25 January 2025

Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025:
32, Saturday 25 January 2025,
the Conversion of Saint Paul

A statue of Saint Paul at Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February). Tomorrow is the Third Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany III), with the Gospel reading recalling the beginning of Christ’s public ministry when Jesus reads and teaches in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4: 14-21).

Today is the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul and the Eighth Day and closing day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

Saint Peter and Saint Paul … a fresco in the Church of the Four Martyrs in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 19: 27-30 (NRSVA):

27 Then Peter said in reply, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?’ 28 Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.’

The Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul holding the church in unity … an early 18th century icon in the Museum of Christian Art in Iraklion, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Today is the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul [25 January]. The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 19: 27-30) talks about abandoning everything from the past for the sake of following Christ in apostolic ministry.

The account of the Apostle Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus is provided in one of the other readings today (Acts 9:1-22).

Because I was born a day after this feast day, my mother wanted to call me Paul. The uncle and aunt who brought me to be baptised – my father’s half-brother Arthur and his wife Kathleen – had other ideas. Another of my father’s brothers was also called Patrick, named after his maternal grandfather, Patrick Lynders. But my mother often continued to call me Paul. I am more than comfortable with the name Patrick, yet there is a way in these two days – the Conversion of Saint Paul (25 January) and my birthday (26 January) – come together for me as one celebration.

The Apostle Paul’s entire life is explained in terms of one experience – his meeting with Christ on the road to Damascus. Although he had a zealot’s hatred for Christ, who was just a few years older than him, Saint Paul probably never saw Jesus before the Ascension. Yet he was determined in chasing down the followers of Christ: ‘entering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonment’ (Acts 8: 3b).

But, on the road to Damascus, Christ enters Saint Paul’s own inner home, seizes possession of him, takes command of all his energy, and harnesses it so that Saint Paul becomes a slave of Christ in the ministry of reconciliation as a consequence of one simple sentence: ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting’ (Acts 9: 5b).

Saint Paul, who was blind in his prejudice, is blinded so that he can have a new vision. He is imprisoned so that he can bring his great message to the world. And the magnitude of his sins, including his attempts to wipe out Christianity completely, show us clearly that no matter how terrible the sin may be any sinner may be forgiven.

In the same way, the Apostle Peter’s denial of Christ – three times during his Passion – did not put him beyond the forgiveness and love of Christ. Saint Peter too, in an effort to save his own skin, denied he knew the prisoner, but became a prisoner himself and a martyr for Christ.

No matter what our failings and our weaknesses, no matter where our blind spots may be, Christ calls us – not once but constantly – to turn around, to turn towards him, to turn our lives around, to turn them over to him.

Instead of his persecution, Saint Paul is remembered as the first and greatest missionary.

Instead of his three denials, Saint Peter is remembered for his confession of faith, his acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah or the Christ, recorded in the three synoptic Gospels (Matthew 16: 13-20; Mark 8: 13-20; Luke 9: 18-20). That Confession of Saint Peter was marked many Church calendars last Saturday [18 January 2025], and marked the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Today, the Conversion of Saint Paul is celebrated throughout the Church – in the Anglican, Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Orthodox traditions. This day also marks the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity – or rather, the Octave of Christian Unity – from 18 to 25 January, linking those two feasts, was first suggested in 1908 by an American Episcopalian or Anglican monk, Father Paul Wattson, who was the superior of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, and who reintroduced Franciscan life to the Anglican Communion.

Appropriately, the icon of Christian Unity in the Eastern Orthodox tradition shows Peter and Paul embracing – almost wrestling – arms around each other, beards so close they are almost inter-twining. Every time I see this icon, I think of Psalm 133:

How very good and pleasant it is
when [brothers] live together in unity!
It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down upon the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down over the collar of his robes.
It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion.
For there the Lord ordained his blessing,
life for evermore.


So, despite many readings of the New Testament, especially the Acts of the Apostles, that see Saint Peter and Saint Paul in conflict with each other rather than complementing each other, they can be models for Church Unity.

Without that unity in the Early Church, its mission would have been hamstrung and hampered. For without unity there can be no effective mission, as the great Edinburgh Missionary Conference realised in 1910. And so the modern ecumenical movement has real roots in the mission of the Church.

As we come to the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, I pray that we may rejoice in the fact that differences can complement each other, and that we will see the diversity and unity that Saint Peter and Saint Paul wrestled with but eventually rejoiced in as models for our own unity today and in times to come.

Saint Peter (left) and Saint Paul (right) among the carved figures on the west front of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 25 January 2025, the Conversion of Saint Paul):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Whom Shall I Send?’ This theme was introduced last Sunday with a Programme Update by Rachael Anderson, Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 25 January 2025) invites us to pray:

O Lord, we thank you for the conversion of Paul and the power of your grace to transform lives. Give us the courage to follow your call, spreading the gospel with love and boldness. Like Paul, may we be faithful witnesses to your redeeming power.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who caused the light of the gospel
to shine throughout the world
through the preaching of your servant Saint Paul:
grant that we who celebrate his wonderful conversion
may follow him in bearing witness to your truth;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Almighty God,
who on the day of Pentecost
sent your Holy Spirit to the apostles
with the wind from heaven and in tongues of flame,
filling them with joy and boldness to preach the gospel:
by the power of the same Spirit
strengthen us to witness to your truth
and to draw everyone to the fire of your love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

A modern icon of the Conversion of Saint Paul

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

No comments: