There was much in St. paul's character

which was not changed on his conversion, but merely directed to other and higher objects, and purified; it was his creed that was changed, and his soul by regeneration...

John Henry Cardinal Newman

Addressing this society which bore within it

an undeniable religious anguish, Paul declared that what it was suffering from was a great absence, an absence which could be remedied by only one being, one truth, one presence.

Henri Daniel-Rops

St. Paul: Apostle of Nations
Fides Publishers, 1953

He fights and weeps

and writes and travels, bears chains and make tents, all in order to present to God on the day of Judgement an Apostolate complete, unspoiled and unwasted.

Igino Giordani
St. Paul, Apostle and Martyr

The roots of Paul's life,

secret and public, reach deeply into his charisms and mystical experiences; without these, it is unexplainable.

Giuseppe Ricciotti

Saint Paul was steadfast

in his many difficulties and persecutions, sustained above all by the unfailing love of Christ (cf. Rom 8:35-39). May the example of his apostolic zeal inspire and
encourage us today!

Pope Benedict XVI

[In the Damascus encounter,]

Paul learned that, despite the immediateness of his relationship with the Risen One, he must enter the communion of the Church, be baptized, and live in harmony with the other apostles.

Pope Benedict XVI

Today at Paul's entry

not into the city but into the world, let us all turn out to watch. For he carries the standard of no mere earthly king, but the cross of Chrsit, Lord of heaven.

St. John Chrysostom

Because Christ had made Paul

his own (cf. Phil 3:12), could not help but preach the Good News he had received (cf. 1 Cor 9:16). So it is with us.

Pope Benedict XVI

What must have been

the sentiments of [Paul's] soul during those last moments of his life? Who can imagine his ardent protests of love, his prayers, his burning desire for God and Christ...?

Cornelius a Lapide, SJ

Would that I might see

the dust of [Paul's] heart. If one should call it the heart of the whole world, he would not err. This heart was all-embracing: entire cities, peoples and nations were gathered within it.

St. John Chrysostom

His, indeed, was a "wonderful conversion,"

as our Church in one place calls it, because it was so unexpected, and (as far as the appearance went) so sudden. Who of the suffering Christians, against whom he was raging so furiously, could have conceived that their enemy was to be the great preacher and champion of the despised Cross?

John Henry Cardinal Newman

Paul links all

the great creative acts of God in the Old Testament with what has happened to him.

Carlo-Maria Cardinal Martini
The Testimony of St. Paul

Paul, giving the whole of himself,

gives the whole of the Gospel; his mouth is open wide to declare it, his heart is filled and enlarged with Christ's presence.


Igino Giordani
St. Paul, Apostle and Martyr

Even after so many centuries,

Paul's letters convey a personality that is overwhelming.

Scott Hahn

In the same way that fire

applying itself to different materials is reinforced even more ... so Paul's word won to his cause all those with whom he related, and those who made war on him, captivated by his speeches, became fuel for this spiritual fire.

St. John Chrysostom

In his own letters,

Paul describes his experience not so much in terms of a conversion, but as a call to apostleship and a commission to preach the Gospel.

Pope Benedict XVI

The Apostle Paul

is a paradigm of the first order, from whom all of us today have much to learn.

Pope Benedict XVI

Paul was not terrified or injured

by multitudes of...enemies or by threats or persecution. All these things served to drive him on; they were like high winds continually whipping up the flame of charity in his heart....

Cornelius a Lapide, SJ

Paul's greeting alone

was enough to fill with grace the one who received it.

St. John Chrysostom

A typical element

of the true apostle, brought well into the light by St. Paul, is a sort of identification between the Gospel and the evangelizer, both destined to the same goal.

Pope Benedict XVI

When we read and dwell on St. Paul's history,

we may discern and insist upon the suitableness of his character, before his conversion, for that display of free grace which was made in him.

John Henry Cardinal Newman

To show His power, [God]

put forth His hand into the very midst of the persecutors of His Son, and seized upon the most strenuous among them.


John Henry Cardinal Newman

Paul is a voice

that speaks only for the Gospel; his person is a means for Evangelization. Having given himself to Christ, he sees only the glory of Christ.


Igino Giordani
St. Paul, Apostle and Martyr

Paul understood that the essential thing for him

is Christ: all the things he does, whatever he performs, however enthusiastically he preaches, all is Christ living within him.



Carlo Cardinal Martini
The Testimony of St. Paul

Before death, Paul experiences in himself

fear and joy, a hope founded on the Spirit and the temptation to discouragement, and he seeks to show through a variety of images that extraordinary horizon of the resurrection of Christ that illumines our whole pathway, our trials, our expectations, and everything we live through.

Carlo Cardinal Martini, SJ