God’s love. A road on which we get stuck at first glance can be a road on which God meets us. Let us not be afraid to go where He asks us to go.
FIRST READING Acts 22, 3-16
Arise, be baptised and wash away your sins
invoking the name of Jesus.
From the Acts of the Apostles
In those days, Paul said to the people :
‘I am a Jew ,
born at Tarsus in Cilicia,
but brought up here in this city
and brought up at the feet of Gamaliel
according to the strict views of the ancestral Law.
‘I was a zealot for God
as you all are today
and I pursued this path to death,
beaten men and women in chains
and thrown into prison ,
as by the way the high priest and the whole council of elders
can testify of me.
‘With letters from them I went to the brethren in Damascus
in order also to have the people there
handcuffed to Jerusalem and had them punished.
‘But on the way, when I was already close to Damascus
around noon, around noon, a bright light suddenly
suddenly a bright light from heaven.
‘I fell to the ground
And I heard a voice say to me :
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
‘I answered :
Who art thou, Lord?
‘He resumed :
I am Jesus of Nazareth whom thou persecutest.
‘My companions saw the light
but did not hear the voice of Him who spoke to me.
‘I said : What must I do, Lord?
‘And the Lord again unto me : Arise
and continue thy journey to Damascus ;
there they will tell thee all that thou hast to do.
‘But because I could not see
owing to the glare of the light,
I was led by the hand of my companions
and so I arrived in Damascus.
‘A certain Ananias, a law-abiding man
known for his good name and fame
among all Jewish residents,
came to visit me,
stood before me and spoke :
Saul, brother, become sighted again!
‘At the same moment I saw him standing.
‘Then he said :
The God of our fathers has predestined you
To know his will,
to see the Righteous One
and to hear a voice from His mouth,
because you will have to testify before Him to all men
of what thou hast seen and heard.
‘What hesitation then?
‘Arise, be baptised
and wash away thy sins under the invocation of His Name.’
INTERLUDIUM Ps. 117(116)
Go out into all the world
And proclaim the gospel to all creation;
(Mk. 16:15)
Alleluia.
Now praise the Lord, all the nations of the earth,
hail the Lord, all nations around.
Because with us He has shown His goodness ;
the faithfulness of the Lord endures for ever.
ALLELUIA John 15, 16
Alleluia.
I have chosen you
and I have given you the task of going on a journey
and bring forth fruit that may last.
Alleluia.
GOSPEL Mk 16:15-18
Go out into all the world and proclaim the gospel.
From the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Mark
At that time Jesus appeared to the eleven and said :
‘Go out into all the world
and proclaim the gospel to all creation.
‘Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved,
but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
‘And these signs will accompany believers :
in my Name they will cast out devils,
speak new languages,
take up serpents ;
even if they drink deadly poison it will not harm them ;
and if they lay hands on the sick
the sick will be healed.’
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Fratelli tutti
Encyclical of
POPE FRANCISCUS
On brotherhood and social friendship
169. In certain closed and monochrome economist visions, there seems to be
no place, for example, for popular movements that unite unemployed
temporary and unregistered workers, and so many others
who do not fit easily within the already established channels. In fact
they give rise to different forms of popular economy and communal
production emerge. One has to think about social, political
and economic participation ‘such that it encompasses popular movements and
animates local, national and international governance structures with that
flow of moral energy that comes from engaging the excluded
in the construction of the common destiny’; at the same time, it is
well to ensure ‘that these movements, these experiences
of solidarity growing from below, from the underside of the
planet, come together, become more coordinated and meet’.
This, however, without betraying their distinctive style, because they are
‘sowers of change, promoters of a process in which millions of
small and large actions come together, creatively connected, as in
a poem’. In this sense, they are ‘social poets’, who in their own way
work, propose, promote and liberate. With them, an
integral human development that requires ‘transcending that idea of
social policy’ to transcend ’that is conceived as a policy aimed at
the poor, but never with the poor, never of the poor, let alone
inserted into a project that unites the peoples’. Although these movements
irritate, although some ‘thinkers’ do not know how to classify them,
we must have the courage to recognise that without them ‘democracy
atrophies, becomes a nominalism, a formality, loses its representativeness
loses, becomes bloodless, as it leads the people in their daily struggle for
dignity in building its future’.
To be continued
Every day at 1 am
The Bible text in this issue is taken from The New Bible Translation,
©Dutch Bible Society 2004/2007.
Considerations from Liturgical suggestions for weekdays and Sundays
Fratelli tutti Official English translation
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