Paul: Name Day and Patron Saint

St Paul was born in Tarsus of Cilicia, of the tribe of Benjamin, and was first called Saul. He was a Pharisee and a tentmaker who studied the Law under Gamaliel in Jerusalem, and in his zeal for the Law he persecuted the Church; he stood by at the stoning of St Stephen. On the road to Damascus the risen Christ appeared to him and asked, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” Blinded by the vision, he waited until Ananias laid his hands on him; then his sight returned and he was baptized. The persecutor became the Apostle to the Gentiles. With burning zeal he preached Christ to Jews and Gentiles alike, in Greece, in Asia Minor and in Rome, and he founded and ordered churches in many places. He wrote fourteen Epistles, which stand in the New Testament. Through long years of labour, hunger, beatings and danger he lived, as one life puts it, like a thread between life and death. Under the emperor Nero he was beheaded in Rome. The Church keeps his feast together with St Peter on 29 June (12 July on the Old Calendar), and its hymns call the two the leaders, or chiefs, of the Apostles. The faithful turn to St Paul as a model of true conversion, of tireless preaching and of patient endurance, and they ask his prayers for courage to make Christ known and for those who are still far from Him.

What the faithful pray for

• conversion and a change of heart for those far from Christ
• zeal and courage to make the Gospel known
• patience and endurance in hardship and suffering
• missionaries, preachers and teachers of the faith
• understanding of the Holy Scriptures