Father Mitch: Saint Paul Steward of the Mysteries

Confirmation

Father Mitch Pacwa: Saint Paul Steward of the Mysteries

Part II: The Sacrament of Confession, given at the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Birmingham, AL on September 11, 2008.

Father Mitch’s Talk on Baptism and Saint Paul

Givin on September 4, 2008

Based on the book:

St. Paul: Jubilee Year of the Apostle Paul Edition: A Bible Study for Catholics

Father Mitch Continues Teaching on Saint Paul Tonight!

Father Mitch Pacwa, continues a series on Saint Paul in St. Paul’s Cathedral in Birmingham, AL, begining tonight at 7:00 P.M. Everyone is invited, there is no admission or registration. This series will continue for the next five weeks. Father Mitch will be available after the talk to autograph books and answer questions.

I hope to have the video of last week’s talk on this web page soon, but for now you can go here to view it.

Father has released a series of audio compact discs that are available from Ignatius Productions. Those using Father Mitch’s St. Paul: Jubilee Year of the Apostle Paul Edition: A Bible Study for Catholics may find that these teaching cd’s to be a great aditional resource to using the book. Topics include:

• Introduction to Saint Paul
• St. Paul on Baptism
• St. Paul on Confession
• St. Paul on Confirmation
• St. Paul on the Eucharist
• St. Paul on the Priesthood
• St. Paulon Marriage, Culture and the End Times

Check out Ignatius Productions for more details!

Pope Benedict on Saint Paul

The continuing Catechesis:

 

The Pauline concept of apostleship went “beyond that of the group of Twelve” explained the Holy Father. “It was characterised by three elements: the first was the fact of having seen the Lord, in other words of having encountered Him in a way that marked his life. … Definitively then, it is the Lord Who confers the apostolate, not individual presumption. Apostles do not make themselves but are created so by the Lord”.

The second characteristic is that of “having been sent. In fact, the Greek term ‘apostolos’ means envoy, … the representative of a principal. … Once again the idea emerges of an initiative arising from someone else, from God in Jesus Christ, to Whom one is duty-bound”, of “a mission to be accomplished in His name, putting all personal interests aside”.

“Announcing the Gospel and the consequent founding of Churches” is the third requisite. “The tile of apostle”, said Pope Benedict, “is not and cannot be a merely honorary title. It truly, even dramatically, involves the entire existence of the person concerned”.

St. Paul also defined apostles as “servants of God, Whose grace acts in them”, said the Pope. “A typical element of the true apostle … is a form of identification between the Gospel and the evangeliser, both share the same destiny. Indeed no-one so much as Paul highlighted how announcing the cross of Christ is a ’stumbling block and foolishness’ to which many react with misunderstanding and refusal. That happened then and it should be no surprise that the same thing happens today”.

“With the stoical philosophy of his time, Paul shared the idea of tenacious perseverance in all the difficulties he had to face; but he went beyond the merely human perspective by recalling … God’s love and Christ’s. … This is the certainty, the profound joy that guided the Apostle though all those events: nothing can separate us from the love of God, and this love is the real treasure of human life”.

“As we may see, St. Paul gave himself to the Gospel with all his life”, said the Holy Father in conclusion. “He undertook his ministry with faithfulness and joy that he ‘might by all means save some’. And though aware of his own relationship of paternity – even, indeed, of maternity – towards the Churches, his attitude to them was one of complete service, declaring: “I do not mean to imply that we lord it over your faith; rather, we are workers with you for your joy’. This remains the mission of all the apostles of Christ in all times: to be collaborators of true joy”.

 

Father Mitch Pacwa at Cathedral Tonight!

Father Mitch Pacwa,  will present a series on Saint Paul in St. Paul’s Cathedral in Birmingham, AL, begining tonight at 7:00 P.M. Everyone is invited, there is no admission or registration. This series will continue for the next six weeks. Father Mitch will be available after the talk to autograph books and answer questions.

Father has released a series of audio compact discs that are available from Ignatius Productions. Those using Father Mitch’s St. Paul: Jubilee Year of the Apostle Paul Edition: A Bible Study for Catholics may find that these teaching cd’s to be a great aditional resource to using the book. Topics include:

• Introduction to Saint Paul
• St. Paul on Baptism
• St. Paul on Confession
• St. Paul on Confirmation
• St. Paul on the Eucharist
• St. Paul on the Priesthood
• St. Paulon Marriage, Culture and the End Times

Check out Ignatius Productions for more details!

Pope Benedict Continues Catechesis on Saint Paul

From Asia News Italy:

Christianity “is not a philosophy or a moral norm; we are Christians only if we encounter Jesus”. As for Paul on the road to Damascus, this encounter changes both our way of thinking and our life itself, clearing away what was essential up until that moment, while it is “only life in Christ that matters”. To the 8,000 people present today in the audience hall at the Vatican, Benedict XVI again spoke of the figure of St Paul. Last week, he had sketched out his biography, while today he dwelt upon the meaning of the “experience on the road to Damascus, what is commonly called his conversion”.

