Reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Of course, this continues our our lord's discourse about his body and body's blood. The Jews quarreled among themselves saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? And notice that's what they understood him to be saying. Thereupon, Jesus said to them, let me solemnly assure you, if you do not eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
He who feeds, remember, he's talking to to Jews whose absolute horror of cannibalism was one of their main tenants. Now they're taking him literally. And our lord says, he who feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood real drink. The man who feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I remain in him.
Just as the father who has life sent me, and I have life because of the father, so the man who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and died, nonetheless, the man who feeds on this bread shall live forever. Jesus said this in a synagogue instruction at Capernaum, and this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen. Attractive as, some commentary would be on this excerpt from Saint John and our Lord's discourse about his body and blood. Notice how seldom this is referred to in in the any discussion about the meaning of the last supper. You think this had never taken place. But I want to go back to the first reading, to this what we call the conversion of Saint Paul.
It's just loaded with all kinds of problems and difficulties and invitations of all kinds, epistemological, psychological, you name it. But the the one thing I wanna emphasize is this word conversion. We talk about this as the conversion of Saint Paul. What do you mean by his conversion? What has changed?
Now we picked up Paul's career at the stoning of Stephen. Now Paul came from Tarsus. He was a Jew, but Tarsus was a Roman city. Therefore, he Paul or Saul was a Roman citizen, although he was a Jew. Now he's in Jerusalem.
He is a rabbi, apparently, and a and a well educated man. He wasn't like the other like the apostles. Apparently, this young man was on fire with zeal for god's law and for god's honor and for God's worship. That's where we pick him up. He was present at the stoning of Stephen because he Stephen seemed to be a a public adversary of God almighty.
Stephen stood for a new way, and the new way would destroy the old way, and the old way was the way of God. And therefore, Saul stood up and said, stone him. Saul held the garments of those who did the stone. We have him taking off. He's been in Jerusalem, and now he's en route to Damascus, I presume.
And what is this what is he doing? Is he going out for himself? Is he seeking self fulfillment? Is he seeking a job? Is he seeking prestige?
He's going out to try to preserve the honor is is completely suffused with love of god almighty and the manifestations which god had made to his people. And here you have these upstarts following some crazy person from up around Capernaum at Galilee who has initiated what was called the new way, and this is a threat. This is a challenge. This is a disaster because it's because we're told thousands of people were following the new way. At least that's what the text says, thousands.
And in one instance, we're told 5,000 men followed the new way. Paul's up in arms about this. This is a conflagration. Something's got to be done about it. It's got to be squashed.
It's got to be put down. Why? Because it's a threat to God's honor. See? That's Paul.
I'm not exaggerating this. He's a single-minded man. He's a simple minded man, and he's giving his all to God and to God's service as he sees it. Who can do more than that? Now what happens on the road to Damascus?
Your guess is as good as mine. It's it's filled with all kinds of mysterious things, dreams and and lightning flashes, and people falling from horses, and blindness and miracles. You these few sentences, they're just jammed, piled up, overflowing with all kinds of wondrous events. And we say now Paul was converted, that he sees that he was on the wrong track. He sees that he was fighting Jesus Christ.
He knew that, but he now sees that this Jesus Christ was no ordinary carpenter's son from Galilee. And so whatever happens, there's some kind of a revelation to Paul or Saul. Something definitely happens there. You talk about a religious experience. Here's one of the primary ones, and there's it's a pretty well a pretty fully described one too.
Keep that in mind. You use the word religious experience, come back and read this. This will tell you what a religious experience is. Of course, this is one of the one of the kingpins of religious experiences, but it certainly is a religious experience. Now we say he's converted.
He's changed. What's changed? His love of God? No. His zeal for God?
No. The giving giving of himself to God? No. None of that's changed. He's not renouncing any of that.
He's just seen that what he was doing was in the wrong direction. In a sense, he was on the wrong track. He had no he had no doubts about where he was going or what he was trying to do. And when this experience, which we call his conversion, happens, that doesn't change. He's still the loyal, devoted, sacrificial, self giving, able, intelligent, dauntless, courageous, fearless apostle of God.
None of that changes. None of that. It's only that it's amplified, that it's given a new context, it or a carrier or a conveyor or something of that sort because now he sees in the person of Jesus Christ in some way or other how this took place. I'm not at all trying to explain it. I'm only saying this is what happened.
That from whatever did happen on the road to Damascus, this man who was so zealous for God and was fighting Christ is still zealous for God but accepts Christ. Now if you wanna call that conversion, fine. I think it's a I don't think it's a the word is merited. Now the point is this, I have seen and you have too the same thing as regards some outstanding communists. That is honest to god Marxists.
Now that they're a special breed. Very few of them are alive anymore. And when some of them became Catholics, you could hardly match their fervor. Now in some people way people say, what a change. What a conversion.
Nonsense. I dispute it. I dispute it just like I I I am very doubtful about using the word conversion for for Paul. He because you see, if you pursue truth, you're you are pursuing God or his pursuing you because God is truth. God is good.
God is being. And if a man or a woman who is giving their all as some Marxists have done for this vision that they had, Well, when they come to accept Christ, that doesn't change Because they've in a sense, they have been pursuing that all along. There was a book published some years ago called The Unknown God. The Unknown God. Paul, when he went into Athens, that's the first thing he said to those Greeks.
He said, I am talking to you about the unknown god whose temple you have here. And so in this in this tremendously dramatic and spectacular excerpt from the acts of the apostles, let us keep our let us see what see let us see the reality of this situation. Let us see the reality and realize, what a tremendous person this man Paul or Saul was. Not merely after his conversion, but also before. Because he was before his so called conversion, a man who had given himself utterly, fearlessly, courageously to God.
No one can do more than that. In the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit.