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Question

Good evening, Father Angelo,

my name is Mimmo and, in relation to Saint Paul, I would like to know, specifically, how his preaching in Lystra began since I have read that, in this city, he turned directly to the pagans and, therefore, not to the jews and proselytes in the synagogues.

I am asking you this also in relation to the possibility of being able to bring to faith atheist people and foreign pagans in our society, albeit so technological.

Best regards and Happy Easter (2018)

Answer from the priest

Dear Mimmo,

  1. The Acts of the Apostles do not tell us how Saint Paul and Barnabas have begun their preaching to the pagans.  Certainly, in Lystra, they were favored by an amazing miracle, as we are told in At 14, 8-10: “At Lystra there was a crippled man, lame from birth, who had never walked.  He listened to Paul speaking, who looked intently at him, saw that he had the faith to be healed, and called out in a loud voice, “Stand up straight on your feet.” He jumped up and began to walk about”.  It must be noted that the miracle man had good will.  He had started to listen to Saint Paul and “he had the faith to be healed”.
  2. The people seeing a paralytic, crippled since birth, standing up, persuaded that such prodigy can only be accomplished by the gods, started to think that two divinities, precisely Hermes and Zeus, descended on earth. Therefore, they started to shout in their “Lycaonic dialect: “The gods have come down to us in human form.” (At 14, 11). Because the people spoke a dialect, Paul and Barnabas, initially, did not understand, nor did they object to their preparations to offer a sacrifice to Zeus, whose temple was at the doors of the city.  But, when they did understand “….rushed out into the crowd, shouting: “ Men, why are you doing this?  We are of the same nature as you, human beings.  We proclaim to you good news that you should turn from these idols to the living God”  (At 14, 14-15).
  3. From the speech they made to the people, then, we can understand from where their preaching to the pagans had begun.  They started from those things about God we are able to comprehend with our reasoning.  After all, Saint Paul, in his letter to the Romans, shows himself persuaded that it can be possible to talk about God starting from here: “ For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them.  Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made” (Rm 1,19-20).
  4. Here is the speech that Saint Paul made after holding back the people from their desire to offer a sacrifice to Zeus : “We proclaim to you good news that you should turn from these idols to the living God, “who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.”  In past generations he allowed all Gentiles to go their own ways, yet, in bestowing his goodness, he did not leave himself without witness, for he gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filled you with nourishment and gladness for your hearts.”  (At 14,15-17)
  5. This is a summary of what Paul said.  Surely, then, Saint Paul, in his preaching will have announced Jesus Christ presenting Him as “ the great God and of our savior Jesus Christ” (Tit 2,13) and he will have said that God- although revealing himself among the Jewish- nevertheless, He never abandoned the pagans since He gave to them, as well, the means to be able to know Him and love Him.   Indeed, the spectacle of the universe and the order that reigns in it, naturally lead the human reason to the knowledge of God and His main attributes.  Also, he will have said that He was close to them through the natural law to show them what it was the good to practice and the evil to escape from.
  6. He will made a speech among the same lines also at the Areopagus of Athens, as well : “He made from one the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions, so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us.  For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’ as even some of your poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ (At 17,26-28).  Referring to an inscription to the “Unknown God”, Saint Paul had begun saying: “What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you”  (At 17,23)
  7. Even today, our preaching must begin from the so-called preamble of faith and, therefore, it must speak exactly about God from as much as human reason can know. More and more refined scientific and technological knowledge lead to God and to his infinite wisdom and omnipotence.  Everything that science has so far told us and everything that in the future will tell us until the end of the world is nothing but a sparkle of His infinite knowledge, as Sirach’s book reminds us:  “How beautiful are all his works, delightfull to gaze upon and a joy to behold!” (Sir 42,22)
  8. From this assumption, it is much easier to show the reasonableness of our faith.  Nothing we believe in is contrary to the needs of the reason.  Faith, rather, gives them the most profound and exact answer.
  9. However, it must always be remembered that the fruits of preaching cannot be obtained only by accurate reasoning and speech.  Doctrinal preparation is necessary and irreplaceable because the faith ordinarily arises from listening, as Saint Paul says: “Thus faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.  For this reason, when he came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me;  holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight in.  Then I said, “As is written of me in the scroll, Behold, I come to do your will, O God.” (Eb 10,5-7).
  10. Therefore, the efficacy of preaching depends also from the sacrifices and from the prayers that we supplement it with.  Pope John XXIII in his encyclical “From the beginning of our priesthood” wanted to remind us of it with the persuasive example that is given to us by the Saint Curato d’Ars : …” These are the prayers he addressed to heaven as he began his parochial ministry : “My God, make the sheep entrusted to me come back to a good way of life.  For all my life I am prepared to endure anything that pleases you.” (76)  And God heard these fervent prayers, for later our saint had to confess: “If I had known when I came to the parish of Ars what I would have to suffer, the fear of it would certainly have killed me.” (77)  Following in the footsteps of the great apostles of all ages, he knew that the best and most effective way for him to contribute to the salvation of those who would be entrusted to his care was through the cross.  It was for them that he put up with all sorts of calumnies, prejudices and and opposition, without complaint;  for them that he willingly endured the sharp discomforts and annoyances of mind and body that were forced upon him by his daily administration of the sacrament of Penance for thirty years with almost no interruption;  for them that this athlete of Christ fought off the powers of hell; for them, last of all, the he brought his body into subjection through voluntary mortification.”  Almost everyone knows his answer to the priest who complained to him that his apostolic zeal was bearing no fruit: “ You have offered humble prayers to God, you have wept, you have groaned, you have sighed.  Have you added fasts, vigils, sleeping on the floor, castigation of your body?  Until you have done all of these, do not think that you have tried everything.”(78)
  11. This applies to everyone: for those who are engaged in the preaching’s front and for all the christians, called to spread the Kingdom of God in the same way in which our Redentor spread it.

Wishing you to be in the forefront in the preaching’s matter and in those of the sacrifices and prayers, I heartily remember you to the Lord and I bless you.

Father Angelo