On the Conversion of St. Paul

    

     Today we celebrate the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. This feast is very meaningful to me, since the account of St. Paul's conversion in Acts was instrumental in bringing about my own conversion at age 14 -- rather, my first "reversion." I thought I'd share a journal entry I wrote on this day in 2005, when I was in the monastery.

     25 January 2005   As I took my meditation stroll in the woods this morning after breakfast, I stopped in the fork of the path and stood there for several minutes, gazing at the misty rays slicing through the pines and pouring their warmth on the night-chilled ground, and I was reminded of God's grace. It is always there, but never quite the same from moment to moment or even second to second. Like the sun, it shifts with the inevitable changes of weather, adapts to the turning of the earth. Sometimes its light is filtered through mist; sometimes it shines refulgent and almost unbearable in its generosity; and still other times it is completely hidden, but never extinguished, by clouds. And when the earth is turned away from the sun, plunged in darkness and obscurity, it is sometimes hard to remember or indeed believe that, somewhere on the other side of the darkness, the sun continues, and will always continue, to burn.
     It is equally fitting that these thoughts of the light of God's grace should come to me on this certain Feast of St. Paul, who was struck down, brought low, and raised up by the full force of God's blazing grace and mercy. So overwhelming was the light, that his eyes had to be closed before he could fully withstand its burning truth. He, like all of us, had to be made blind to everything that had stood between himself and that light, so that he could ask God in true humility, trust, and openness of heart, "Lord, what will you have me do?"
     At Mass this morning, I asked St. Paul to open my eyes that I might see the light of truth and that my faith might be emblazoned on my heart as it was on his.