Homily for The Feast of St. Paul the Apostle 2017

FEAST OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE 2017

This weekend we Paulist Fathers celebrate our community feast day, the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle.  Our founder, Servant of God, Fr. Isaac Thomas Hecker named our community after St. Paul, to do in North America what Paul did in the Middle East;  to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ in new forms to all who will listen.  Paul did not want simply for people to “believe” in Jesus Christ, he invited them and us into a new way of life.  Paul invites us into a new LIFE-STYLE where it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us - giving shape and direction to our lives.

What happened to Paul on the road to Damascus some 2,000 years ago?  I am going to dare and say that Paul was not converted, from anything into anything.  Paul, rather, had a deep, personal, piercing INSIGHT, an aw-ha moment, an inner experience of Jesus Christ; and it changed everything about him - forever.  Paul was transformed.  He became, as he says in his letters, a new creation in Christ.  The Holy Spirit that transformed Paul’s life, transformed the early communities he founded all the way from Ephesus to Athens and Rome.  They were on fire, not just believing in the Christ but living members of His Body.

Paul did not derive his authority to say and do what he said and did from his Jewish leaders, nor from the apostles in Jerusalem; he derived his authority from the very power of Christ dwelling within him.  That same spirit dwells in every person here this morning.  We need, desperately, to rediscover the mystical roots of our faith and our religion.  So often we just settle for believing, we just settle for going to mass and receiving Holy Communion when so much more is possible.  Paul discovered this “more” on the road to Damascus; he was transformed by his awareness of Christ living in him; and Paul trusted that inner awareness.

Others, through history, trusted that same inner awareness; St. Francis of Assisi was transformed by touching and embracing the sores of lepers.  Facing his worse fears Christ transformed him into the living Gospel for all to see.  So too, with St. Clair and Theresa of Avila and Mother Theresa and Dorothy Day.  So too with Servant of God Isaac Hecker our founder.  All of them could look into their worse fears, and the darkest corners of our world and see the grander of God.

Fr. Hecker, trusting his own inner awareness of the Holy Spirit, desired a religious community whose inspiration came from the Holy Spirit, a mystical inspiration if you will.  A mystic is simply a person who can see the divine imprint baked into every single thing in existence.  Isaac Hecker could even see that goodness in our  political system here in the United States; he dreamt of religion and politics, civil and religious life working together for the common good.

Fr. Hecker knew as Paul knew and Jesus taught there is no such thing as sacred and profane.  All of creation, and everything in it, is sacred but we do desecrate it in many ways.  Gerard Manly Hopkins proclaimed that “all of creation is charged with the grandeur of God.”  

It is our call as Christians, as followers of Jesus, disciples of St. Paul, our call as Paulist Fathers, and all of us as a Paulist parish wake up and take up the task of being  the life-giving light of Christ in the darkest corners of God’s Grandeur.  We are Christ’s light by gathering in prayer here this morning; by becoming what we receive here at the table of the Lord - the very living, breathing, Body of Christ for all to see.  It doesn’t end here but begins here as we take our life in Christ out into the Streets of San Francisco.