Celebrate the year of St. Paul
By NADIA MARIA SMITH
CS&T Staff Writer
Pope Benedict XVI will officially open the Year of St. Paul on June 28, the eve of the Solemnity of SS. Peter and Paul, at a prayer service in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, where the saint’s tomb is located.
The jubilee year dedicated to St. Paul will be observed throughout the Church locally and worldwide until June 29, 2009, marking the 2,000th anniversary of the saint’s birth.
Last year, when he first announced the Pauline year, Pope Benedict XVI noted that “as in the [Church’s] beginning, today, too, Christ needs apostles ready to sacrifice themselves. He needs witnesses and martyrs like St. Paul.”
The Holy Father also noted that St. Paul’s life holds a lesson for modern Christians, saying that his achievements had more to do with his extraordinary personal involvement in announcing the Gospel and his total dedication to Christ, despite problems and persecutions. St. Paul was born in Tarsus, in what is now Turkey, at the start of the Christian era. After his conversion on the road to Damascus, he became one of the Church’s foremost evangelizers, first among Jews, then among Gentiles. St. Paul’s letters are a primary source of information about the life of the early Church and have strongly influenced Church thinking through the centuries.
“The Holy Father believes that we need to look back at our origins — our foundation — to inspire us to reenergize our culture with Christianity because of secularism and a sense of a loss of evangelization within the Church and the world,” said Father Patrick Brady, chair of the Department of Sacred Scripture at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood.
What better way to do that than to focus on “the premier evangelizer, who is willing to stand up and share the Gospel with the world even if the world is antagonistic to it?” Father Brady added. “There is boldness to his proclamation of the Gospel — he proclaims it despite fear of persecution, suffering, or imprisonment.”
In a special way, the Pauline year will also be ecumenical, reflecting the saint’s commitment to unity and harmony among Christians.
“Paul calls everybody to a centrality in Christ,” Father Brady said. “In the ecumenical sense, all who recognize Christ are called to be unified in Christ.”
The year-long celebration will be marked by three main feast days, which every parish is asked to mark with special celebrations: the opening of the Pauline year on the eve of the feasts of SS. Peter and Paul, June 28; the middle of the Pauline year with the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul on Sunday, January 25, and the closing of the Pauline year on the feasts of SS. Peter and Paul, June 29, 2009.
Cardinal Justin Rigali will celebrate a special Mass commemorating the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul at the Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul on Jan. 25, 2009 and will celebrate a closing Mass at St. Paul Church in Norristown on June 29, 2009.
The Pope is encouraging pilgrimages to Rome, especially to the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.Locally, the Cardinal is encouraging parishioners to make pilgrimages to St. Paul Church in South Philadelphia and St. Paul Church in Norristown.
Heeding the Pope’s call that the Church be focused on the richness of St. Paul’s writings, the Daughters of St. Paul are making available through their bookstore a new edition of the Letters of St. Paul with an introduction and an outline of each letter.
According to Father John Ames, the deputy secretary for catechetical formation, “it’s a privileged moment in the Church’s life to be reenergized in its evangelization and ecumenical activities.”
For more information about the celebration of Year of St. Paul in the Archdiocese, visit www.archphila.org. The Pauline Books and Media Center is located at 9171-A Roosevelt Blvd., Philadelphia, 19114. For more information or to place an order call 215-676-9494.
Catholic News Service contributed to this article.
CS&T staff writer Nadia Maria Smith may be reached at npozo@adphila.org or (215) 965-4614.