Conversion and Communion

 The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to reflect on the events in our lives that resonate with the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus.

On the Road to Conversion

 The Reading from the Acts of the Apostles presents Saul’s Conversion, his Baptism and Saul Preaching in Damascus.

* [9:1–19] This is the first of three accounts of Paul’s conversion (with Acts 22:3–16 and Acts 26:2–18) with some differences of detail owing to Luke’s use of different sources. Paul’s experience was not visionary but was precipitated by the appearance of Jesus, as he insists in 1 Cor 15:8. The words of Jesus, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” related by Luke with no variation in all three accounts, exerted a profound and lasting influence on the thought of Paul. Under the influence of this experience he gradually developed his understanding of justification by faith (see the letters to the Galatians and Romans) and of the identification of the Christian community with Jesus Christ (see 1 Cor 12:27). That Luke would narrate this conversion three times is testimony to the importance he attaches to it. This first account occurs when the word is first spread to the Gentiles. At this point, the conversion of the hero of the Gentile mission is recounted. The emphasis in the account is on Paul as a divinely chosen instrument (Acts 9:15).

* [9:2] The Way: a name used by the early Christian community for itself (Acts 18:26; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22). The Essene community at Qumran used the same designation to describe its mode of life.

* [9:8] He could see nothing: a temporary blindness (Acts 9:18) symbolizing the religious blindness of Saul as persecutor (cf. Acts 26:18).

* [9:13] Your holy ones: literally, “your saints.” (Acts of the Apostles, CHAPTER 9 | USCCB, n.d.)

Psalm 117 calls on the nations to acknowledge God’s supremacy.

* [Psalm 117] This shortest of hymns calls on the nations to acknowledge God’s supremacy. The supremacy of Israel’s God has been demonstrated to them by the people’s secure existence, which is owed entirely to God’s gracious fidelity. (Psalms, PSALM 117 | USCCB, n.d.)

The Gospel of John continues The Bread of Life Discourse.

* [6:54–58] Eats: the verb used in these verses is not the classical Greek verb used of human eating, but that of animal eating: “munch,” “gnaw.” This may be part of John’s emphasis on the reality of the flesh and blood of Jesus (cf. Jn 6:55), but the same verb eventually became the ordinary verb in Greek meaning “eat.” (John, CHAPTER 6 | USCCB, n.d.)

Nancy Shirley is challenged to really examine who she is and how that is lived and conveyed to others.

I am of the vintage that I remember well the change in Church music following Vatican II.  The music of the “folk masses” filled my heart.  One of the earliest songs that I remember from this is They’ll know We are Christians by our Love and the lyric that we are one in the Spirit. So many of the songs in that era (many from the beloved St Louis Jesuits) proclaimed our beliefs in a way that demanded/encouraged actions consistent with our professions of faith.  Are my eyes blinded and not seeing what I need to. The question remains for me, will they know I am a Christian??? 

So…  two songs today (songs are my way to share my faith with you).

Open the Eyes of my Heart Lord  (Michael W. Smith)

Whenever I hear the song below, I think of St John the Baptist and all the early disciples, and how they reached out to the world and continued the story that Jesus began… 

Nobody by Casting Crowns (Shirley, 2026)

Don Schwager quotes Abiding in Christ, by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.

" Jesus recommended to us His Body and Blood in bread and wine, elements that are reduced into one out of many constituents. What is meant by eating that food and taking that drink is this: to remain in Christ and have Him remaining in us." (excerpt from Sermon on John 26,112) (Schwager, n.d.)

The Word Among Us Meditation on Acts 9:1-20 invites us to imagine how different the Church might have turned out if Ananias had turned away! The Lord would, no doubt, have fulfilled his plan for the growth of the Church. But Ananias would not have had the role God offered him in these great events.

The next time you think the Lord is moving you in an unexpected direction, follow Ananias’ lead and ask for more understanding. Or better yet, take a small step forward and see what happens. You never know; your yes might bear fruit far beyond what you can imagine!

