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Holy Year
Church embarks on yearlong celebration of St. Paul
By J.D. Long-Garcia, jdlgarcia@catholicsun.org
July 4, 2008
His horse galloped toward Damascus when a light from the sky blazed around him.
Saul, who had been aiding in the murder of Christians, fell from his horse.
“Why are you persecuting me?” a voice said.
“Who are you, sir?” Saul asked.
It was Jesus, the Lord. This encounter with the Risen Christ sparked a historic conversion. Saul, the persecutor of Christians, became St. Paul, the great Apostle and promulgator of the Christian faith.
This year the Church will mark the Apostle’s missionary energy and spirit of surrender with a special jubilee year. The Pauline Year will run from June 28 of this year to June 29, 2009, to mark the approximately 2,000th anniversary of the saint’s birth.
“He lived and worked for Christ; he suffered and died for Him. How current his example is today,” Pope Benedict XVI said while announcing the jubilee year.
He made the pronouncement while presiding over a vespers service at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome June 28, 2007, the eve of the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, patron saints of Rome.
“As in the [Church’s] beginning, today, too, Christ needs apostles ready to sacrifice themselves,” the pope said. “He needs witnesses and martyrs like St. Paul.”
Pope Benedict initiated the Year of St. Paul at the Pontifical Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. In the Diocese of Phoenix, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted marked the beginning of the Pauline year by celebrating Mass with local Catholics at St. Paul Parish June 29.
“We celebrate the Year of St. Paul to deepen our conviction about truths of faith… that are recorded by this great Apostle to the Gentiles,” he wrote in a letter to parishes last month.
He said Pope Benedict called Catholics to honor St. Paul by strengthening their love of sacred Scripture.
The bishop also designated three churches as places of pilgrimage: St. Paul Parish, Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral and Sacred Heart Parish in Prescott.
He is also establishing days throughout the year when a plenary indulgence will be granted to Catholics who make a pilgrimage to one of these churches.
The first days were last weekend, on the Vigil and Solemnity of Ss. Peter and Paul. There will also be a chance to receive a plenary indulgence on the same feast day next year, June 28-29, 2009.
Catholics can also receive the indulgence this Jan. 25, 2009, the Conversion of St. Paul. The next month, an indulgence may be obtained on Feb. 10.
The next opportunity is April 19, 2009 — Divine Mercy Sunday, followed by two days in June.
Paul’s message
Fr. Mike Straley, who is chairing the committee organizing the Pauline Year locally, said the locations of pilgrimage embody the Pauline message, not only things to do with Paul himself.
That’s why Sacred Heart Parish is a place of pilgrimage. The two remaining plenary indulgence days — April 19, 2009, Divine Mercy Sunday, and June 19, 2009, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus — reflect St. Paul’s teaching.
“Those concepts — of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the mercy of God — very much reflect Paul’s teaching,” Fr. Straley said.
Pope Benedict “also invites us to pray and work for unity among all the baptized,” the bishop wrote in the June letter, “recalling how St. Paul constantly pleaded for reconciliation among the early converts to the Christian faith.”
Fr. Straley said Catholics should follow the example of John Paul II as well as Pope Benedict in dialogue with other Christians.
“We look for those places where there are similarities and dialogue about the differences,” he said. “For all Catholics, that means knowing your faith well enough to dialogue.”
Diocesan leaders are organizing a series of educational events for catechetical leaders. Catechetical leaders then bring what they learn back to the parishes, Fr. Straley said.
Ryan Hanning, director of Adult Evangelization and Catechesis for the diocese, said St. Paul was the perfect example for “the new evangelization.”
“We need to be well-versed in Scripture and know our Catholic faith to evangelize like St. Paul,” he said.
The Department of Family Catechesis is planning events nearly every month of the Pauline Year for parish leaders. A Bible study expo is also planned for February for all Catholics.
“The Holy Father really wants us to reflect on the life of Paul,” Hanning said. “He was primarily an evangelist.”
He said Catholics would do well to imitate St. Paul’s example of constant prayer, study of Scripture, evangelization and ecumenism.
“In Paul we find a person who met Christ after He rose,” Hanning said. “That’s us.”
Fr. Vernon Meyer, associate pastor at St. Patrick Parish in Scottsdale and a Scripture scholar, will offer classes and lead pilgrimages to Athens, Corinth and Rome as well as the Holy Land — sites of St. Paul’s ministry.
“The only contact most people have with St. Paul is during Sunday readings,” Fr. Meyer said. “But how do we understand St. Paul from a contemporary point of view?”
Fr. Meyer speculated that the Pauline Year might be a way the Holy Father is preparing the Church for the upcoming October Synod of Bishops, which will focus on the proper use of Scripture.
During the jubilee year, Fr. Meyer said the focus will be not just on St. Paul the person, but also on the role his letters play in the New Testament and in the life of the Catholic community.
“We are the body and we are many members,” he said, paraphrasing 1 Corinthians. “That image precedes the verses on the Eucharist. You must have a relationship with each other before approaching the Eucharist.”
Fr. Meyer also noted St. Paul’s teaching of the gifts of the community.
“We all have gifts to bring,” he said. “They aren’t just in one place, they’re dispersed throughout the entire community.”
In his June letter, Bishop Olmsted underscored another part of St. Paul’s teachings, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God.”
“In the Year of St. Paul, let us gladly join with our Holy Father and with fellow Christians around the world in seeking deeper conversion and holiness of life,” the bishop said, “in imitating the evangelizing zeal of St. Paul, and in loving Christ with an undivided heart.”
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