2009 VISION Vocation Guide

Page 116

being Catholic

Consider Paul, our brother

FrOm the Very first moment of his encounter with the risen Christ and the beauty of the gospel message, Saint Paul felt called by God to proclaim this Good News.

An apostle and the first great Christian missionary, Saint Paul experienced both conversion and struggle and got some help along the way before finding his vocation.

by

Father DonalD Senior, C.P.

P

erhaPs more than any other figure in the early church, Paul embodied profound conversion and transformation for the sake of the Father Donald Senior, C.P. is a Passionist priest, president of Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, professor of New Testament studies. A member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, he is general editor of the Catholic Study Bible (Oxford University Press) and author of the four-volume The Passion of Jesus in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John (Michael Glazier/Liturgical Press).

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gospel, both on a personal level and within the religious tradition to which he was passionately committed. Did the young Paul, immersed in love of his Jewish piety and schooled in the classic literature of Greece, ever imagine some dreamy afternoon in Tarsus that he would travel nearly 10,000 miles—most of it on foot and a lot of it on the sea that he feared—for the sake of a crucified Galilean whom he would come to believe was the embodiment of the divine presence on earth and the revelation of God’s love for the world?

VISION 2010

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6/8/2009 11:12:45 AM


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