First Reading Acts 22:3-16 or 9:1-22 Gospel Mark 16:15-18

As a Pharisee, St. Paul believed that the Torah was the eternal, ultimate, unchangeable self-revelation of God. All things were made through, for, and unto the Torah. The eternal Torah was delivered to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Pharisees distinguished 613 precepts in the Torah; if one kept these, he would find life. Pharisees looked forward to the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed Son of David, who would establish a perfect kingdom of justice and peace, a kingdom in which there would be no suffering, no death, and in which the righteous dead would rise. He rejected Jesus because he died on the curse of the cross, because he violated the precepts of the Torah, and because he did not bring the perfect kingdom.
When Paul became Christian, he did not change his “theology.” He merely changed his doctrine! Christ -- not the Torah -- was the ultimate, eternal, unchangeable self-revelation or Word of God. All things were made for, through, with, and unto Christ. In Christ one would find life. Christ Jesus was Messiah: The perfect kingdom was delayed, but would happen when he returned again in glory. Meanwhile, he showed himself as Messiah by his resurrection from the dead. By his encounter with the risen Christ, Paul the persecutor immediately became Paul the zealous disciple. Let us pray always for our own conversion of heart; may everything we are, believe, and do always come from our realization of Christ, the ultimate Word of God.
Today is the final day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. May it not be the end of our efforts at genuine ecumenism.