9781644135945

The Time After Pentecost
hath not been void” (Epistle). Encountering Christ while hurrying to Damascus to destroy
the Church of Christ, Saul received through the mercy and power of the Lord the new interior
ear; he understood Jesus. From then on “he spoke right”; he preached Jesus crucified, “unto
the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:23 f.).
“By the grace of God I am what I am” (Epistle). Paul is truly a miracle of the grace of God. Who
thought less of becoming a Christian than Saul on his way to Damascus? Who was, humanly
speaking, less prepared for the reception of such a grace than this persecutor of the Christians?
His heart was burning with hatred for the Galilean. And yet, just at that moment when Saul
least expects it, the mercy of the Lord descends upon him. Touched by grace, he fell on the
ground, and from that moment on he was deaf and dumb to his former thoughts and ideas, to
his entire former way of living. Having broken with his past entirely, after three days of peace
and recollection Saul becomes Paul. He is baptized in Damascus, and his soul having been
opened to the light and the truth of Christ, he eagerly listens to the inspirations of grace. Then
the Lord looses his tongue, and he preaches Christ crucified and the mercy of God towards
him: “By the grace of God I am what I am.” Now he delivers himself up entirely to the working
of grace within his soul, and grace instructs him. He labors more abundantly than all the other
apostles and disciples. “His grace in me hath not been void.”
We are astonished at this miracle of grace, this miracle of the power of the Lord, who makes
the deaf hear and the dumb speak. Together with St. Paul, the apostle of grace, we confess: “In
God hath my heart confided, and I have been helped; and my flesh hath flourished again; and
with my will I will give praise to Him” (Gradual). The Lord gives His graces in abundance.
“God, . . . Thou art wont to give beyond the deserts and desires of those who humbly pray”
(Collect). Saul did not pray to the Lord; and yet the Lord gave him an abundance of His powerful
love and grace.
“His grace in me hath not been void; but I have labored more abundantly than all they;
yet not I, but the grace of God with me” (1 Cor 15:10). No sooner has he been baptized
than he goes to the synagogues of Damascus, preaching Christ, whom shortly before he had
persecuted. He is not afraid to confess Christ, even when facing those who knew that he
had come to Damascus for the express purpose of seizing Christians so that he might bring
them bound to Jerusalem. Paul did not stop to consider what they might think of him. Grace
works in him, urging him to make good use of all his powers to preach Christ. It urges him
to undertake three laborious missionary voyages to Greece and Asia Minor, to suffer hunger
and thirst, cold and nakedness, scourging and imprisonment for the sake of Christ. Thrice he
suffered shipwreck, being a night and a day in the depth of the sea, in danger lest he perish in
the waters. Persecution followed him everywhere, from the Jews and the Gentiles, in the cities
and in the sea (2 Cor 11:23 ff.). But God’s grace urges him to take loving care of the churches
and communities which he founded. He instructs, exhorts, and consoles them in his epistles;
he is jealous of them “with the jealousy of God, for I have espoused you to one husband that
he may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Cor 11:2). “Who is weak, and I am not
weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire?” (2 Cor 11:29.) Paul indeed has labored more
for the Lord than all the others. “Yet,” he corrects himself, “not I, but the grace of God with
me.” Depending entirely on God’s grace which works all things, Paul considers himself only
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