Pauline Year

Soren Kierkegaard, one of the great existential Christian philosophers in his essay on “The Difference between a Genius and an Apostle” has stated that the difference between an apostle and a genius consists in this that the apostle dies for what he teaches while a genius does not. An apostle is not content to let his teachings go by the wayside but is willing to sacrifice his life for it for, he knows it is worth dying for. The whole life of St. Paul is a full –throated testimony to the power of faith in Our Lord for whom he laid down his life, with no hesitation. Truly, he is an Apostle, and he calls himself an Apostle “ by vocation.”(Rom 1:1)

In this year of Paul, it is very appropriate for us to reflect on his life and teachings and reorient our vision of life in the light of his example and devotion to Jesus.

Inaugurating the Jubilee Year on June 2008 at the Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, the Holy Father Pope Benedict X1V said: “We are gathered here before the tomb of St. Paul, who was born 2,000 years ago, in Tarsus of Cilicia, in present-day Turkey”…..to look at Paul, in order “ to listen to him and to drink from him , as our teacher, in the faith and truth, in which are rooted the reasons for unity among the disciples of Christ.” The Holy Father adds that “ what motivated Paul in the depth of his life was his being loved by Jesus Christ and the desire to transmit this love to others.”

In his address at the General Audience on Oct.25,2006, the Holy Father points out that the lesson that we have to draw from St. Paul is that “what counts is to place Jesus at the center of our lives, so that our identity is marked essentially by the encounter, by communion with Christ and with his Word.”

Who can describe the power, majesty, intellectual prowess, deep faith and the profound humility of St. Paul? What moves us as we read his letters to the various churches as well as his speeches in the Acts of the Apostles is his undying love for Jesus. There was no force on earth that could take that love away from him. How strong and powerful is his love for Jesus is clear from his words to the Letter to Romans: “If God is for us, who can be against us? What will separate us from the love of Christ? For, I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels nor principalities…nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”

The encounter with Jesus on the way to Damascus changed his life totally and irrevocably. Look at what he says about the change in his life: “ But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ…..Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”(Philippians 3:7-8).Commenting on this passage, Cardinal Martini observes that this revelation of “who Jesus is “ changed his mind and his attitude about who he himself was and what he was doing.” He adds further that “it was a revelation that turned his inner orientation upside down.(The Gospel According Paul,p.23)”

Of all the letters that Paul wrote, his letter to the Romans is undoubtedly his master piece. Rome is the only place where he did not found a church or preached first. He wrote the letter in anticipation of his visit. In this letter, he deals with some weightier issues of faith like justification , righteousness, universality of sin and the redemptive power of Christ’s sacrifice.

In this letter his excellence as a great rhetorician reaches its climax: “The Letter to the Romans is often considered to be Paul’s master work. The apostle would not, however, have been able to achieve what he did in the letter were it not for his skillful use of metaphor.” He uses anatomical imagery to deal with the universality of sin and employs the imagery drawn from the courtroom to explain the nature of grace(Raymond F. Collins, the Power of Images in Paul,p.224).

Paul’s life of love and compassion is reflected in his advice to the Romans that they never should judge one another:” We , though many, are one body in Christ.” The last part of Ch.12 of the Romans is a clarion call to all Christians to live in harmony, peace and love: “ Bless those who persecute you…If your enemy is hungry , feed him….Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Who can surpass in rhetorical eloquence the power and glory he attributes to love! Those who read his paean to love in the First Corinthians.Ch.13 come away with the feeling that nowhere in the world literature has there ever been such an eloquent praise of love as is done here: “ If I speak with human tongues and angelic as well, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong, a clanging symbol. Love is patient and kind….There are in the end three things that last: faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love.”

To crown all his messages and teachings, he comes to the lowest level of expectations. He expects nothing in return but just the satisfaction of working for the Lord. In his Second Letter to Timothy, he writes, which we can read only with teary eyes: “The time of my dissolution is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on a merited crown awaits me; on that Day, the just judge that he is, will award it to me.”

As our Holy Father has prayed, we shall also pray for a new dawn of evangelization in our life time: “Give us also today the testimony of the Resurrection, touched by love and enable us to carry the light of the Gospel in our time.”(June 28, 08)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year:

As Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ, the Son of God, it is undoubtedly the happiest day in a Christian’s life. The words that the angels sang aloud at the birth of Christ, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to men of good will” ring loud and clear in the ears of all Christians all over the world in this season of Christmas.

We take this occasion, although belatedly, to wish all of our readers a very happy Christmas and a prosperous and grace-filled New year.

We know that the New Year begins with a heavy load of daunting problems because of economic melt-down and the loss of jobs. But with the grace of God and a courageous political and economic leadership, we hope and pray that America will regain soon its leadership and economic well-being. The economic recovery here will definitely benefit other countries across the world .

In the past couple of years, we have seen a change in the celebration of Christmas. All the Department stores and restaurants have stopped using the word Merry Christmas and begun using a new form of greeting: “ Happy Holidays.” How fast these stores and their owners have taken the spirit of Christmas from the season!

The stores and other commercial establishments want the money from the shopping spree of Christians, but they don’t want to acknowledge the reason for that shopping!

What a clever way of depriving the people of the joy of Christmas on the happiest day of their lives! More strange is to see that many of these department stores do not carry Christmas cards with religious meanings. One finds cards only with the words, Happy Holidays.

If the Hindus and Moslems can greet Christians with the words, Merry Christmas, in other parts of the world, why cannot those words be used here? If the Hindus, Moslems, and the Jews celebrate any of their holy days in the way the Christians celebrate their Christmas, Christians would be greeting them using the name of their holy days. But just for the sake of inclusiveness, a word used by the secularists to take away the meaning of Christmas, why should one eviscerate Christmas of its meaning?

As T.S. Eliot wondered in his poem, “The Journey of the Magi”, whether Christmas is a birth or death, we also have to wonder whether it is a birth or death. For many it is a birth, a new beginning, of renewal of hope and peace, of redemption and salvation; for others, it is still death, an assertion of their selfishness and narrow mindedness.