CONVERSION OF ST PAUL 25th January. Today is the Day
Goodness knows what the Street called Straight in Damascus is like now, but in 1987 it wasn’t all that wonderful. It’s a mile or so in length and uninteresting. A few Arab stalls selling trinkets for the tourists, Roman remains, parked cars and a general atmosphere of decay characterized the place. That was until one came upon a small whitewashed mosque at the end of the road.
On arrival an attractive Arab youth asked us if we wanted to see the chapel where St Paul regained his sight. He took us down some narrow steps into a very simple underground church. There was an altar and a few benches. But on entering we were overwhelmed and went down on our knees. The encounter with Ananias with the blind Paul has imprinted a memory in the tiny chapel. Possibly it requires a certain sensitivity in the beholder to experience such events long past. In the first century the house where Paul received his sight was at ground level. Today it is below ground owing to the debris of the years raising the level.
I thought of that wonderful passage in St Paul’s letter to 2 Corinthians
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. (2 Cor 4:6)
Those luminous words shine throughout the entire letters of St Paul reflecting his life in the the Holy Spirit that began with his conversion on the Road to Damascus.
“As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.”
“Saul, Saul….”The echo of which remains with us to this day.
And then much later
“Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord–Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here–has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
The conversion is described three times in Acts reminding us that it was on the Third Day that Jesus was raised to life. Paul was three days without sight. How wonderful it is that everything ties up in God’s ways with us.
There is a remarkable similarity, a resemblance, between Paul’s conversion and the recorded visions and ecstacies of the Christian Mystics. There is the suddenness of the vision, the burning light unbearable to the eyes, the sound of a voice, the instantaneous change of a person’s nature and the dedication of his or her life to God. Above all there is the knowledge that the purely sensory limitations of the physical body had been outdistanced for a moment, just long enough to permit the visionary to know reality.
Those who have voyaged outside the small world of the senses are, strangely enough, often practical in achievement. One thinks of St Bernard, St Joan of Arc, St Catherine of Siena, St Ignatius Loyola and St Teresa of Avila.
Evelyn Underhill in her book “Mysticism” writes that many saints possess a “triumphing force” over which circumstances have no power.”
All Along the Watchtower 
Is it “strangely enough?” That may be because we think (wrongly) that visionaries must therefore be dreamers. But the visionary saints and the mystics are the true realists, capable of seeing what is wrong with the world of their time with great clarity, and then devising practical ways to change it. Grace builds on nature, we are told; thus God gives visions to those saints whom he knows to have a strong practical bent.
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Absolutely. St Catherine of Siena is one or the prime examples.
Such mystical experiences change people, and St. Catherine was no exception. In her vision, she was told to reenter public life and to help the poor and sick. She immediately rejoined her family and went into public to help people in need.
She often visited hospitals and homes where the poor and sick were found. Her activities quickly attracted followers who helped her in her mission to serve the poor and sick.
St. Catherine was drawn further into the world as she worked, and eventually she began to travel, calling for reform of the Church and for people to confess and to love God totally. She became involved in politics, and was key in working to keep city states loyal to the Pope. She was also credited with helping to start a crusade to the Holy Land. On one occasion, she visited a condemned political prisoner and was credited with saving his soul, which she saw being taken up to heaven at the moment of his death.
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Is this St Catherine the same one they have the skeletal head of that they bandy about? If so, wow, what a barbaric devilish cult.
Where ever good brother Paul regained his sight, im sure it isn’t where these money grabbers purport it is to be. Those who are dead love to hold up holy sites. That’s because they have nothing else.
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Yes. I’ve seen it in the Church of San Domenico in Siena.. Her skull looks down at you in an exquisite chapel. I don’t see how its a devilish cult. Saint’s relics often have extraordinary healing powers.
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VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The head of the Knights of Malta, who has been locked in a bitter dispute with the Vatican, has resigned, a spokesperson for the Rome-based Catholic chivalric and charity institution said on Wednesday.
His crime……his org gave out condoms to stop the spread of disease. If this doesn’t put the last nail in the coffin of that devilish catholic cult of personality, nothing will. Anyone who remains in that cult who is in the western world and sees the news and still remains a member of that satanic rabble deserves the cup of wrath that god is going to serve to the wicked. Ordinarily I would be sad for anyone drinking of that cup. but im glad to see them in torment day and night because they were warned and still chose to bow befor their queen of heaven
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Which bit of being in favour of ‘be fruitful and multiply’ (God’s command to us) is ‘devilish’ Bosco? You see, we simply follow what God tells us rather than the mad-made rule that we should close ourselves off to new life, and, wherever convenient, abort it. On Our Lady, you repeat old lies long since discredited. You know no-one worships Mary. So, you can take your #fakenews to those who have neither eyes to see nor brains to understand.
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