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Image: The Apostle Paul, c. 1657, by Rembrandt
Pope Francis Catechesis – Witnesses: St. Paul 1
Saint Peter’s Square – Wednesday, 29 March 2023
Catechesis. The passion for evangelization: the apostolic zeal of the believer. 9. Witnesses: Saint Paul. 1
Galatians 1:22-24
At that time I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which were in Christ; but only, they kept hearing, “He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy.” And they were glorifying God because of me.
Dear brothers and sisters,
On the path of catechesis on apostolic zeal, let us begin today by looking at some figures who, in different ways and at different times, gave exemplary witness to what passion for the Gospel means. The first witness is, of course, the Apostle Paul.
I would like to devote these two catecheses to him.
The story of Paul of Tarsus is emblematic in this regard. In the first chapter of the Letter to the Galatians, as in the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles, we can see that his zeal for the Gospel appears after his conversion, and replaces his previous zeal for Judaism.
He was a man who was zealous about the Law of Moses for Judaism, and after his conversion, that zeal continued, but to proclaim, to preach Jesus Christ.
Paul loved Jesus. Saul – Paul’s first name – was already zealous, but Christ converts his zeal: from the law to the gospel. His zeal first wanted to destroy the church, but then he wanted to build it up. We might ask ourselves: what happened, that passed from destruction to construction? What changed in Paul? In what way was his zeal, his striving for the glory of God, transformed? What happened there?
St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that , from the moral point of view, passion, is neither good nor evil: its virtuous use makes it morally good, sin makes it bad.[1]
In Paul’s case, what changed him was not a simple idea or a conviction: it was the encounter, that word, it was the encounter with the Risen Lord – do not forget this, it was the encounter with the Lord that changes a life – it was the encounter with the Risen Lord that changed his whole being.
Paul’s humanity, his passion for God and his glory were not destroyed, but transformed, “converted” by the Holy Spirit. The only one who can change our hearts, change, is the Holy Spirit. And this was true for every aspect of his life.
Just as it happens in the Eucharist: the bread and the wine do not disappear, but become the Body and the Blood of Christ. Paul’s zeal remains, but it becomes the zeal of Christ.
It changes direction but the zeal is the same. The Lord is served with our humanity, with our privileges and with our characteristics, but what changes everything is not an idea, but rather the very life itself, as Paul himself says: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation”– it changes you from within, the encounter with Jesus Christ changes you from within, it makes you another person – “the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17). If you are in Christ, that is what it means to be a new creation.
Becoming Christian is not a masquerade, that changes your face, no! If you are Christian, your heart is changed, but if you are a Christian in appearance, that will not be enough: masquerading Christians, no, they will not be enough.
The true change is in the heart. And this happened to Paul.
The passion for the Gospel is not a question of understanding or studies – you can study all the theology you want, you can study the Bible and all that, and become atheist or secular, it is not a question of studies; in history there have been many atheist theologians, no! Studying is useful but it does not produce the new life of grace; rather, conversion means going through that same experience of “fall and resurrection” that Saul/Paul lived and which is at the origin of the transfiguration of his apostolic zeal. In fact, as Saint Ignatius says: “For it is not knowing much, but rather realizing and enjoying things inwardly, that satisfies”.
Every one of us, think. “I am a religious” – “Good” – “I pray” – “Yes” – “I try to follow the commandments” – “Yes” – “But where is Jesus in your life?” – “Ah, no, I do the things the Church commands”.
But Jesus, where is he? Have you met Jesus, have you talked with Jesus?
When you pick up the Gospel or when you talk with Jesus, do you remember who Jesus is? And this is something that we very often lack; a Christianity, I would say, not without Jesus, but with an abstract Jesus… No!
How Jesus entered your life, how he entered Paul’s life, and when Jesus enters, everything changes.
Many times, we have heard comments about people: “But look at him, he was a wretch and now he is a good man, she is a good woman… who changed them? Jesus, they found Jesus.
Has your Christian life changed? “No, more or less, yes…”.
If Jesus has not come into your life, it has not changed. You can only be a Christian from the outside. No, Jesus has to enter and that changes you, and that happened to Paul.
It is finding Jesus and that is why Paul said that the love of Christ drives us, it is what moves you. The same thing, this change, happened to all the saints who went forward when they found Jesus.
We can continue to reflect on the transformation that takes place in Paul, from a persecutor to an apostle of Christ. We notice that there is a kind of paradox in him: indeed, as long as he feels justified before God, he feels authorized to persecute, to arrest, even to kill, as in the case of Stephen; but when, enlightened by the Risen Lord, he discovers that he was a “blasphemer and persecutor” (cf. 1 Tim 1:13) – he says of himself: “I used to blaspheme and persecute” – then he begins to be truly capable of loving. And this is the way. If one of us says, “Oh, thank you, Lord, because I am a good person, I do good things, I do not commit great sins…”, that is not a good way, that is the way of self-sufficiency, that is a way that does not justify you, that makes you turn up your nose… He is an elegant Catholic, but an elegant Catholic is not a holy Catholic, he is elegant.
The true Catholic, the true Christian is one who receives Jesus inside, who changes your heart. This is the question I ask all of you today: What does Jesus mean to me? Have I allowed him to enter my heart, or do I keep him within reach, but not really inside? Have I allowed myself to be changed by him? Or is Jesus just an idea, a theology that goes on?
And that is zeal, when you find Jesus and you feel the fire, like Paul, and you have to preach Jesus, you have to talk about Jesus, you have to help people, you have to do good things.
When one finds the idea of Jesus, he or she remains an ideologue of Christianity, and this does not justify us, only Jesus justifies us.
May the Lord help us to find Jesus, to meet Jesus, and may this Jesus change our lives from within and help us to help others. Thank you very much.
Summary of the Holy Father’s words
Dear brothers and sisters: In our continuing catechesis on apostolic zeal, we now consider some of the great men and women in the history of the Church whose lives exemplify love for Christ and passion for the spread of the Gospel.
We begin, naturally, with the Apostle Paul.
Paul’s encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus transformed his zeal for the Law, which had led him to persecute Christians, into a consuming desire to proclaim the Gospel of God’s loving mercy, revealed in the paschal mystery.
Paul’s conversion was truly a profound experience of death and resurrection; reborn in Christ, he became a “new creation” (2 Cor 5:17), now filled with zeal to carry the good news of our salvation to all the nations.
Paul’s example shows us that at the heart of all missionary zeal is a living encounter with the risen Lord.
It also shows us that zeal for the Gospel can never justify violence or persecution in the name of the God of mercy, who invites us freely to accept his gift of new life by believing in the Gospel of Jesus his Son.
