"Following the holy doctrine which he taught": why I rejoice on this feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul
Firstly, today's feast provides a focus of thanksgiving for time in my life lived in a community named after Saint Paul. When I weekly pray the General Thanksgiving - "but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory" - I am, of course, giving thanks for the grace bestowed upon me through the Sacraments and those other holy ordinances "after the example of thy holy Apostles". On this day, however, I recall with thanksgiving that my initiation into and formative years as a member of "the mystical body of thy Son" occurred in a particular place and in a particular time, a community named after Saint Paul, in the first 25 years of my life. (The stained glass window of the Apostle's conversion is from the parish.) When I return to my home parish, I look at the font in which I received the laver of regeneration; the altar from which I first received the holy mysteries; the steps on which I knelt to be confirmed; and I recall the rector who ministered to my family for over four decades and who first encouraged my discernment of vocation to the ministerial priesthood; and the priest who first heard my confession and gave me absolution. It is meet and right that these should, year by year, be the occasion for particular thanksgiving.
Today, in other words, provides me with an opportunity to do what Saint Paul did - to give thanks for a particular community and its life in Christ:
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you ... for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now (Philippians 1:3f).
Secondly, this feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul reminds me of what it means to have life in Christ. As the Apostle himself summarised the mystery of the Gospel:
even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 2:26f).
The collect for the feast of the Apostle petitions that we would follow "the holy doctrines which he taught". The apostolic doctrine expounds the meaning of my initiation into and experience of the sacramental life in a particular community and time; the community in which I was taught to pray and in which I was instructed in confessing the Faith of the Creeds.
The example and teaching of Saint Paul reveals what it means to be baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ, to partake of the Lord's Body and Blood in the holy Eucharist, to confess the Faith "delivered unto you" (I Corinthians 15:3), and to dwell in the grace of our Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost. That this is the saving mystery of God made manifest in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Thirdly, giving thanks on this feast for entering into "that holy fellowship" in a community named after Saint Paul, brings me to recognise the richness of what is meant by the confession of faith in "the Communion of Saints", of the ongoing reality of sharing with Saint Paul in "the riches of the glory of this mystery". This is one of the joys of the liturgical calendar commemorating Saints and of having churches named after Saints. As Hooker states, these annual commemorations call us to celebrate Christ "manifested great in himself, but great in other his Saints also", "annual selected times to meditate of Christ glorified in them" (LEP V.70.8). Likewise, to have particular communities named after a Saint - "the names of Angels and Saints whereby the most of our Churches are called" - celebrates how "by the ministry of Saints it pleased God ... to show ... his power", and to "cause inquiry to be made and meditation to be had of their virtues" (V.13.1 & 3).
The liturgical year's commemoration of the Saints and communities named after Saints proclaims that life in Christ is no abstraction but flesh-and-blood reality, in the life of the Saint commemorated, in the many lives which have contributed to the community named after the Saint. This, in other words, is the Real, the True, the Good, set before us, to see, hear, and touch. It is, the words of the Apostle, what it is to "lay hold on eternal life" (I Timothy 6:19).
May the light and joy of this festival bring us all to - in the words of the collect - "show forth our thankfulness" for the grace and hope of life in Christ.
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