(Audio)
I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
Jesus appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus and revealed himself to him. When we think of abrupt and entire changes of life, Saul's experience is often considered archetypal. But even Saul's conversion wasn't exactly immediate. We might have expected Jesus to stay with him and explain everything with no need for anyone else to get involved. We might have thought the initial knockdown and blinding special effects would be all or most of the story. But even Saul's conversion happened by degrees, even if the degrees where each admittedly more impressive than many of our own stories.
Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do.
Why didn't Jesus simply tell him what he must do? We can only speculate. But the key is probably that it was Saul's persecution of Christians, his "breathing murderous threats", his plans to "bring them back to Jerusalem in chains" that he was persecuting Jesus himself.
The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (see Matthew 25:40).
The appearance of Jesus himself was the pivot point or the lever that made change possible for Saul. But this illumination left Saul unable to see, still without understanding of the meaning of what he had just experienced. Certain things could be inferred. He knew something of the Christians, enough to persecute them. He now knew that they were correct and not he. But as to the specifics, he was likely still in the dark. And Jesus did not give him the answer in this special revelation. Instead, he made Saul depend on the same group he had persecuted for the completion of this conversion. The Lord was very specific that it would only through Ananias that his eyes would be opened. It was finally through Ananias that he would receive the Holy Spirit.
“Saul, my brother, the Lord has sent me,
Jesus who appeared to you on the way by which you came,
that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Saul had persecuted Jesus by persecuting his Mystical Body. It was fitting then, that his reconciliation Jesus would not happen apart from that Body. Previously he had been one who claimed to see but was in fact blind to the presence of Jesus in his followers.
Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains. (see John 9:41).
Jesus took from Saul his ability to imagine that he saw when he in fact did not see. But he did this so that his sight could be restored and healed.
Immediately things like scales fell from his eyes
and he regained his sight.
The degree to which Jesus is present in his Body, the degree to which he identifies with his Church, should give us pause. We too are often blind to his presence even in our brothers and sisters, seeing only the superficial and the human. This blindness can make us casual about the holiness within and around us when we should instead live as though we are all temples of the Holy Spirit (see First Corinthians 6:19) and living stones in God's building (see First Peter 2:5). The Lord has plans for us, just as he did for Saul. Just as he was "a chosen instrument of mine" so too are we meant to be. As with Saul, this may require several or even many degrees of transformation. It will require us finding ways to be more conformed to Christ, more united to his Body, at peace and in fellowship with other believers. But Jesus is still meant to be the center of everything. It is was finally in a meal that Saul found strength for the task ahead.
and when he had eaten, he recovered his strength.
So too for us. We are united by the Holy Spirit, and this is especially and even uniquely the case when we receive Jesus himself in the Eucharist. By receiving his Body we become his Body, united, and empowered to offer ourselves also to a hungry world.
Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread (see First Corinthians 10:17).
One place, probably the best place where our unconsidered habits can be interrupted, where our imagined ability to see can give way to true vision, is in Holy Communion. It is here that a blast of the true light who enlightens all men (see John 1:9) can fill us, revealing Jesus to us even as we are joined more closely to him.
For my Flesh is true food,
and my Blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
remains in me and I in him.
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