The Conversion of St Paul
The Conversion of St Paul Each January 25, we celebrate the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul , probably the most seminal event of the early Church. Saul, a student of the great Pharisee rabbi Gamaliel the Elder, zealously sought out and killed Christians, that was until his ' Road to Damascus ' moment when he encountered our Lord Jesus Christ who appeared to him in His resurrected glory (Acts 9:1-9) asking him, " Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? " - and Saul was never the same again. From being an obsessed self-righteous anti-Christian, he went on to become the most ardent missionary in the history of the Church spreading the Gospel of Christ to both Jews and non-Jews alike. Saul was born into a well-to-do Jewish family, from the house of Benjamin, in the Roman city of Tarsus in Cilicia (in modern-day Turkey). In keeping with Jewish traditions, on the eighth day, he was circumcised and received the Hebrew name Saul. His birthplace Tarsus automatically ea...