The Pope's Pauline Homily

The Pope’s Pauline Homily
cinops be gone Tuesday, August 5, 2008
From the Pope’s Homily At The Pauline Year Inauguration: July – 2008

“Endure with me suffering for the Gospel,” said the apostle to his disciple (St.Timothy). This sentence, which is at the end of the roads traveled by the apostle as a treatment, leads us back to the beginning of his mission. While, after his encounter with the Risen One, the blind Paul was in his room in Damascus, Ananias received the order to go where the feared persecutor was and lay his hands on him, so that he would recover his sight.

To Ananias’ objection that this Saul was a dangerous persecutor of Christians, this answer was given: “This man must take my name to the Gentiles, to kings and to the children of Israel. I will show him all he will have to suffer for my name.”

The task of proclamation and the call to suffering for Christ are inseparably together. The call to be teacher of the Gentiles is at the same time and intrinsically a call to suffering in communion with Christ, who has redeemed us through his passion. In a world in which lying is powerful, truth is paid for with suffering. He who wishes to avoid suffering, to keep it far from himself, will have pushed away life itself and its grandeur; he cannot be a servant of truth and thus a servant of faith. There is no love without suffering, without the suffering of denying ourselves, of the transformation and purification of the “I” for true freedom.

Wherever there is nothing worth suffering for, life itself also loses its value. The Eucharist – center for our Christian being – is based on the sacrifice of Jesus for us; it was born from the suffering of the love that found its culmination on the cross. We live from this love that gives itself. This gives us the courage and strength to suffer with Christ and for him, thus knowing that precisely in this way our life becomes great, mature,true.

In the light of all of St. Paul’s letters we see how on his journey as teacher of the Gentiles, the prophecy of Ananias was fulfilled at the hour of the calling” “I will show him all that he will have to suffer for my name.” His suffering makes him credible as teacher of truth, which does not seek its own benefit, its own glory or personal pleasure, but is committed to Him who loved us and gave himself up for all of us.

At this hour in which we thank the Lord for having called Paul, making him the light of the Gentiles and teacher of us all, we pray: Give us today the testimony of the Resurrection, touched by your love, and {make us} able to carry the light of the Gospel in our time. St. Paul, pray for us. Amen.
George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.