“Jesus, give me the courage to follow your lead!” (Meditation on Acts 9:1-20, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler comments that in Acts, the first of three accounts of the conversion of Paul with some small differences, the voice of Jesus is heard. Saul is going to Damascus even if the High Priest had no authority in that region. This seems to be an illegal act. Luke is offering a comparison of good people with law breakers. Saul and Paul are the same person. Saul is Hebrew-Aramaic version of his name. Why me? The Christians and Jesus suffer persecution. Paul uses kyrios as Lord, the right Greek word without realizing it. Saul, who is blinded, is to go to Ananias, who does, in fact, get over fear to encounter Saul. The cataract removed from Saul’s eyes is like that removed due to electrocution. Was this struck down event a nervous breakdown? Not likely, there is no sign of reticence or depression in Paul. In the Gospel of John, the Bread of Life Discourse, the Jewish people are traditionally troubled by eating flesh and even more today by hearing you have to drink His blood, very difficult in Jewish religious tradition. Friar Jude notes that, in John’s Gospel, we find realized eschatology in our encounter with Christ. In proclaiming about the Bread of Life, John refers to being saved on the last day and facing both present and future salvation in the Eucharist.

Father Richard Rohr, OFM, introduces Anglican priest Ragan Sutterfield, an avid bird watcher, who reflects on what it means to practice hospitality to nature in its many forms. Sutterfield suggests ways we can disrupt the commodification of nature and act hospitably. 

To plant a garden, to create a wetland—these seem like small acts in the face of our world of concrete, our obsession with never-ending economic growth. What difference can it make? I think of G. K. Chesterton’s comment, in his wonderful economic critique, The Outline of Sanity, which takes aim at industrial capitalism’s takeover of small shops and farms:

Do anything, however small, that will prevent the completion of the work of capitalist combination. Do anything that will even delay that completion. Save one shop out of a hundred shops…. Keep open one door out of a hundred doors; for so long as one door is open, we are not in prison. Ahab has not his kingdom so long as Naboth has his vineyard [1 Kings 21]. Haman will not be happy in the palace while Mordecai is sitting in the gate [Esther 5:9–13]…. [2]

Hospitality is more than resistance, however; it is also a sacramental practice—a way by which we learn to recognize the holy in the wild lives around us. “There are no unsacred places,” writes Wendell Berry, “there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” The practice of reconciliation ecology is an act in which we relate to the world in its sacredness, keeping ourselves from seeing it as a mere landscape or an interchangeable abstraction for our desires. (Rohr, n.d.)

We implore the Spirit to touch our heart and mind as we participate in sacramental practice and experience the Presence of Christ guiding our mission on the road of life.

References

Acts of the Apostles, CHAPTER 9 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved April 24, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/acts/9?1 

John, CHAPTER 6 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved April 24, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/6?52 

Meditation on Acts 9:1-20. (n.d.). Word Among Us. Retrieved April 24, 2026, from https://wau.org/meditations/2026/04/24/1549333/ 

Psalms, PSALM 117 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved April 24, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/117?1 

Rohr, R. (n.d.). Hospitality on Our Earth Home. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved April 24, 2026, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/hospitality-on-our-earth-home/ 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). He Who Eats This Bread Will Live Forever. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved April 24, 2026, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/ 

Shirley, N. (2026, April 24). Daily Reflection April 24, 2026 | Creighton Online Ministries. Creighton Online Ministries. Retrieved April 24, 2026, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/daily-reflections/daily-reflection-april-24-2026 

Wisdom and Life

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to receive Jesus as the bread of life, that is the Word made Flesh through which we act with Wisdom and Love in the relationships in which we are grateful to experience.

Bread of Life

The reading from the Book of Proverbs describes Wisdom’s Feast.

