May the Year of Saint Paul,

the untiring evangelizer, be a time for renewing our missionary heart. ‘Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel’ (1 Cor 9,16).
Oscar Andres Cardenal Rodriguez Maradiaga, SDB
Archbishop of Tegucigalpa (Honduras)

Gates of Heaven; two lamps for the great world.

Paul thunders with the Word,
Peter flashes from the Rock;
The first opens Heaven with his doctrine,
the other with the keys...


Venantius Fortunatus

Dear brothers and sisters,

as in early times, today too Christ needs apostles ready to sacrifice themselves. He needs
witnesses and martyrs like St. Paul.
Pope Benedict XVI
June 28, 2007

Many great saints

have built their lives on Galatians 2:20: “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.”

Bishop Michael Saltarelli

St. Paul introduces himself

as the teacher of the gentiles. His universality should be seen not only with regard to the peoples he converted, but from the point of view of his all-embracing learning.

Blessed James Alberione

In his letters and still more

in the course of his ministry, Paul gives us a clue to his approach: He is the "Preacher of truth all over the world. " He is the teacher, Magister, as he declares himself.

Blessed James Alberione

The Cross of Jesus Christ

is at the center of all that Paul does. He teaches us how to deal with the hardships and grief of life.

Bishop Michael Saltarelli

Some of those Churches

also caused him worry and chagrin.... Yet, he felt bound to the Communities he founded in a way that was far from cold and bureaucratic but rather intense and passionate. Thus, for example, he described the Philippians as "my brethren, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown" (Phil 4: 1).

Pope Benedict XVI

The Year of Saint Paul

is a time for us to stand on the shoulders of Catholic saints through the centuries and to live
Paul’s life-changing words in ways that address the world’s need for holiness in the 21st Century.

Bishop Michael Saltarelli

In his few brief letters

Paul repeats the name of Jesus a good 219 times, and the name of Christ 401 times.

Cornelius A'Lapide, SJ

Paul was aware of his personal weaknesses,

his intellectual and personality shortcomings, his unnamed struggle with “a thorn in his flesh.”(2 Corinthians 12:7) But his humble awareness of these weaknesses only made him more reliant on Christ.

Bishop Michael Saltarelli

Paul's understanding

of his personal weakness drove him to open up to the presence and power of Christ within him.

Bishop Michael Saltarelli

There is no one

who loved Christ more ardently than Paul, and no one who was more pleasing to God than Paul.

St. John Chrysostom

We know from Paul’s life

that at the heart of conversion is a surrender to the love of the Risen Lord.

Bishop Michael Saltarelli

But if there is one tenet

to which Paul stuck firmly it was mutual edification: "Let all things be done for edification" (I Cor 14: 26). Everything contributes to weaving the ecclesial fabric evenly, not only without slack patches but also without holes or tears.

Pope Benedict XVI

Paul uses maternal imagery

more often than he does paternal imagery, a feature that is impressive, especially when we consider its virtual absence from most discussions of the Pauline letters.

Beverly Roberts Gaventa
Our Mother St. Paul
Westminster John Knox

Paul appeared to [me] to be truly

the apostle. Therefore every apostle and every apostolate could draw from him.

Bl. James Alberione

Paul taught: "Do not quench the Spirit"

(I Thes 5: 19), that is, make room generously for the unforeseeable dynamism of the charismatic manifestations of the Spirit, who is an ever new source of energy and vitality.

Pope Benedict XVI

Christ lived within him

as the initial force, the sustaining power, and the ultimate purpose of his every thought, wish, word and deed.

Dionysius

It was his [Paul's] ambition

to lead every person to God and as far as lay within his power he realized his ambition.


St. John Chrysostom

Paul was steeped

in love for God and for Christ.... This love permeated his writings and he infused it in those with whom he came in contact.

Cornelius A'Lapide, SJ

St. Paul lived the whole Christ:

he plumbed the profound mysteries of his doctrine, of his heart, of his holiness, of his humanity and divinity.

Bl. James Alberione
Abundantes Divitiae Gratiae Suae (1954)

St. Paul has a heart that is rarely found,

the heart of a father and a mother in one: of a mother who loves immensely, and of a father who upholds and strengthens.

Bl. James Alberione
(Sermon, February 1938)

My grandfather, I'm told,

used to say that he "looked forward to having some very interesting conversations with St. Paul when he got to heaven." Two clerical gentlemen talking at ease in a club! It never seemed to cross his mind that an encounter with St. Paul might be rather an overwhelming experience for an Evangelical clergyman of good family. But when Dante saw the great apostles in heaven they affected him like mountains."

C.S. Lewis
Letters to Malcolm, letter 2

He lived and worked for Christ,

for him he suffered and died. How timely is his example today!
Pope Benedict XVI

[Paul's life as a persecutor]

... gave him an extended insight, on the one hand, into the ways and designs of Providence, and, on the other hand, into the workings of sin in the human heart, and the various modes of thinking in which the mind is actually trained.

John Henry Cardinal Newman

Saint Paul understood

how sin works in human nature and how the Holy Spirit can completely transform habits of corruption.

Bishop Michael Saltarelli

Once persecutor of Christ's flock

its staunch defender you became
when, driven by the love divine,
your former self you overcame.


Hymn to St. Paul, "Pressi Malorum"

On the one hand,

Paul was the recipient of God's power, whereas the newcomers [to Corinth] were (professed) executors of power; and on the other, God's power rested upon Paul in weakness, whereas the newcomers believe that God multiplied his power out of their power.

Paul Barnett
Paul, Missionary of Jesus
ISBN 978-0-8028-4891-8