He was the keeper of the garments

of the false witnesses and stoners,
approving the death of holy Stephen.
Now he is a column in the living temple,
as sturdy as a palm
as vibrant as a cedar of Lebanon.

Sequence for the Conversion of St. Paul

If Paul were alive today

....to make himself heard, he would ascend the highest pulpits and multiply his words with every means that progress offered: press, movies, radio, television....

Bl. James Alberione

Paul experienced it all:

rejection, calumny, indifference, shipwrecks, imprisonment and, ultimately, martyrdom as symbolized in art by Paul holding a sword.

Bishop Michael Saltarelli

In the presence of Paul

many people come to a halt as if face-to-face with a very high mountain whose peak they despair of reaching.

Blessed James Alberione

[Paul's] letters can be down to earth

and practical, but almost always with a rhetorical flair (whether deliberate or not) that communicated with the utmost effectiveness.

Michael J. Gorman
Apostle of the Crucified Lord
Eerdmans

Pray and act

as Paul did in Christ.

Blessed James Alberione

He taught justice to all the world

and, when he had reached the limits of the western world,
he gave his witness before those in authority; then he left this world and was taken up into the holy place, a superb example of endurance.

Pope St. Clement I

Each time I read the letters

of St. Paul, I am overwhelmed with consolation as I hear the sound of this spiritual trumpet.

St. John Chrysostom

Paul did not separate

his persona from his ministry. For Paul's life and work coalesced 'in Christ.' His entire ministry, characterized as it was by hardship and suffering, was driven by the 'love of Christ' (2 Cor 5: 14), that is, by his sense of Christ's love for him expressed in his sacrificial death.

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

O bliss of Paul, beyond all thought!

To paradise, yet living, caught,
He hears the heavenly Mysteries there,
which mortal tongue may not declare.

French hymn to St. Paul

May the fire that the Holy Spirit

cast down into the heart of Saint Paul, which in turn lit up the earth, inflame our hearts to be vibrant and effective missionaries in the Year of Saint Paul and
throughout our lives.

Bishop Michael Saltarelli

[Paul] was the least magisterial

of all teachers, and the gentlest and most amiable of all rulers.

John Henry Cardinal Newman

St. Paul chose his field of activity

and made the most of it. Corinth, a very corrupt city, produced wonderful results, since Christianity is a life that is active, transforming and harmonizing. St. Paul aimed for the masses. Let us reach out to everyone, not just a small group of people or few privileged persons.

Blessed James Alberione

Paul shows that the Eucharist

is the source of unity, harmony and communion in the Body. Our reverent reception of the Eucharist is the great spark of missionary activity that leads us, like Saint Paul, to the ends of the earth.

Bishop Michael Saltarelli

Paul...was at the same time

converted to Christ and to the Church. This leads one to understand why the Church later became so present in Paul's thoughts, heart and activity.

Pope Benedict XVI

We therefore learn from Paul

that the Spirit's action directs our life towards the great values of love, joy, communion and hope. It is our task to experience this every day, complying with the inner promptings of the Spirit and helped in our discernment by the Apostle's enlightened guidance.

Pope Benedict XVI

Saying that Paul

is in the thick of his ministry means not only in the thick of activities but also of sufferings.

Carlo-Maria Cardinal Martini
In the Thick of His Ministry
St. Paul Publications, Slough

If we could only learn

to love St. Paul in the manner of St. Anthony Zaccaria, who called him "Our beloved Father!"

Blessed James Alberione

On the road to Damascus,

St. Paul died to everything. He rose from his baptism another man, another Christ.

Blessed James Alberione

Paul exhausted himself

in his mission for the whole world, certain of victorious success.

Blessed James Alberione

[Paul] was put in chains

seven times, sent into exile, and stoned; a herald both in the east and the west, he achieved a noble fame by his faith.

Pope St. Clement I

In the first letter to the Thessalonians

... Paul refers to his prayer for his own: A prayer that is born from his heart, the heart of an apostle, and which expresses in words of great tenderness.

Renato Perino

Paul was born a Jew,

lived a Jew, and died a Jew. It was therefore obviously as a Jew that he experienced the once-crucified Jesus as the resurrected and exalted Lord.

Michael J. Gorman
Apostle of the Crucified Lord
Eerdmans

Paul's love for mankind

is not a thing of sweet sentimentality or empty attitudinizing, but of sacrifice, devotion, and renunciation. His love represents not only his own natural inclinations, but a charity that is willed.

Giuseppe Ricciotti
Paul the Apostle

St. Paul, vessel of election,

was chosen as a teacher and learned person for every age. Not only are the lofty apostolic virtues that St. Paul acquired commendable, but so too is every happening, and detail of his life.

Blessed James Alberione

St. Paul derived much delight

from the Name of Jesus. It was like honey in his mouth, harmony to his ears, and rejoicing in his heart.

Cornelius A'Lapide, SJ

How many potential “Saint Pauls”

might we influence by radiating the power of Christ from deep within as Saint Stephen did?

Bishop Michael Saltarelli

To be an apostle

is not merely to preach, but also to live, the gospel. This means for Paul that his life (and those of his colleagues) will especially reflect the reality of Christ crucified.

Michael J. Gorman
Apostle of the Crucified Lord
Eerdmans

No historical prophet

came around on his experience as Paul did when called to his task.

Alan Segal

In some respects a letter from Paul

was not really a letter at all.... It was intended for oral reading to a community of believers gathered, almost certainly, for worship. This circumstance alone elevated the status of the letter to near scriptural standing, since the Scriptures of Israel would have been the primary source for readings in the assembly.

Michael J. Gorman
Apostle of the Crucified Lord
Eerdmans

The definitive biography of [Paul]

is yet to be written and may never be written. But were the apostle to have written an autobiography, without doubt he would have stressed the cruciform and Christocentric pattern of his life. Ben Witherington III
The Paul Quest