“The decisive moment in Paul’s life took place during the third decade of the first century. Much has been written about this from various points of view, and it is certain that here there was a turning point, a change of perspective”. “He began to think about everything that had constituted the reason for his existence up until then as a waste of time, as rubbish”.

The pope recalled that Luke narrates the event in three sections of the Acts of the Apostles. “The average reader”, he adds, “dwells upon the details, like the light from the sky, the fall, the blindness . . .” But these details “are all related to the center of this episode: the Risen One appears like a splendid light and speaks to Saul; he transforms his way of thinking and his life itself”. In the ancient Church, baptism was also called illumination, because it makes us see the light. “What is referred to theologically takes place physically for Paul. Paul was transformed not by any thought of his own, but by an event, by the presence of the Risen One. This encounter is the center of Luke’s account; it changed [Paul's] life, and in this sense it can be called a conversion”.

St Paul himself speaks of his “conversion” in his letters. “He never talked about the details”, Benedict XVI emphasized, “and I think this is because he was able to assume that everyone knew the story about how he was changed from a persecutor into a disciple”. “Although he does not speak about the details, he mentions various times that he, too, is a witness of the Resurrection of Jesus, from whom he received directly his mission as an Apostle”. The pope cited the letters to the Romans, the Corinthians, and the Galatians in this regard. In the latter of these, in particular, Paul talks about when “he who chose me from my mother’s womb” called him to proclaim him among the pagans, and thus he “emphasizes that he is also a true witness of the Risen One” and “has his own mission, received directly from Jesus”.

“This new direction for his life”, the pope emphasized, “was not the result of a psychological process, of a moral and intellectual maturation, but came from the outside; it was not the result of his maturation, but of his encounter with Christ, an event that transformed him”. “in this sense, he died, and the resurrection was his own as well; the past was dead, and he rose with the risen Christ”. “No amount of psychological analysis can clarify this, only the event itself; the encounter is the key for understanding what happened. In this deeper sense, we may speak of a conversion, of a real event that changed all of the standards; what had been essential is now rubbish, and only life in Christ matters”.

This means that Christianity is not a new philosophy or a moral norm for us either; we are Christian only if we encounter Jesus”. “Of course, he does not appear to us in this dazzling, irresistible way. but we can encounter him in the liturgy, in life with the Church”. “It is only in this personal relationship with the Risen One that we truly become Christians, and thus open our reason to all of the wisdom of Christ, to all of the richness of the truth”. “Let us ask”, he concluded, “for the gift of a lively faith, for a large and open heart, for a charity for all of that renews the world”.

Pope Benedict on Saint Paul

From today’s general audience, from Asia News Italy:

Today, he sketched a biography of the apostle to the gentiles, leaving the subject of his conversion, “the fundamental turning point of his life”, until next Wednesday.

Benedict XVI first highlighted that Paul – born in Tarsus, probably in the year 8 – “spoke Greek, even though he had a name of Latin or Roman origin”. He was “a meeting point of three cultures” – Jewish, Greek, and Roman – “and perhaps for this reason as well was able to mediate between cultures, in a true universality”.

Paul was educated in Jerusalem by the rabbi Gamaliel, “according to the strictest norms of the Pharisees”, for which reason he believed in a “profound orthodoxy that saw a risk, a threat in the man called Jesus”. “This explains the fact that he clearly persecuted the Church of God. He was on the road to Damascus precisely in order to prevent the spread of this sect, as he himself said”. From that moment, the persecutor of Christianity “became a tireless apostle of the Gospel, and passed into history for what he did as a Christian, or rather as an apostle”.

The pope then recalled his apostolic activity, which “is subdivided on the basis of the three missionary voyages, to which is added a fourth, when he was taken to Rome as a prisoner”. Among the various moments in Paul’s life, Benedict XVI recalled his famous speech in the agora in Athens: “In the ancient cultural capital, he preached to the pagans and Greeks. In the agora, he gave a model speech for explaining to the Greeks that this God is not foreign and unknown, but one they had been waiting for, the deepest response to their anticipation”.

In conclusion, Saint Paul “dedicated himself to the proclamation of the Gospel, without holding anything back”, making himself, as he wrote, “the servant of all, confronting harsh trials”. “I do everything”, he said, “for the sake of the Gospel”. “This commitment”, the pope said, “can be explained only by a soul that is enraptured with the light of Christ”, by the conviction that “it is truly necessary to proclaim the light of Christ to the world, to give a glimpse of the beauty and necessity of the Gospel for all of us”. “Let us ask”, he concluded, “that the Lord may show his light to us as well, and that we may also give the world the light of the Gospel, the truth of Christ”.

Bishop Baker on Reading Saint Paul

Ecumenical Vespers Tonight

Cathedral of Saint Paul, with Bishop Baker presiding with the Alabama Faith Council in attendance. All are invited to attend!