In order for the world to “see” Catholics must live in a sacrificial way…..Sacrificial love witnessed changes hearts…Most importantly, it changes our heart

Today the Universal Church commemorates the conversion of St Paul….This man's life went from one extreme to the next…..He zealously condemned to death the first followers of Christ only to have a radical change of heart….“On that journey as I drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from the sky suddenly shone around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”…Scriptures tell us that after this encounter Paul literally fell off his horse and he was blinded for 3 days…..A holy man named Ananias felt called to approach Paul…This was a bold move because Paul was not someone to “play around with”…He was responsible for the death of many…But Ananias went anyway…“A certain Ananias, a devout observer of the law, and highly spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, came to me and stood there and said, ‘Saul, my brother, regain your sight.’ And at that very moment I regained my sight and saw him. Then he said, ‘The God of our ancestors designated you to know his will, to see the Righteous One, and to hear the sound of his voice; for you will be his witness before all to what you have seen and heard. Now, why delay? Get up and have yourself baptized and your sins washed away, calling upon his name.’”…Once Paul regained his sight, the rest is history….How did Paul “miss it” in the first place?…What made him blind?…..This is a good question to explore…..The world around us refuses to “see” many things…How can we as Catholics help the world regain its sight?…There is only one way - Sacrificial love

“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.”

There are many reasons why people are blind to the Truth….And in the final analysis words for the most part will never break through to people…Even if they acknowledge the words to be well spoken…Or the words resonate with them to a degree…Words do not change people…..Sacrificial love witnessed before their very eyes is something all together different…This is what Jesus did, he was completely innocent and he willingly gave himself up to death…While we as Catholics will probably not be killed by an angry mob…We are all called to love sacrificially…The witness of love like this shakes the foundations of the world…It breaks through to the hardest of hearts…But the reality of this kind of love is this…It costs us…Are we willing to pay the cost?……….When the world witnesses love like this, it makes no sense to the secular mind….This is why the good thief on the cross next to Christ had a change of heart…Not because of what Jesus said, but it was what he did….The only way to love like this is through developing a deep interior life, which is the result of prayer, fasting and the Sacraments….That is the ONLY way!….But I will tell you this…When we open ourselves up to grace….Nothing is impossible - That is how our hands open and so do our hearts - That is how we see!……One day at the home of dying in Kolkata India I watched this one nun feed a dying man…I tried to do it but he did not respond to me…So the sister took over…And I just watched her…She was so patient and spoke with such a kind tone to the man…And as a result, he began to eat…To do what the nun did does not come natural to us…It only comes through grace…To “give up”…......To “let go”…….To choose to walk the “road less traveled”…This does not come natural to any of us…But I will tell you this - Those actions are the fruit of an interior life grounded in God…When such a life is witnessed by the world…The hardest of people melt…This is the only way…This is what we must strive to do and be as Catholics…No matter what we say…No matter how eloquent the words spoken may be….They will never produce the results we intend…We must be transformed by prayer, fasting and frequent reception of the Sacraments…Then we will willing live in a sacrificial way…Then the world will see…And only then will the world hear

“All who heard him were astounded and said, “Is not this the man who in Jerusalem ravaged those who call upon this name, and came here expressly to take them back in chains to the chief priests?”………..But Saul grew all the stronger”

The conversion of St Paul shows us that even the toughest of people can change…And Paul before his conversion was a “hard nut” to crack!…..But God saw something in Paul that no one else saw, not even Paul…What about us?….Within each of us there are what I like to call deep caverns, which we do not know exist - But they are there! - Only God knows they exist, we need to be open to the Holy Spirit - To “tap” into those caverns - And if we do, the greatest adventure of a lifetime stands before us…..”But the Lord said to him, “Go, for this man is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before Gentiles, kings, and children of Israel”….Before this adventure takes place, like St Paul, our eyes need to open…And in order for the world to “see” Catholics must live in a sacrificial way…..Sacrificial love witnessed changes hearts…Most importantly, it changes our heart