Conversion is an experience we are invited to have every day and every moment of life. It happens through renewed encounter with God. Each time we encounter God genuinely, we come out renewed in our mode of thinking and mode of living. Today the Church celebrates the conversion of Paul, the great Apostle to the Gentiles. The conversion is presented as a mysterious experience of new life which Paul had on his fateful journey to Damascus. The momentous experience of Jesus radically changed his mode of seeing God and humanity. He became a changed man and got a new mission to become an instrument of divine light to all who dwell in darkness of error.
Paul’s Conversion as a Reception of New Light
Paul thought he had the light and considered the adherents of the new Christian movement as people in the darkness of error. In fact, his depth knowledge of the Jewish Law (the Torah), had inclined him to think he was the carrier of light. In the Jewish tradition, the Torah is used as a metaphor for light, and one who studies and keeps the Torah is considered as a radiant light wherever he or she is. Psalm 119:109 says, “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”
Paul sincerely believed he was working in this light, but when he encountered Jesus on the Damascus Road, he came face to face with the concrete word of God, the light in concrete. The new light dazzled him, shook everything in him, and he saw his old self as enveloped in darkness. He became blind. In fact, what he received later on was not only a new physical sight but a new spiritual vision. He began to see God through the new light of Jesus Christ, and everything around him acquired a new meaning.
This is what happens when one genuinely encounters Jesus. He gets converted, as he passes through blindness to new sight. Conversion is, thus, the reception of a new light and a new understanding of life. It is a gradual and total transformation of one’s mode of thinking and mentality.
Missionary Work as an Apostolate Spreading God’s Light
The conversion of Paul is also an experience of a new call for mission, a call to become an instrument of God’s light to the nations. This is the same mission that Jesus entrusts to his apostles in the Gospel of today from Mark 16:15-18. He commissions them: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned” (16:15-16). The world that Jesus is sending the apostles is one filled with different forms of darkness.
The mission of baptizing here, is actually the rite of transferring the people from the region of spiritual darkness to the region of light. The diverse forms of darkness are represented by the dangers or obstacles enumerated as demonic forces, serpents, deadly poison, and sickness. The missionaries are empowered to overcome these obstacles because of the power of the new light which they carry with them. Every conscientious missionary and preacher of the gospel, today, encounters similar forms of obstacles, and the task is to inspire in others a new way of thinking and a new way of living by presenting Jesus to them.
Opening Up to the Light of Conversion
The conversion of St. Paul teaches us that we can often be in ignorance and still deceive ourselves that we are on the part of knowledge and truth. This was the mindset of Paul when he was persecuting the Church.
The vision of Jesus on the way to Damascus shocked him to the core and helped him to rediscover himself. Paul opened up to the new light and became a vibrant champion of the new Christian movement and instrument of enlightenment to many generations.
God is always flashing the light of conversion on us waiting for us to open up and walk in the new light. The unfortunate fact is that most times, the world tries to deceive us with other forms of light which end up enveloping us in thicker darkness. May the Spirit of God continue to enlighten our hearts and minds so that we may continue to experience a new and deeper conversion every moment!
