As Saint Paul was struck off his horse, he was shaken by the turn of
events when Our Lord asked him the question “Why persecutest thou Me?”
In other words, open your eyes! Examine your conscience! Realize the
fact that you are doing something which, if you make an upright
examination of conscience, you will find that it is wrong.
Our Lord’s question was reminiscent of one Our Lord Himself asked the
man who hit Him during His Passion: “If I have spoken evil, give
testimony of the evil; but if well, why strikest thou Me?”
In fact, Saint Paul gave no answer to Him because he had none to give.
He simply responded: “Who art Thou, Lord?” And he said “Lord” right away
because he sensed Who it really was. Our Lord answered: “I am Jesus
whom thou persecutest.”
By saying “Whom thou persecutest,” Our Lord made clear Who He is. He
was telling Saint Paul: See Who I am. See Who you are persecuting, and
therefore measure how hideous your crime is.
After this, Our Lord adds a somewhat mysterious statement: “It is hard
for thee to kick against the goad.” The goad is the wind. He was saying
that it is hard to oppose the wind. In this case, the wind is the
blowing wind of grace that for a while had been calling Paul to
conversion, but he resisted it. The context at least leads to this
hypothesis.
Saint Paul answered in his own radical way. He wasted no time. He saw
that he was wrong and placed himself at the service of God. He asked:
“Lord, what wilt Thou have me do?” The Acts of the Apostles say that he
was trembling and astonished as he asked the question. In other words,
the blow had hit home. He was disoriented and afraid. He was shaken as
he went through a short ordeal of a few minutes which completely changed
him and shook his soul. Our Lord then said to him: “Arise, and go into
the city, and there it shall be told thee what thou must do.”
Why did Our Lord not tell him what to do right away? The whole
dialogue took place while Saint Paul was blinded and prostrated on the
ground. He was told to arise and go to the city and find out what he
must do. In other words, he must receive Our Lord’s orders slowly,
subjecting himself with humility like a child who takes orders from his
superior.
Our Lord was telling him: Go, therefore, groping and advancing step by
step, to find out what I want, because I am your Lord and command you as
a servant, who is under his Lord’s orders and can do nothing else.
Thus, Saint Paul did not know what God wanted of him. He did not even
know if God might want him to remain blind for his whole life. He, the
great Paul, the excellent and illustrious Pharisee, was now going to
enter the city of Damascus like a child, led by the hand. In other
words, it was the complete breakdown of his pride. The text of the Acts
ends thus: “But they leading him by the hands, brought him to Damascus.”
In other words, he entered Damascus as a blind man. There he would be
blind for a few days, until the scales would fall from his eyes.
See you in December
2 weeks ago
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