Pallium Path: Meeting St. Paul

(Photos by André Escaleira, Jr.)

Today we met St. Paul, face to face. Well, more or less.

We visited the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, where St. Paul is buried. After Mass with Archbishop Emeritus Aquila and another pilgrimage group of FOCUS missionaries and parishioners from Denver, we had the chance to pray and visit with everyone’s favorite fiery evangelist — and my confirmation saint.

It was powerful.

When I chose St. Paul as my patron at 14, I thought I’d discerned well. As well as a 14-year-old could, I guess. I was a regular lector at my parish and felt called to proclaim the Word. Little did I know that the Lord would one day lead me to discern a vocation to the priesthood or to preach the Gospel through Catholic media. To become a bit of a St. Paul myself.

Kneeling before his tomb, I was able to thank him for his intercession, his prayers before God for me over the years, and to commend to him a few special intentions close to my heart — including those our readers sent to us.

14-year-old André would never have imagined.

Isn’t God grand?

He knows us more intimately than we can imagine. The Bible tells us he knows all the hairs on our heads (Luke 12:7), when we sit and when we lie down (Psalm 139:2). He knows the desires, the dreams, the hopes of our hearts.

Knowing us completely, from all eternity, he has loved you and me. He wills us into existence at every moment. If he stopped loving us, some theologians have said, we wouldn’t just cease to be; we would have never existed.

Over time, he reveals more of us to ourselves. The more we come to know him, the better we know ourselves, seeing who we are in the light of his face. We begin to see ourselves as he sees us.

And God loves lavishing his people. He gives us more than we can ask or imagine.

Now, this doesn’t mean everything will be rosy, with fields of sunshine and unicorns. Jesus also promises us the biggest gift of all in the Cross (Matthew 16:24), because through the Cross we come to know him best — he who became man, suffered and died to rescue us.

Life with St. Paul hasn’t been easy over the years. I guess I shouldn’t have expected it, when neither he nor Jesus promised as much (John 16:33; 2 Corinthians 11:23-29). But kneeling before his tomb and coming to know him, I was moved by God’s fidelity and his generosity in my life, even through the difficult times.

God is good, faithful and generous. He loves you and me. He wants to give us abundant life, today, right now, in his way and according to his perfect plan.

As you read this today, take a moment and look for God’s footprints in your day, week, month or year. How is God at work in your life, in big ways and small? Have you thanked him?