* [9:1–6, 13–18] Wisdom and folly are represented as women, each inviting people to her banquet. Wisdom’s banquet symbolizes joy and closeness to God. Unstable and senseless Folly furnishes stolen bread and water of deceit and vice that bring death to her guests. The opposition between wisdom and folly was stated at the beginning of chaps. 1–9 (folly in 1:8–19 and wisdom in 1:20–33) and is maintained throughout, down to this last chapter. (Proverbs, CHAPTER 9 | USCCB, n.d.)

Psalm 34 offers praise for Deliverance from Trouble.

* [Psalm 34] A thanksgiving in acrostic form, each line beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In this Psalm one letter is missing and two are in reverse order. The psalmist, fresh from the experience of being rescued (Ps 34:5, 7), can teach the “poor,” those who are defenseless, to trust in God alone (Ps 34:4, 12). God will make them powerful (Ps 34:5–11) and give them protection (Ps 34:12–22). (Psalms, PSALM 34 | USCCB, n.d.)

The reading from the Letter to the Ephesians exhorts our duty to live in the Light.

* [5:15–16, 19–20] The wording is similar to Col 4:5 and Eph 3:16–17. (Ephesians, CHAPTER 5 | USCCB, n.d.)

The Gospel of John continues Jesus' Bread of Life Discourse.

* [6:54–58] Eats: the verb used in these verses is not the classical Greek verb used of human eating, but that of animal eating: “munch,” “gnaw.” This may be part of John’s emphasis on the reality of the flesh and blood of Jesus (cf. Jn 6:55), but the same verb eventually became the ordinary verb in Greek meaning “eat.” (John, CHAPTER 6 | USCCB, n.d.)

David Crawford comments that today’s scriptures have him thinking about food and drink, and with good reason.

The 19th-century food writer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin once stated, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.”  As Christians, we have been given some amazing food and drink in the form of Wisdom, which comes from and brings us closer to God; and in the form of the Christ, God incarnate who brought (and still brings) love, mercy, forgiveness and healing.  Our food culture, so to speak, should be to partake of and share this wisdom, love, mercy, forgiveness and healing.  Like Jesus, who ate with the “wrong” people (i.e., sinners and tax collectors) as well as the “right” ones (e.g., the Pharisee in Luke 7), we should share what God has given us without discriminating.  In some instances, it is through our loving, caring, Spirit-led actions that others can taste and see that the Lord is good. (Crawford, n.d.)

Don Schwager quotes “Abiding in Christ,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.

" Jesus recommended to us His Body and Blood in bread and wine, elements that are reduced into one out of many constituents. What is meant by eating that food and taking that drink is this: to remain in Christ and have Him remaining in us." (excerpt from Sermon on John 26,112) (Schwager, n.d.)

The Word Among Us Meditation on John 6:51-58 recalls that in 1975, while traveling to Saigon, Vietnamese Bishop Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan was arrested and thrown into prison. His family sent him a bottle labeled “medicine,” which was actually wine, as well as some hosts broken into small pieces. With these essentials, he shared the power of Jesus in the Eucharist with his fellow prisoners.

“I spent nine years in solitary confinement, and during that time I said Mass every day at three o’clock, the hour of Jesus’ death on the cross. . . . They were the most beautiful Masses of my life.” (The Road to Hope)

After thirteen years in prison, Bishop Nguyen Van Thuan was released. Named a cardinal in 2001, he died a year later. All his life, Jesus in the Eucharist was his “true food” and “true drink” (John 6:55). May the Eucharistic Lord always be ours as well!

“Jesus, Bread from Heaven, nourish and sustain me all the days of my life!” (Meditation on John 6:51-58, n.d.)

Peter Edmonds SJ takes us through Chapter 6 of John’s Gospel, in which Jesus speaks of himself as ‘the bread of life’ and explains how it functions as a homily, referring to and weaving together a rich assortment of Scriptural texts.

