Archbishop of Sydney

Catechist Sunday

St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney
Conversion of St. Paul

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
4/2/2007

Is 6:1-8; 1 Cor 15:1-11; Lk 5:1-11

On last Friday we celebrated the 150th Anniversary of the Good Samaritan Sisters of the Order of St. Benedict, founded by the first Archbishop of Sydney, the Benedictine John Bede Polding.  Theirs is a wonderful story of faith, hope and service with one sister estimating that they have contributed to the education of 2,000,000 young people, mainly girls since 1857.

Sr. Clare Condon explained how Archbishop Polding told the first five novices that if they hoped to convert others they first needed to be converted themselves.  This was good advice for them and it is good advice today for all of us who have to teach – religious, clergy or lay people.  Moreover I thought it a suitable opening for my sermon this morning on Catechist Sunday, when we remember in particular all those catechists, now overwhelmingly lay people, who volunteer to teach about Christ in the Catholic tradition especially in our State schools.  I commend their fine work and urge others to join their swelling numbers.  We now have more then 2000 catechists in the Sydney Archdiocese and we pray that this number can be further increased so that all the State High schools are covered.

Today I want to reflect on the conversion of St. Paul, one of the three reluctant teachers in today’s readings.

The prophet Isaiah proclaimed his unworthiness very eloquently and he was equally explicit about the unworthiness of his contemporaries “what a wretched state I am in! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among people of unclean lips”.  He eventually complied with God’s invitation: “Here I am, send me”.

Just before Peter and James and John were called to be “fishers of men” Simon Peter said to Jesus “Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man”, but hearing the call they left everything and followed him.

Writing to the Corinthian Christians Paul summed up his story: “since I persecuted the Church of God, I hardly deserve the name apostle; but by God’s grace that is what I am”, i.e. the greatest missionary teacher of the first millennium, perhaps of all Christian history.

In Australian parlance none of these three teachers fancied themselves for the position; none of them thought they were up to the job.  To continue the idiom: that type of unworthiness would be true of us in spades; or at least true of most of us, as I cannot speak accurately of the unworthiness of others!

All of us have some idea of what Paul became as a Christian, but what type of Jew was he?

In the first chapter of his letter to the Galatians (c 1:13-14) Paul explains that in his earlier life he had “ravaged the Church of Christ and tried to destroy it” as he was “exceedingly zealous for the tradition of (his) fathers”.

Paul was the best educated of all the New Testament writers, with St. John as his only rival (and we know nothing of John’s theological education).  Paul tells us (Acts 22:3) that he was a pupil of Gamaliel, but he was not a typical follower, because Gamaliel belonged to the school of the scholar Hillel, the more liberal of the two dominant Jewish theological trends.

When the collection of laws known as the Mishnah was drawn up about 200 A.D. Hillel’s school clearly predominated, but in Paul’s time there was fierce struggle between the liberals (comparatively speaking) and the hard line Pharisees, the Shammaites, militant right wingers and men of violence.

Paul’s anti-Christian history shows that he was a Shammaite.  The argument was not simply about lenient or strict interpretations of the law, but about what were the most appropriate aims and agendas for Israel.

The Hillelites believed in letting Herod and Pilate and even Caiaphas rule Israel politically as long as they could faithfully follow the Law, but the Shammaites believed that this was not enough and that Israel should be freed from the tyranny of the Gentiles and by violence if this was necessary.  In first century Judaism “zeal for the traditions of the fathers” meant using knife, sword or stones.  Paul’s presence at the martyrdom of Stephen demonstrated that he was practising what he believed and taught.

The majority of the Pharisees were then Shammaites, not merely political revolutionaries but religious sicarii (dagger men), like those who died at Masada, deeply pious Jews.  Their heroes were Elijah and the Maccabean soldiers.  We know that one of the twelve apostles was Simon the Zealot, previously part of this wider group.

Paul believed God would redeem Israel by acting on the nation’s behalf and so save the entire world through his chosen people.  Abraham was to undo the sin of Adam and this was sometimes described as a mighty court case where Israel would be vindicated.  Although they used end of the world language to describe this, they were waiting for earth-shattering events within history, a great turning point or climax.  Paul believed this great day would come when people followed the Law properly and that it was legitimate to force people by violence to do the right thing.

This complex of views changed while Paul was on his way to Damascus, “breathing threats to slaughter the Lord’s disciples” (Acts 9:1).  He was knocked from his horse and blinded; so profoundly shocked he could not eat or drink for three days.  He believed that he had seen Jesus and that this was not merely a spiritual experience.

In his conversion Paul accepted Jesus’ bodily resurrection and that God had acted through Jesus in a way that he had previously believed God would act through Israel at the end time.  The age to come and the present age had coalesced in Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.

Paul’s theological world was turned upside down, but so was his moral world where forgiveness and love replaced killing and violent coercion.  No wonder he was in shock.

The message is clear.  If a man like Paul can become a convert to Christ then conversion is a possibility for us as well as our pupils.  But we have to do our part.

St. John Chrysostom was Archbishop of Constantinople from 398-404 and, we are told, preached 250 sermons on Paul’s epistles.  He was one of the most famous preachers in history, known as “the Golden Mouth”, but he was also outspoken and tactless, dying in exile after he called the Empress Eudoxia a Jezebel.  Chrysostom pointed out that Paul was greatly blessed by God’s grace but also had to struggle fiercely himself to do God’s will, to curb his wayward instincts.

Paul explained his difficulties at some length, Chrysostom told his people, so that they would not “leave everything to God and sit there sleeping and belching”.

That is good advice for us too.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.