By look, and word, and deed

[Paul] encompassed, as it were, his brethren with God's mercies and judgments, spread abroad and reared aloft the divine system of doctrine and precept, and seated himself and them securely in the midst of it.


John Henry Cardinal Newman

The power which radiates from St. Paul

is the power of love; it is not only all humanity, considered abstractly, which he loves and wishes to lead to salvation, but it is each one personally, for love knows only persons, individual beings, each of whom expects to be loved for himself.

Henri Daniel-Rops

He was at ease in Athens

among the monuments, and in Galatia among the mountains. He was timid and at the same time authoritative; prudent and yet intrepid; humble and full of just dignity as having been chosen by God.


Igino Giordani

What sacrifice, then,

could equal this sacrifice which Paul offered, immolating it with the sword of the spirit and offering it on the altar raised high above the heavens.

St. John Chrysostom

He knew how to persuade,

for he knew where lay the perplexity; he knew how to console, for he knew the sorrow.

John Henry Cardinal Newman

Paul, at the moment he was chosen

an apostle by God, became foremost in suffering and patience, so that we might be made to understand that the distinguishing characteristic of an apostle is patience of every sort.


Cornelius A'Lapide, SJ

He was beaten, he was scourged,

he was chased to and fro, he was imprisoned, he was shipwrecked, he was in this life of all men most miserable, that he might understand how poor a thin mortal life is, and might learn to contemplate and describe fitly the glories of the life immortal.

John Henry Cardinal Newman

St. Paul was the noblest of men

and the most outstanding example of the nobility of human nature and of its possibilities for virtue.

St. John Chrysostom

Like a master thoroughly familiar

with the vast sweep of previous musical scores, Paul weaves their motifs into a finished masterpiece which orchestrates the full message of God with stirring appeal for the heart of every man.

Barnabas Ahern, CP

The risen Christ mastered him.

The personality of Christ, the fact of the Resurrection and all its theological consequences overwhelmed him and took possession of his inmost being.

Lucien Cerfaux

The times in which we live

demand that we have the courage of Paul.


Julius Cardinal Doepfner

The famous passages in which St. Paul

has exalted the all-powerfulness of love are for him not developments of moral theology; he has put into practice these precepts of the charity of Christ; he has lived them.

Henri Daniel-Rops

The more he became famous

the more he sought to remain obscure. Yet God willed that his wisdom, virtues and greatness be known to the whole world.

Cornelius A'Lapide, SJ

He went through trials

of every kind, and this was their issue, to let him into the feelings, and thereby introduce him to the hearts, of high and low, Jews and Gentile.

John Henry Cardinal Newman

After he had made a complete oblation

of himself, he desired to make an oblation of the whole world, earth and sea, Greek and barbarian, every land encompassed by the sky, this land which he traversed as if he were a creature on wings, and not just as a mere traveler.

St. John Chrysostom

Paul is one of the most complete men

in recorded history, in whose formation, grace and nature, Judaism and Christianity combined to make of him a universal person....

Igino Giordani

Such was this great servant of Christ

and Teacher of the Gentiles; yet he says, 'Though I speak with the tongues of men and of Angels...and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass." ...Spiritual discernment, an insight into the Gospel covenant, is no evidence of love.


John Henry Cardinal Newman

Vocation and missionary

were inseparable [for Paul]. Thus he represents a model for all Christians, and especially for missionaries 'ad vitam', in other words for the men and women who dedicate themselves entirely to announcing Christ to those people who still do not know Him.


Pope Benedict XVI

If he was merely a forceful man,

fully engaged in action, we would admire him as one of those sublime exceptions which nature sometimes makes to the law of human weakness. But when we read him attentively, how much closer he seems to us, how much more brotherly!


Henri Daniel-Rops

What words will adequately describe

this man's goodness? Or what tongue can adequately chant his praises?

St. John Chrysostom

He was a pastor and a teacher;

a friend and a guide. He could be severe and he could be most gracious; awe-inspiring and meek. He had understanding for all, and he had compassion for all.

Igino Giordani

If there is one point of character

more than another which belonged to St. Paul and discovers itself in all he said and did, it was his power of sympathising with his brethren, nay, with all classes of men.

John Henry Cardinal Newman

The awareness that divine grace alone

could bring about such a conversion never left Paul. When he had already given the best of himself, devoting himself tirelessly to preaching the Gospel, he wrote with renewed fervor: "I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me" (I Cor 15: 10).

Pope Benedict XVI

Instantaneously, a divine light

shone round about him and he was changed from a wolf into a lamb, from Saul to Paul, from a persecutor into a preacher.


Cornelius A' Lapide, SJ

Paul made a complete sacrifice of himself

every day, and his oblation was two-fold: first, he died daily, and secondly, he was always bearing about in his body the death of Jesus.

St. John Chrysostom

Paul's life was a full one.

He gave himself wholly to Christ, allowing Christ to possess him totally, and he was intent on the service of Christ day and night. On he marched, climbing mountains, crossing plains, sailing over seas; resolute and indomitable, seeing Chrsit in all things, dead to all things else.

Igino Giordani

You see how far the holy Apostle was

from security and self-satisfaction, though he, if any one, would have had a right to feel easy about his state. And the exhortation he gives his children is, "So run, that ye may obtain."

John Henry Cardinal Newman

"Charity is patient"...

Whose heart did Paul paint? He did not know it, but it was a self-portrait, a picture of his own true heart.

E. Boyd Barrett

He was a Hebrew and he was a Greek;

an agent, perhaps a member of the Sanhedrin; a citizen of Rome; an artisan and a student of the Scriptures; a most active man, and also a mystic. He satisfies the learned and the ignorant, the rich and the poor.

Igino Giordani

[In Ephesians 3] St. Paul's mind is so occupied

with the thought of the Church, God's splendid tapestry of Jew and Gentile, that he can think of nothing else for the moment, and for once the Person of Jesus Christ comes in as a kind of afterthought.


Msgr. Ronald Knox

This man who, all his life long,

was involved in excitement and adventure was often to prove himself keenly sensitive.


Henri Daniel-Rops