Vatican City, Aug 27, 2008 / 10:21 am
During today's general audience in the Vatican's Paul VI Hall, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the life of St. Paul. Recounting that the Church honors the great missionary in a special way this year, the Holy Father said that Catholics should emulate Paul by sparing no energy and enduring trials for the sake of the Gospel.
After making clear the significance of this year as the 2,000th anniversary of St. Paul's birth, Pope Benedict noted Paul's Jewish birth in Tarsus, his Hebrew name "Saul" and his training as a "tent" maker. The Holy Father explained that from around the age of 12, Paul was instructed in Jerusalem in the strict Pharisaic tradition, on the basis of which, the future saint "viewed the Christian movement as a threat to orthodox Judaism".
The great missionary, Pope Benedict noted, persecuted the Church "until a dramatic encounter on the road to Damascus radically changed his life."
The Holy Father recalled Paul's historical fame as a Christian and apostle, not as a Pharisee, and the saint's three missionary journeys, which are told by St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles. The three missionary journeys spurred the so-called Council of the Apostles, which decided that pagan converts to Christianity were not required to observe the Mosiac Law, the spread of the Gospel to Europe via Macedonia, the "birth" of the term "Christian in Antioch, and the writing of Paul's Epistles.