An Old Man’s Heart, Faith and Courage

A group of men, Jews, quickly walk back into town talking and laughing. Behind them laying in the dirt is a man. A man bruised, beaten and bleeding. They have just finished stoning the man, a Jew, leaving him for dead.

After a while you see a tiny bit of movement. He is not dead. Slowly he moves, very tentatively. A couple of men arrive and huddle around him. They help him slowly get up. He begins to walk and they animatedly begin to talk to him. They stop him from walking and engage in a contested discussion. The man shakes his head. Instead of walking away to safety the man starts walking back into town!

You would think that this man had the common sense of one of the stones they bounced off his head! Why would he go back into a town where the men that stoned him are? Was he nuts? No, what he had few others ever had or have now. One, he had a heart the size of a whale. Second, he had the Faith the size of a mountain and thirdly, he had courage the size of an ocean. He was a special man. Who was he?

His given name was Saul, but he changed that to Paul for his ministry. Why was this brave man stoned? What crime did he commit that was so grievous?

He evangelized the Gentiles. He didn’t dialogue, he evangelized.

Yes, he told them about the Truth and the Way. He told them about Jesus Christ. He changed the way they thought and lived. He taught the way of God and what God expected. He taught about the Son of God and his sacrifice for their sins. He taught the Gospel.

This new progressive teaching had them learn new moral codes. They should no longer get drunk and party all night. They could no longer have homosexual relationships. They could no longer abort their babies or leave unwanted infants out at a garbage dump to die. He taught the love of Christ and the Father. He gave them the Holy Spirit and they more than listened…..they believed. They converted.

We call him St. Paul the Apostle and for 1900 years we Christians and most of the civilized World followed these teachings. We took up St. Paul’s preaching and actions as our own and evangelized nation after nation.

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20.

Let’s look at what we face in today’s society. An almost complete regression back to the Pagan days of the Greek and Romans that St. Paul encountered. We have a society that glorifies homosexuals and their unions. It is legal to abort our babies and recently it has become legal in some States to just leave a live infant on a cold table to cry until he or she dies. Morality has become relative to individual wants, much like the Pagans in Paul’s time. We have pantheism and paganism making a resurgence.

My how we have regressed.

We need the Heart, Faith and Courage of an old man from long ago. St. Paul, ora pro nobis.

Editor