In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Every time I put on red vestments, you know what I think. Would I ever make being a martyr? That's a very serious question. And the answer is in today's reading, the first reading.
Now and the and the answer is in every martyr's life, and the answer is in every saint's life, and the answer is in every saint that has not been made a saint. In other words, this multitude, I mean multitude of anonymous saints whose names have been completely forgotten. They're not even on tombstones, many of Because there's no man or woman who faced a more uncertain future than Saint Paul. I like to deal with facts, And the fact is that Saint Paul had a harried career. From the very after all, from the moment he's call it what you want.
I don't like to use the word conversion. As I've said many times, that's that's a very inadequate statement. But the very first thing happens is Paul loses his sight. That's the first thing happens to him when he when he begins when he turns away from his former mission, he loses his sight. And from then on, it's just one catastrophe in a sense after another until he winds up in Rome and becomes a martyr.
And he gave us rather, he didn't give the answer. He got the answer. And this is what we've got to get into our hearts, into our minds, into into what Newman called and this is really the a real ascent. If you want to hear anything drier than that, we call it gut reaction, and that's much clearer than Newman's real ascent. And it came from our lord himself to Saint Paul.
When Saint Paul was in the dark night of the soul, do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. And I would add to that, don't look too far ahead because our lord never said I'm going to give you graces for the for the next year, for the next month, for the next day. He said sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, and that's all you have to face. You don't have to face tomorrow or yesterday.
These are the things that kill us. These are the things that take the the courage out of our hearts, this thing called fear. Remember, fear is a psychological state of mind based on something that is not has not happened. We view it because of our imaginative powers as as a possibility or a probability, and, of course, we move on to making an actuality appear. And the one thing that I have found, this is from absolutely personal experience, about experience, it's more it can be I mean, this imaginative power of ours, it can be more vivid.
It can be more emotionally gripping than a reality. The memory of something in the past can be much more emotionally upsetting than what actually happened that when you were present in the actual situation. And you all know this. I'm not expressing it well, but I hope you get the idea. Our Lord says, do not be afraid.
If there's anything which disturbs the Christian life, it's this thing I call it the word fear with quotation marks because there's a very good fear we should have. Fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom. Let's not forget it. There's a very good use of the word fear, but that's not the kind of thing I'm talking about. Here we're we're in this mess of words.
I'm talking about this psychological state of mind which be makes us apprehensive, which gets us worried, which downgrades us, which weakens us, which takes the guts out of us. Because we have this power of projecting what may be, what can be, what probably will be, and then lo and behold, you we say it is. Our Lord said, do not be afraid. In another place he said, love casts out fear. That it's this kind of thing we're talking about.
And love casts it out. So that when we look and say, could I be a martyr? Could I be a Saint Justin? Could I be a Maximilian Kobe? That's a very dangerous question.
How do you know you're called to be that? Well, just wait till you are and then face it. God will take care of it. I've just finished reading. One of our very devoted congregation brought to my attention an excellent article readers in the Catholic Digest for May, an interview with our holy father, which he goes back over his life.
It's a it's the best thing I've read so far on this. Now if you wanna see how we move into a blind world, into a world we do not see the end of. How he moved from one thing to another to another. And he winds up, of all things, a priest. A very extraordinary development.
If you'd have asked him when he was a boy of 12 or 13 or 14, he would have laughed at you, just as I would have laughed at you. Let's come back to the to our lord's own words. Do not be afraid. In the name of the father, of the son, and holy spirit. Amen.