Celebrating the Pauline Year: Paul’s Conversion (Part I)

In honor of the second millennium of the birth of Saint Paul, which scholars tell us occurred between 8 and 10 C.E., the Holy Father has set aside the year extending from June 28, 2008 to June 29, 2009 as a year dedicated to the great apostle. The “Year of Saint Paul” offers those who work with children excellent opportunity to draw children into the life and work of Paul, so important not only in the ancient formation of our faith but also in our efforts nearly every Sunday to deepen our faith and to intensify the interaction of our faith and our lives. The present TLC piece centers on Paul’s identity and conversion; pieces in the winter and spring issues will center on aspects of his work. The following paragraphs speak especially to leaders of children’s Liturgy of the Word; religion teachers, with the advantage of more time, can easily augment the ideas for use in religion class.

Introducing the Year of Paul
A good day to introduce the Pauline Year is Sunday, September 21, the Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, when we begin a series of readings from Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. Remind the children of how often we read Paul’s very words in letters he wrote to early Christian communities. Quote Paul’s “…to me life is Christ” (Philippians 1:21) and dwell briefly on that magnificent testimony of how much Christ meant to him; but then tell the group that Paul was not always a friend of Christ.

Paul’s Life
Summarize the apostle’s life, adjusting details to the maturity of the children and the available time. Paul was born in Tarsus, a city in southern present-day Turkey, not far from the Mediterranean coast, and supported himself as a tentmaker. The mobility of his trade—he could pick up his tools and move on with little difficulty—perhaps helps explain his later mobility as a missionary. Paul grew up an observant Jew, well-educated in Jewish traditions, and he remained deeply concerned about his Jewish brothers and sisters throughout his life. We have no contemporary portrait of Paul, but the ancient apocryphal “Acts of Paul and Thecla” (c. 180) describes him as “of a small stature with meeting eyebrows, bald [or shaved] head, bow-legged, strongly built, hollow-eyed, with a large crooked nose,” sometimes looking like a man and sometimes with the face of an angel (1:7). (The intrepid young woman, Thecla, deeply moved by Paul’s preaching, left her home in Iconium and her intended to become Paul’s disciple. Paul soon commissioned her “to teach the word of the Lord” [10:4] herself, which she did with great success. Thecla’s story, even if all its details are not “factual,” has touched many Christians through the centuries.)

Show the group a bust or icon of Paul or El Greco’s powerful portrait of the saint; perhaps older children would like to create their own portraits of Paul from the description. Leaders might frame the children’s portraits of Paul with poster board and exhibit them in a prominent place in the parish for the remainder of the Pauline Year. Children’s illustrations of events of Paul’s life might be displayed alongside the portraits. Entitle the entire exhibition with Paul’s words quoted in the previous paragraph.

Paul’s Conversion
The Acts of the Apostles introduces Paul (Saul was his Hebrew name) as an approving young spectator at the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7). Acts offers three descriptions of the famous event that transformed the fiery Christian persecutor into a champion of Christ (Acts 9, 22, 26); none of these accounts occurs in the Sunday Lectionary, although two of them are possible readings on January 25, the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul. Children’s Bibles often picture the event; Caravaggio’s fresco in the Church of Santa Maria del Populo in Rome is powerful. Help the children feel Paul’s desolation at the encounter and understand his subsequent confusion and uncharacteristic docility. Tell them that even after Paul’s baptism, other Christians, with good reason, doubted the sincerity of his conversion. Eventually they came not only to trust him, but to look to him for leadership.

Paul’s Mission
Paul became a tireless missionary with a special commission to bring the word of God to the non-Jewish peoples of the vast Roman Empire (Galatians 1:15–16). The New Testament preserves a description of Paul’s missionary activity, especially in Acts, as well as a good number of Paul’s letters to infant Christian communities. It is segments of these letters that we read so often during the Liturgy of the Word. Acts leaves Paul under house arrest in Rome where he still “proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ” (28:31). By tradition Paul died a martyr’s death in Rome by beheading. We do not know the exact date of Paul’s death, but the Church commemorates both his and Peter’s martyrdoms on June 29. Paul is often pictured with a book and a sword.

Listening to Paul’s Words
After reflecting on Paul’s life invite the children to listen to words Paul wrote while he was in prison in the city of Philippi, whose ruins lie in northeastern modern Greece. Proclaim the reading, Philippians 1:20–24, 27, and help the children understand Paul’s longing to be with Christ through death, but also his willingness to remain on earth to preach the Gospel.

Almost surely we will never be the great persecutor of Christ that Paul was or a champion of the faith of his stature; but the example of Paul’s conversion and subsequent passion for Christ ought to inspire us not only to serve the Lord Jesus in simple ways, but also to strive to submit ourselves without reservation to “Christ our life.” Include in the General Intercessions a prayer that the Church as a whole and each of us will do just that.