Once a fierce enemy of Church that Jesus founded, St. Paul converted to Christianity and became a proficient evangelizer, spreading the good news of Jesus Christ in person through speech and also by written letters.
A Pharisee educated by the best of the Jewish rabbis, St. Paul was a faithful and pious Jew who strongly persecuted Christians who he considered to be a threat to the Jewish faith.
He was a Roman citizen by birth which gave him certain rights and freedom. More well known by his Roman name Paul, he was originally referred to by his Jewish name Saul of Tarsus in the Bible.
St. Paul consented to the killing of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and was on the road to persecute Christians in the city of Damascus when he was confronted by the risen Jesus and underwent a profound conversion.
Not one of the original twelve Apostles who accompanied Jesus during his public ministry, St. Paul is known as the Apostle to the Gentiles because he preached the Gospel mainly to people who were not Jewish.
In spite of danger, imprisonment, and persecution, St. Paul travelled extensively and spread the message of the Gospel. A large part of the New Testament consists of letters that he wrote during his travels.
St. Paul was beheaded in Rome around the year 64 AD, dying as a martyr for the same faith he had once tried to destroy.
On January 25 each year, the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle, the only conversion commemorated by the Church.
An encounter with Jesus led to Paul’s radical conversion:
Paul experienced God’s merciful love in Jesus:
St. Paul was made helpless and humble:
So Ananias went and entered the house; laying his hands on him, he said, “Saul, my brother, the Lord has sent me, Jesus who appeared to you on the way by which you came, that you may regain your sight and be filled with the holy Spirit.” Immediately things like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight. He got up and was baptized, and when he had eaten, he recovered his strength. He stayed some days with the disciples in Damascus, and he began at once to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God. All who heard him were astounded and said, “Is not this the man who in Jerusalem ravaged those who call upon this name, and came here expressly to take them back in chains to the chief priests?” But Saul grew all the stronger and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus, proving that this is the Messiah.
Acts 9: 17-22
Paul became a great missionary after his conversion:
A great persecutor became a great Apostle:
Because of Paul we know about Jesus:
In the first reading we heard Paul narrate, in the temple of Jerusalem, to his Jewish brothers, the shocking story of his conversion. As the other two accounts of the event contained in the book of Acts affirm, Saul-Paul attributes his own radical transformation to the vision of Jesus of Nazareth, Whom he was relentlessly persecuting and Who appears before him on the road to Damascus. If every conversion, or metanoia, is the work of divine grace, that is, of the immediate and radical intervention of God in the heart of man, that of Paul is so to the highest degree. The Lord Jesus showed Himself to Paul and began to dialogue with him, who, already a convinced Pharisee, unprepared for this manifestation and hostile to it, was unable to resist it. In the reading we heard the voice of Paul himself, who begins the extraordinary dialogue: “What must I do, O Lord?”. Jesus’ answer, not yet explicit but already decisive, incites him to direct his steps toward the Church of Damascus: “There you will be informed of all that is appointed for you to do.” This experience, which transforms Saul into Paul the Apostle, teaches us, once again, how the great events, decisive for the life of the Church, spring from the grace of the Lord, Who intervenes in our personal life, in our hearts, shapes the history of the Church, as and when He wants. Thus, contrary to all expectations and those of Paul himself, the story of his conversion has been celebrated for centuries, in the liturgy of the Church, as a miraculous event.
Pope John Paul II, Homily, 25 January 1985
Paul was an educated Jew and a Roman citizen:
The spiritual and intellectual foundation for Christian theology:
Such is not the case for Simon Peter when he confesses Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God”, for Jesus responds solemnly: “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in Heaven.” Similarly Paul will write, regarding his conversion on the road to Damascus, “When He who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach Him among the Gentiles…” “and in the synagogues immediately [Paul] proclaimed Jesus, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.'” From the beginning this acknowledgment of Christ’s divine sonship will be the center of the apostolic faith, first professed by Peter as the Church’s foundation.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 442
The site of Paul’s conversion is in present day Syria:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Embracing more than the world has to offer:
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