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Announcing the special commemorative year from the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome on June 28, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI said: “As in early times, today, too, Christ needs apostles ready to sacrifice themselves. He needs witnesses and martyrs like St. Paul.
“Paul, a former violent persecutor of Christians, when he fell to the ground dazzled by the divine light on the road to Damascus, did not hesitate to change sides to the Crucified One and followed him without second thoughts. He lived and worked for Christ, for him he suffered and died. How timely is his example today!” the pontiff said. “And for this reason I am pleased to announce officially that we shall be dedicating a special jubilee year to the Apostle Paul from 28
June 2008 to 29 June 2009, on the occasion of the bimillenium of his birth, which historians have placed between the year 7 and 10 A.D.
“It will be possible to celebrate this ‘Pauline Year’ in a privileged way in Rome where the sarcophagus which, by unanimous opinion of experts and an undisputed tradition, preserves the remains of the Apostle Paul, has been preserved beneath the papal altar of this basilica for 20 centuries.”
This special jubilee year, therefore, offers a great opportunity to prayerfully study the life and teaching of the apostle, missionary, mystic and martyr Paul, and thereby renew and spread our Catholic faith.
Among the many possible ways of celebrating this time we can reflect on how we are called to surrender ever more sincerely to the Lord in an ongoing conversion. Saul, an accomplice in the murder of the first Christian martyr Stephen (Acts 8:1), was to spend some time in blindness and solitude after encountering the Risen Lord before he emerged as a new spiritual leader of the infant Church and the apostle of all the nations (Acts 9).
The jubilee is also an occasion to engage daily in reading, praying, studying and living the inspired and inerrant word of God. We should be particularly eager to rediscover and deepen in us the thought and spirituality of Paul through his own writings, his 13 letters and the epistle to the Hebrews. As we make them ever more our own we will grow in our love for Christ and he will live in us: “It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me!” (Gal 2:20).
Worth imitating is Paul’s life in and for the cross of Christ to the point of boasting in it and preaching it everywhere by word and example (Gal 6:14). He is the one who speaks with fervor about the Church as the body of the Lord (Col 1:18), sustained and sanctified by the sacrament of the Eucharist, and we are encouraged to approach it with reverence: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup” (1 Cor 11:26-28).
Paul’s surpassing love for Christ and his Church is matched by his continual spirit of mortification and penance: “So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified” (1 Cor 9:26f).
Since the apostle himself invites us to imitate him (Phil 3:17), let us reflect on his powerful faith (2 Cor 12:2; Heb 11:1), his indomitable hope and confidence in God (Rom 8:31), his humility (Eph 3:8), his resignation to the will of God (Rom 12:2), his apostolic patience (2 Cor 6:4-10), his magnanimity in tirelessly preaching the Gospel (Rom 11:13; 1 Cor 9:22), his evangelical poverty (Phil 4:12f), and his temperance (1 Cor 8:13). Imitable are also his prudence (Acts 23:6), his zeal (2 Cor 6:11), his compassion (2 Cor 2:4; Gal 4:19), and love of enemies (Rom 9:1-3).
May then this coming Pauline jubilee inflame our hearts and minds to be ever more holy, zealous, and effective evangelizers in the cause of Christ and his work of salvation. May our lives be enriched by God’s chosen vessel (Acts 9:15). Our Lord granted a great grace to the Church when he gave to her and to the world the Apostle Paul. He is a miracle of doctrine, a prodigy of zeal, and a hero in every virtue.
Father Andreas Hock, S.S.D., is chair of sacred Scripture at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver.
Printed with permission from the Denver Catholic Register
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