Pauline year offers chance to explore Apostle’s witness
This weekend the Catholic Church begins a yearlong commemoration of the Apostle Paul. Pope Benedict XVI opens the Pauline year on June 28, to encourage all the faithful to rediscover the saint. We might ask why St. Paul is still relevant to Christians today, and what we can do in this year to learn from him two millennia after his birth.
Paul presents the figure of a man on a mission to spread through his word and actions all that our Lord Jesus taught. In doing so he bore his share of crosses. He acknowledged Christ as Lord of his own life, and confirmed the belief that it is Christ who truly lives within us who believe in Him.
What we know of Paul comes from Sacred Scripture, in the Acts of the Apostles and his numerous epistles. This year presents an opportunity to pray the Scriptures. This means not merely reading but listening to the Word of God as we learn how the characters in the stories respond to God’s presence in their lives. These are not static scenes depicting people and cultures far removed from us today, but lessons that are timeless, if we look for them.
During this year we might commit to the regular practice of praying the lectio divina. This ancient devotion begins with the selection of a brief passage of Scripture, then reflecting on a meditation by a spiritual writer or one’s own, concluding with a prayer from the liturgy of the Church. A fine example of this practice appears each week in this newspaper on the Catholic Spirituality page.
In the Bible we learn that Paul carried the cross of suffering as he endured the discomfort of first-century sea voyages, shipwrecks, imprisonment, disappointments in the fledgling Christian communities and finally, martyrdom. We too may bear our own crosses, and one other: fear. Pope Benedict addressed this product of emptiness that we face in our culture, pointing toward Paul as one who still teaches that believers need not fear anything because they are in the hands of God.
Trust in Christ keeps us rooted firmly in Him, as He remains in us always. Paul’s great contribution, among so many, is His personal witness to Christ’s enduring presence in each of our lives, in the Church and in the world.
Like the apostle we meet in the Scriptures, we too are on a missionary journey. At times we will evangelize by what we say but mostly by how we live our lives. Regardless of the crosses we bear, we find strength during this Pauline year in the Word of God, which he spoke to Paul: “Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you.”