In a sense, the discourse is finished. Jesus is the bread from heaven in terms of life, of wisdom and of revelation. But the synoptics (Mark 14:22; Matthew 26:26; Luke 22:19) and Paul (1 Corinthians 11:24) identify Jesus as the bread of the Eucharist. And the Johannine community would have shared this belief. They would have looked for this teaching in the account of the Last Supper but instead they found there the washing of the feet (13:1-12). In John, the Eucharist doctrine is found here, in Jesus’s teaching after feeding the five thousand: ‘My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.’ (6:55)

A parallel is to be found in the Emmaus story in Luke (24:13-35). Jesus first reveals by explaining the scriptures, then the disciples recognise him in the breaking of the bread. This structure of word and sacrament is preserved in Eucharistic liturgies until this day.

The bread of life is now the Eucharist. We meet new words: flesh, blood, eat, drink, and a new definition of the bread: it is Jesus’s ‘flesh for the life of the world’. Sarx (flesh) emphasises the physical reality of this bread. This bread is for the world (3:16). Now we find hints of the cost of this gift: it is the death of Jesus as the Son of Man. It is ‘the blood of the covenant which is poured out for many’ (Mark 14:24; Matthew 26:28).

The response of the Jews is hostile: they ‘began to fight among themselves’. A fourth ‘Very truly…’ saying repeats previous teaching in the context of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man. A new word is used for eating (trogo), one that is extremely physical, implying chewing or munching. Blood, an obvious Eucharistic word, occurs for the first time. This eating and drinking is now a condition for possessing eternal life, for being raised on the last day, and for mutual abiding in Jesus.

Thus, to possess eternal life one must:

see and believe in the person of Jesus, the bread of life (6:40);

hear and believe the revelation that Jesus embodies as that bread (6:45,47);

eat and feed on bread of the Eucharist (6:51,54,58). (Edmonds, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler comments on the portrayal of Wisdom as a woman in the Hebrew Testament and the attribution of human qualities to God that existed at the end of the universe. The text from Ephesians emphasizes prayer and our mission to live according to the values we have learned. Friar Jude reminds us of the realized eschatology of the “Bread of Life” and the connection to future eschatology at the end times.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that we need someone to be in solidarity with us, so we can learn what it means to be in solidarity with ourselves, and eventually with others. Have we forgotten how Jesus formed his disciples? 

We can read all the words of Jesus in the Gospels in a matter of hours, but Jesus spent three long years discipling the people who followed him. What he gave them was not so much his words but his example and his energy, his time and his touch. “Where do you live?” said the first two disciples of Jesus. “Come and see,” he replied, “so they went and saw where he lived, and stayed with him the rest of that day” (John 1:39). What a telling account! In John’s Gospel, one of his disciples even laid his head on the breast of Jesus (see John 13:23–25). They knew how energy was passed: not primarily by sermons and books, but by relationships and presence. (Rohr, n.d.)

We contemplate the relationships on our journey that have brought us life and wisdom as we connect to Jesus as the “bread of life” that energizes our compassion and charity in bringing life to our environment.

References

Crawford, D. (n.d.). Daily Reflection Of Creighton University's Online Ministries. OnlineMinistries. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/081824.html 

Edmonds, P. (n.d.). The Bread of Life. Thinking Faith: The online journal of the Jesuits in Britain. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/bread-life-john-6 

Ephesians, CHAPTER 5 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/ephesians/5? 

John, CHAPTER 6 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/6?51 

Meditation on John 6:51-58. (n.d.). The Word Among Us: Homepage. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://wau.org/meditations/2024/08/18/1053862/ 

Proverbs, CHAPTER 9 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/proverbs/9?1 

Psalms, PSALM 34 | USCCB. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/34?2 

Rohr, R. (n.d.). A Helpful Relationship. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-helpful-relationship/ 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). He Who Eats This Bread Will Live Forever. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2024&date=aug18