The Conversion of St. Paul

Saul, still breathing murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord,
went to the high priest and asked him
for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, that,
if he should find any men or women who belonged to the Way,
he might bring them back to Jerusalem in chains.
On his journey, as he was nearing Damascus,
a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him.
He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him,
“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
He said, “Who are you, sir?”
The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do.”
Acts 9:1-22

When I am breathing murder
and fury fills my days,
shine out, O Christ, and curb me!
Disturb my vivid ways!

Let light form heaven blind me
where sight has led me wrong.
O, let my darkness guide me,
my weakness make me strong.

My vision gone, give insight:
Illuminate my heart.
Then I will sing at midnight
and praise you in the dark.

Let not the morning free me:
Delay the great sunrise
until I learn to see you
and scales fall from my eyes.

O Christ, whom I had hated,
you looked on me with love,
and I, when you've remade me,
will tell the world thereof.

For you have seen my blindness
and given me new sight,
repaid my hate with kindness,
and made my darkness bright.

Conversion on the Way to Damascus, Caravaggio (c.1600-1) – Self-scanned, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15219516

Damascus Road

For the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul. To the tune PASSION CHORALE:

“Why do you persecute me?”
a voice from somewhere sounds;
unsettling and unsoothing,
a blinding light surrounds.
Lord, bring us to that moment,
confounding all we know,
renewing us in conscience:
our own Damascus road.

We cannot know our blindness
while we have eyes to see,
the depths of our unkindness
'til we are in the deeps.
Let mercy's waves wash o'er us;
from death we may yet rise
and seek the light before us
as scales fall from our eyes.

The men and women shackled
in chains that we have forged,
the children left abandoned:
Help us to free them, Lord.
For they are you, O Savior,
imprisoned by our ways.
Come blind our hearts to hatred
to see your endless day.

The conversion of St Paul by Caravaggio. Church of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome Photo By Alvesgaspar – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44143233

The Word of Life

You denied the Holy and Righteous One
and asked that a murderer be released to you.
The author of life you put to death,
but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses.
Acts 3:13-15

The Word of life we put to death;
he brought our death itself to life,
filled all the tomb with living breath,
poured out his peace on ancient strife.

Now fear shall no more drive us on:
With joy we run into his arms
where death is but a breaking dawn
and conquered terror kneels disarmed.

Now human conquest bows its head
before the once-dead king of kings
who sets a feast of wine and bread
where all the earth in triumph sings.

Beside his riches, all are poor;
without his freedom, all are bound,
but Christ has opened every door,
and now shall every wealth abound!

Come, then: Put all your swords away.
Lay every weapon at his feet.
Smash all the idols holding sway,
that he in your may be complete.

So fear and power bow before
the Word of life who conquers death,
who lives and reigns forevermore,
and breathes in us with every breath.

Mosaic in the Baptistry of San Giovanni of Florence, ca. 1300, by the Florentine Master. By Florentinischer Meister um 1300 – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=150949

Damascus Road

For the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul.

 I could not see, so great the light
 that struck me down upon the road,
 as all-concealing as the night
 but—oh! What mysteries it showed!
  
 They bore me to Damascus, then,  
 and I was stone within their hands
 that someday must be flesh again,
 or else it shatters when it lands.
  
 Stone deaf to all but light's clear voice
 that called my name and spoke its own—
 a sound to make my heart rejoice
 if it were flesh instead of stone—
  
 stark blind because I saw too much,
 in darkness then I watched for days
 'til Ananias' trembling touch
 restored the ordinary rays.
  
 And when the scales fell from my eyes,
 the millstones fell from 'round my neck.
 In water as in light baptized,
 stone bent its knees to genuflect.
  
 The stone that mowed poor Stephen down:  
 that stone am I, the least of all,
 but in the silence, stones cry out,
 and in our darkness, light will fall.