On being a missionary at Kolbe

We are going to have a workshop on applying the themes of the writings of St Paul to the mission of Kolbe Catholic College. Sr Shelley Barlow will lead us through the workshop process. Here is one of the readings she gave us to reflect on before the workshop.

“Paul, Model of Missionary Discipleship For All Time”
Fr. Eddie Rogan, County Mayo, Ireland

For the last four years I have been part of the Mission from my home diocese in the west of Ireland to the Amazon region of Brazil. When I was leaving Ireland in 1996 I little dreamt that twelve years later I would be a missionary in South America’s Amazon region, sitting and writing in the late evening the present magazine article about Saint Paul.

There is undoubtedly a strong missionary consciousness among many people. This is wonderful because the missionary dimension must characterize all our lives as followers of Jesus Christ.

A great inspiration for all of us as missionaries, whether abroad or at home is the apostle, Paul. The word apostle means “messenger” or “one who is sent”. In a sense we are all apostles because we are all sent as messengers of the Gospel to the world we live in, which, although it may not know it, is thirsting for God. We are all called by Jesus to be his missionary disciples.

The following article is a summary of a study of Saint Paul that I recently did here in my parish in Brazil with the parish youth groups.

Paul was a missionary disciple of great significance. Pope Benedict XVI sought to highlight Paul’s significance, as a model of missionary discipleship, when he announced the Pauline Holy Year, which extends from the 28th of June 2008 to the 29th of June 2009. Apart from Jesus, the bi-millennium of whose birth was celebrated in the jubilee year 2000, and his mother, Mary, the bi-millennium of whose birth was celebrated in the Marian Year (1987-1988), Saint Paul is the only other person to have the bi-millennium of his birth celebrated by the Church.

This Pauline Holy Year offers us a challenge to follow Paul, first of all, in conversion to Christ, and consequently in placing Jesus at the center of our lives. Like the apostle Paul, we too have a mission to build communities that draw life from the Word of God and the Sacraments, that practice sincere love of God and neighbour, that care for the poor, the elderly, the sick and the marginalized, that feel impelled to live and share the Gospel as missionary disciples of Jesus. Following Paul, we need to live a Christianity that is more knowledgeable of the Scriptures, more prayerful and more missionary.

Paul was an important Jewish Christian in the first century. In paintings he is often represented with a book and a sword in his hands. The book symbolizes the Word of God, which he announced with energy and enthusiasm. The sword symbolizes his martyrdom by decapitation in Rome about 67 A.D.

Paul was born in the city of Tarsus (in what is now Turkey). He was born between 1-10 A.D. In his day Tarsus was a large bustling city of the Roman Empire with a population of about 300,000. It was the administrative capital of that region, and had a university equal to that of Athens. In 51 B.C. the city had Cicero (106-43B.C.), the Roman orator, statesman, writer and philosopher, was its proconsul. In 41B.C., Tarsus was the place where the celebrated couple, Cleopatra and Mark Anthony, first met.

Paul belonged to Jews of the Diaspora (Greek: “to spread out”). They lived in a land and culture that was not theirs, a long way from Jerusalem and the temple. They had to cope with a whole range of different experiences and challenges not encountered at home in Israel. Diaspora Jews tended to be more open to and tolerant of the differences the encountered in people of other races.

Paul, had Roman citizenship, was a highly orthodox Jew, and Greek speaking. It was common at the time for Jews of the Diaspora to have two names, one Hebrew (Saul) and the other foreign (Paul). Paul was born on the frontier of a number of different cultures (particularly Greek, Roman and Hebrew cultures). This accounts for his later amazing predisposition and ability to be Christ’s apostle to the pagans, mediating the Christian message to other cultures. More than anyone else, because of his background and formation Paul was able to take Jesus accessible to other peoples and cultures.

Paul studied in Jerusalem, under the renowned Rabbi Gamaliel Paul. There he acquired a great enthusiasm for the mosaic law ( Galatians 1, 14; Philippians 3, 5-6; Acts 22, 3; 23, 6; 26,5). There is no text that suggests Paul met or knew of Jesus at the time. He certainly had no inkling of the future repercussions of the crucifixion of this itinerant preacher named Jesus. After Christ’s death and resurrection, Christianity began to spread. Being a profoundly orthodox Jew, Paul saw in the new movement inspired by Jesus a serious risk and threat to Jewish identity. His stance, therefore, towards Christianity was one of unflinching intolerance. For this reason he became a “persecutor of the Church of God”, as he admits in three of his letters (see 1 Corinthians 15, 9; Galatians 1, 13; Philippians 3, 6).

On his way to persecute the Christians in Damascus, Paul had a profound encounter with Christ. The idea that Paul “fell from his horse” during this experience with Jesus comes from later paintings of the event. In the Acts of the Apostles there are three accounts of the conversion of Saint Paul (Acts 9 and 26). In this encounter, Jesus reveals himself personally to Paul and gives him his mission to announce the Gospel (see Acts 9, 1-22). We do not know exactly what interior, spiritual experience Paul had when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. However, it certainly was a kind of rebirth or baptism in the Spirit that shaped his future. Paul’s future life, teaching and mission would be inexplicable without this first meeting with Jesus.

