Paulus of Tarsus and his message

 

in the words of Anna Caiazza
     


Rita Salerno (courtesy)

Italian version

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Sr. Anna Calazza, from Naples, with a degree in Law and a Licentiate in Canon Law, is a daughter of St. Paul since 1985. She dedicates herself to animation and diffusion, to radio editorial books. She has fulfilled the task of provincial Councillor for six full years. At present she is a General Councillor.
 

What would Paul of Tarsus say to today’s man?

I think that the Apostle of Gentiles would have a lot to say to today’s men and women. No definitions appears to be more appropriate than this to bring to evidence the extra-ordinary actuality of his figure and his message for today’s variegated humanity. Benedict XVI often repeats, “Paul is not a figure of the past”. I would rather say that he is a figure of all times, because he embodies the deepest aspirations of the human being, his need of transcendence, his nostalgia of authenticity, stability and communion. He who approaches Paul-and the Pauline Year is contributing to this a lot- overcoming the obstacle of th apparent difficulty that we find in his writings, discovers, first of all, a “solid” and determined man, because he tends towards a unique centre: Jesus Christ; a passionate man, authentic in manifesting his feelings. His language is franc, sometimes biting, often full of tenderness and, always, of deep participation. Paul has the other at heart, any other. No obstacle restrains him; no ethnic, social, religious belonging frightens him.  He crosses, shares to their depth all differences, shoulders the other, makes himself “all to all”, without giving in to easy compromises. It is because of his interest for man at 360° that he cannot help proposing to him –with charity and respect-the motive of his happiness: faith in Jesus Christ.

What can the religious learn daily and make it to fructify?

I think that it is not mistaken to think of Paul as “father and model” of the consecrated, above all because of his being rooted in Christ, because of his life totally dedicated to Him and to the proclamation of His Gospel. However, I would like to underline some “secrets” of the Apostle which, to me, must be guarded and cultivated ever more by the religious.

First of all, the deep and always renewed awareness of being chosen by God from the time we were still in the womb of our mothers (See Gal 1,15), of having been “clutched” and conquered by God. This love of predilection pushes us to the mission (See 2 Cor  5, 14): to communicate this love is a need that “compels us” (See. 1 Cor 9,16). Paul reminds us that we must live of faith (See Rom 1, 17) and that the “success of evangelisation” is not our work, it does not depend on our “professional” state, on our means. This will free us also from the temptation of abandoning our field of activity when we do not see the hoped results…I believe that, today,  witnessing to the primacy of God in our life is the true prophecy of the consecrated life.

Paul teaches us that we cannot conceive the apostolic life without the light that flows from prayer. A prayer born from a solicitous and grateful heart, that embraces persons, situations, problems, joys and that expresses the urge of taking the Good News, Christ himself, to all men and women. A prayer after the example of the Apostle, who does not forget our “co-operators for the Gospel”.

Finally, there is another interior dimension of Paul which we, consecrated, must cultivate: to welcome the fatigue, the suffering and the eventual failure of our apostolate. In other words, it is the matter of carrying in us the cross of Christ, so that all of us may have life. (See 2 Cor 4,10-12).

The scopes of the Pauline Year are to make St. Paul better known and to insert him into an ecumenical project of growth and dialogue. According to you, how is it  possible to propose it to the youths? 

I am convinced that the Apostle Paul is truly able to create enthusiasm among the youths, who are generally attracted by people that embody great ideals, by witnesses who open them to boundless and mysterious horizons. Paul is a daring man, who struggled for what he believed, who moved always “beyond”, obeying the imperious power of the Spirit. He struggled also against himself, and knew how to confess his weaknesses, to acknowledge his failures. He believed in friendship and collaboration, in the warmth that the belonging to a community can give, but never did he shut up himself from the “outsiders”. How to propose Paul to the youths? First of all by helping them to approach this great Apostle directly, through the narration of the Acts, then , gradually through his own writings. True, the content is dense, the language is often hermetic and difficult, his thought is volcanic  and, sometimes, not linear at the first reading. But, let us trust: if they enter the world of Paul with patience and with a good guide, they will allow themselves to be involved by his breaking out personality, by his unshakeable certainties and, who knows, they will discover to share his ideals.    

How to narrate to today’s youths the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, the greatest missionary of all times?

There can be many ways: I would start from the narration of the event of Damascus, for instance from the narrations in the Acts of the Apostles, which are extremely fascinating, built up on a “cinematographic” register: the light, the voice that calls and the dialogue, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”….”Who are you, Lord?”….”I am the Jesus whom you persecute”: I feel that it is important to transmit the deep meaning of what happened in Damascus: Christ, who identified himself with the Christians persecuted by Paul, broke through into the world of Paul and upset him; from that very moment, nothing was like before anymore…Only in this sense we can speak of conversion.

To you, if Paul lived today, which type of mass-mediatic initiative would he think of?

In 1914, my Founder, Blessed James Alberiore, shared and referred an expression used almost a century ago by Monsignor Ketteler, archbishop of Magonza, “If St Paul came back to the world, he would become a journalist”. It may be. Perhaps he would be a special, realistic, inspired and passionate person of internet, for a “global” communication of the Gospel.

The figure of St. Paul, defined by the Pope “itinerant ambassador of Christ” and “evangeliser of people and cultures”, is a symbol of union in the variegated ecumenical Mosaic. What role can the religious, particularly the Daughters of St. Paul, play in this scenario?

Paul was an evangeliser of the Frontiers, he who, because of his origins and formation, lived in the frontier between the Judaic and the Greek-Hellenistic world. He experienced the laceration of divisions in his own flesh, prayed and worked for unity, patiently building up a communion that makes the diversities relative, but keeps them, because in Christ the Greek, the free man, man count as much as the gentile, the slave, the woman…. His “Ecumenical” style is a strong provocation for the consecrated. It is an invitation to feel truly debtors of the Gospel towards everybody, without any distinction or discrimination; he is a stimulus to cultivate a mentality open to diversity, to dialogue and confrontation at all levels, in full respect for the other and in charity.

In particular, for us Daughters of St. Paul, who consider the Apostle as “form” of our being disciples and apostles, all this is translated into a more convinced and attentive ecumenical opening, in pastoral solicitude that makes us to treat men according to their physical, intellectual, moral and civil conditions (Blessed G. Alberione), in the commitment to be “all to all”, but without emptying the Gospel of its power and truth, giving value to beauty and good wherever the seed of the Word is present: in every person, in every people, in every culture and religion.

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