today's readings are Acts 22: 3-16; Psalm 117; Mk. 16: 15-18
Saul was one giant thorn in the side of the early Church. A devout Pharisee, he saw the followers of The Way as a threat to the values of Judaism. Present at the stoning of St. Stephen, he then undertook a ferocious persecution of the early Christians - until he met his Maker on the road to Damascus.
St. Luke considered the story of Saul's conversion to be so important that he includes it 3 times in The Acts of the Apostles. For Saul would now become Paul, the great Apostle to the Gentiles. Paul, who left us a prolific number of writings that would become an essential part of the New Testament; Paul who would travel throughout the eastern Mediterranean world to bring the message of the God News; Paul who would then travel to Rome where he would be martyred in 64 A.D.
Truly, St. Paul, echoing today's psalm, went out to the world to tell the good news.