Before becoming a Christian Paul confesses he was a staunch Pharisee (Philippians 3, 5). In his time the Pharisees were a relatively small group, numbering less than 10,000. “Pharisee” meant “separated” (“distanced”). The Pharisees kept their distance from the sinners, the poor the illiterate and the sick. They believed the Messiah would come when all were irreprehensible as they themselves were. They believed that the Messiah would be a reward that God would give to the Jews for the rigorous practice of the law.

After Paul converted to Christ he came to leave his Pharisaic mindset behind. He did not wish the Gospel to be the announcement of laws but rather the announcement of freedom with responsibility. As a Christian Paul came to realize that Jesus loved humanity and gave himself for it without any merit on humanity’s part. This transformed outlook of Paul came to be a very important component of his teaching. It led to many difficulties during his missionary life.
After his conversion, during the period up to about the year 37, Paul went for a time to Arabia, then to Damascus and then briefly to Jerusalem (see Galatians 1, 17-18). After that Paul spent the years up to about the year 44 or 45 in his home place, Tarsus (see Acts 9, 30). They were hidden years but undoubtedly one that included much study, reflection and maturation in which Paul deepened his understanding of the significance of Jesus Christ and of his own missionary vocation. In approximately the year 45 another follower of Christ named Barnabas providentially came looking for Paul in Tarsus and brought him to the city of Antioch of Syria. Paul stayed there for a period. A year later his missionary journeys began.

Paul tells us that he made many missionary journeys (2 Corinthians 11, 26). In the Acts of the Apostles Luke organizes them into four. In each journey Luke relates a preaching given by Paul, a miracle realized by him, a confrontation between the Gospel and superstition or magic and a trial suffered by Paul.

Paul’s missionary journeys could be very dangerous. In 2 Corinthians 11, 22-29 tells us of a whole series of dangers (whipping, stoning, shipwreck, thieves, etc) that he had to confront. They were often marked by conflict. That Paul encountered hostility on the part of Jews who did not convert was not surprising. The Acts of the Apostles show the emergence of such hostility in every city Paul appeared in.

However, worse conflicts arose between Paul and those whom Paul called “false brothers”. These were Jews who converted to Christianity but still wanted to maintain for all Christians, whether of pagan or Jewish origin, the rigors of the Jewish law involving circumcision, diet, etc. These opponents or “false brothers” of Paul were especially the Judaising Christian missionaries, whom Paul also called “super apostles”. They opposed Paul systematically as he went from city to city. Luke, writing his Acts of the Apostles twenty years after Paul’s death, does not speak about this conflict between Paul and Judaising Christians. He seems in fact to hide it. This is because one of Luke’s aims was to make Paul acceptable to those Jewish Christians who had been his opponents, or had been guided by his opponents. Paul’s letters, however, reveal the bitter conflicts clearly (see 2 Corinthians 11, 5; 12, 11; Galatians 1, 9; Philippians 3, 2).

For Paul, the letters he wrote were a useful way of making contact with and providing opinion-forming leadership for his mission Churches. Paul wrote letters to the mission communities, some of which have been lost (see 1 Corinthians 5, 9; 16, 1). There is discussion as to whether all the letters that bear his name were actually written by him. Those letters, which no one doubts had Paul for their author, are sometimes called the “Pauline Letters” while those, which many scholars consider to have been written by disciples or companions of Paul, are called “Deutero-Pauline Letters”. The “Pauline Letters” are Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon. The “Deutero-Pauline Letters” are Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. In general the “Deutero-Pauline Letters” seem a bit less radical in tone, offering a toned down version of Paul’s views.

Paul was undoubtedly the most important missionary disciple to the pagan nations. He, one might say, shook the world. He was so important that some claim it was he and not Christ that founded Christianity. It was Paul more than anybody else who brought the Gospel beyond Palestine, making it universal. He facilitated the pagans in enculturating Christianity in their own cultures. This cannot have been easy for Paul. After all he was a Jew by nature and nurture. These new Christians were so different! They failed to see things that were completely clear to a Jew! Yet Paul did not panic. He did not refuse to look at a problem nor seek to suppress it. He knew that excessive authoritarianism might kill a church but never resurrect one. At times he just did not understand these new Christians. He advised them and sometimes fought with them and reprimanded them. However, he did not lose faith in them or quench the Spirit among them.

Today’s world presents challenges similar to those that existed in the time of Paul. We witness today not just a process of dechristianization of society. We see also a repaganization, through the negation of God and worship of the idols which possession, pleasure and power can be. In this context, we can learn from Paul, his missionary method and enthusiasm and above all from his lasting faith, hope and love. For all of these reasons Paul is a perennial model of missionary discipleship.