“Let hearts rejoice who search for the Lord,” we pray in
today’s responsorial psalm, Psalm 105. For what am I searching?
In the first reading, Philippians 3: 3-8a, we encounter Paul at a
time in his life when what matters above all else was knowing Jesus. Nothing
else mattered to him. “I…consider everything as a loss,” Paul says to us, “because of the supreme good of knowing Christ
Jesus my Lord.” What a grace when, in our lives, we, too, have come to the
realization that knowing Jesus is the supreme good. Nothing in this world
matches or beats achieving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Nothing! Nothing!
There was a point in Paul’s life when he persecuted
Christians, brought them in chains to the leaders of the Jewish religion. He says in Phil. 3: 3-8a: “…in zeal I
persecuted the Church, in righteousness based on the law I was blameless.” As we
read in this same passage, Paul belonged “to the race of Israel, of
the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrew parentage, in observance of the law a
Pharisee.” On his way to seeking out
Christians in order to send them to prison in chains, Jesus confronted Paul: “Saul,
Saul, why are you persecuting me” (Acts
22: 7)? From that moment on, Paul's life changed forever. He was no longer a persecutor of the Christian faith but a
believer who gave his life for Christ.
Jesus knew Paul. He created Paul. He watched Paul and saw
his passion for what was right. He intervened when Paul was obviously following
a path that was contrary to the will of God. Jesus knows you and me also. He created us. He
watches us. He sees our passion for what is right and knows when we are
marching down a path that is a dangerous one that leads us far from the Truth. He knows when we are searching for God where
God cannot be found. He will stop us at
the right moment, as He stopped Paul and turned Paul away from evil. He will do the same for us at a time chosen by the Lord!
