25 January 2027 · Syro-Malankara Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malabar Rite · Latin Rite · മലയാളം
“that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” John 17:21
Our Church keeps the Conversion of Paul with the prayer of Jesus for unity. Saul, “still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord”, is thrown down by a light from heaven and hears: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Blind for three days, he waits in Damascus, neither eating nor drinking. Paul later tells the Galatians the whole story without hiding his past: “I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it.” Then the churches of Judea “only heard it said, ‘The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.’ And they glorified God because of me.”
The Gospel is from the prayer of Jesus the night before he died: “that they may all be one… so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” Division among Christians hides Christ from the world; unity reveals him. Paul, who once tore the Church apart, became the great builder of its unity. Our own Church's reunion with the See of Rome in 1930, under Mar Ivanios and his companions, sprang from that longing. Today we also give thanks for the eparchies of Pathanamthitta and Puttur, erected in 2010, and pray that our Church may always be a bridge of communion.
Theme: “That they may all be one… so that the world may believe.”
The persecutor transformed, and the prayer of Jesus for unity.
“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26
“But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”” Acts 9:6
Apply: Pray for someone hostile to the faith.
“Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”” Isaiah 6:8
“they only heard it said, “The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.”” Galatians 1:23
Apply: Share your own story of grace with someone.
“I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms.” Ezekiel 37:22
“that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” John 17:21
Apply: Do one act of friendship toward Christians of another Church.
Grace turns persecutors into apostles.
Unity among Christians lets the world see Christ.
Take-home resolution: Pray daily for Christian unity.
Dear friends, today we keep the Conversion of St Paul. Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples, is thrown down by a light from heaven and hears: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? (Acts 9:4).
Paul does not hide his past: I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. Then people said: the one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy (Galatians 1:13, 23). No one is beyond grace.
The Gospel is Jesus' prayer: that they may all be one, so that the world may believe that you have sent me (John 17:21). Division hides Christ; unity reveals him.
Our Church's reunion in 1930 was born of the longing for unity. Today we thank God also for the eparchies of Pathanamthitta and Puttur, and pray that we may always be a bridge of communion. Amen.
Children, Saul was against Jesus, but Jesus changed him into St Paul! Jesus prays that all Christians may be one big family.
Lord Jesus, you turned Saul the persecutor into Paul the apostle. Make all your disciples one, as you and the Father are one, so that the world may believe. Bless the eparchies of Pathanamthitta and Puttur, and keep our Church a bridge of communion. Amen.
Three readings tell one story from three sides. Acts gives the event: a man on a road, a light, a voice, and blindness. Galatians gives Paul's own telling, years later, without excuses: God “was pleased to reveal his Son to me”. John gives the prayer of Jesus the night before he died, “that they may all be one”. The man who tried to tear the Church apart became a builder of her unity, and the voice he heard on the road already told him why: to hurt Christ's disciples is to hurt Christ. The key words are call, revelation and one.
Setting.
Saul first appears at the stoning of Stephen, where the witnesses lay their coats at his feet (Acts 7:58), and he then goes after the believers in Jerusalem (8:1–3). When many of them scatter, he goes further. Damascus lay several days' journey to the north and had a substantial Jewish community. Many scholars place this event in the mid-thirties of the first century.
Saul acts out of zeal for God as he understands it, not out of cynicism (compare Galatians 1:14; Philippians 3:6). Saul, the disciples and the synagogues he names were all Jewish, so this is a struggle inside the Jewish community of that time. It is not a contest between Jews and Christians as we use those names today, and it gives no ground for blaming the Jewish people.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest” (9:1)
“Breathing” is almost literal: this is the air he lives in. Grace meets him at the height of his sin, not after a slow improvement.
“He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”” (9:4)
The voice does not say “my disciples”. It says “me”. This is the seed of what Paul later teaches about the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12, 27).
“He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” (9:5)
“Lord” may be only a respectful address at first, but it becomes the truth. For Saul, a crucified man he took for a false Messiah is alive and speaks from heaven. Everything he thought he knew must be rebuilt.
“Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.” (9:8)
The man who came to lead others away bound is now led by the hand.
“For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.” (9:9)
Many readers hear a passage through death to life in the three days, and a preparation for the baptism he receives from Ananias (9:18). Fasting before baptism is an ancient Christian practice.
How the Church reads it.
St Augustine, preaching on the Ascension, says that Christ, though seated in heaven, still suffers on earth in his members; that is why the Head cried out, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (in substance). The Catechism points to Paul's conversion as the moment he proclaimed Jesus as Son of God (CCC 442, quoting Galatians 1:15–16 and Acts 9:20). The same teaching on the Church as Christ's Body is set out in CCC 787–795. Whatever is done to the least of his people is done to him (compare Matthew 25:40).
Setting.
Paul writes to Churches in Galatia that are troubled by teachers who question his authority and his Gospel. He answers with his own story. He wants to show that his Gospel did not come from a human source: he received it by “a revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:12). So he is careful about who he saw, where, and when. This is the only first-hand account of his calling apart from brief mentions, and he gives it for a purpose, not as autobiography.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it.” (1:13)
Paul does not hide this. For this reason he calls himself the least of the apostles (1 Corinthians 15:9). He says it with shame about his own actions; it is not a judgement against Israel, whom he never stopped calling his own (Romans 9:3–5; 11:1).
“But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being,” (1:15–16)
In this one sentence God is the one who acts: he sets apart, calls and reveals, and Paul receives. Mission is part of the call from the first moment.
“but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother.” (1:19)
On the word “brother”, see the question below.
“they only heard it said, “The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.”” (1:23)
The Churches he had harmed do not hold on to the grudge.
“And they glorified God because of me.” (1:24)
This may be the most beautiful line of the passage. The people he wounded give God the glory for him.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism quotes these very verses when it speaks of faith in Jesus as Son of God: Paul's preaching begins from this revelation (CCC 442). St John Chrysostom, who preached seven homilies in praise of Paul, loved to show how fully grace had transformed this man (in substance). For the Church, Paul's past is a permanent lesson: no sinner is beyond the reach of God's call.
Setting.
John 17 is the prayer of Jesus at the end of the Last Supper, as he goes to his Passion. Christian tradition calls it his “priestly” prayer (CCC 2747). In vv. 1–5 he prays for his own glorification and in vv. 6–19 for the disciples at the table. Today's verses reach beyond the table to every believer, ourselves included.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
““I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word,” (17:20)
You and I are named in this prayer. Faith comes down to us through a chain of living witnesses.
“that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (17:21)
Unity is not only for our own comfort. It is the sign by which the world comes to believe, so division among Christians hides Christ.
“I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (17:23)
The last surprise of the passage: the Father loves believers as he loves the Son.
How the Church reads it.
The Second Vatican Council begins its decree on ecumenism with this thought: division among Christians openly contradicts the will of Christ and scandalises the world (Unitatis Redintegratio 1), and it recalls this prayer in the next section (UR 2). St John Paul II took the words as the title of his encyclical Ut Unum Sint (1995). The Catechism says that Christ always gives his Church the gift of unity, and that the Church must always pray and work for it (CCC 820). The final goal of God's whole plan is our entry into the unity of the Blessed Trinity (CCC 260). St Cyril of Alexandria, commenting on this chapter, saw the one Eucharistic Body as the bond that makes believers one with Christ and one another (in substance).
Did Paul change his religion on the road to Damascus?
He met Jesus as the Messiah of Israel, and that changed everything. But he never stopped worshipping the God of Israel or calling himself an Israelite (Romans 11:1). For this reason many scholars prefer to speak of a call as well as a conversion, and Paul himself uses the language of a prophet's call. The word conversion remains true in the deepest sense: he turned from his sin and his former life to Christ.
Acts 9:7 says his companions heard the voice; Acts 22:9 says they did not. Is this a contradiction?
Acts 9:7 says they “heard the voice but saw no one”; Acts 22:9 says they “saw the light but did not hear the voice”. Luke kept both tellings in one book and saw no problem. A common explanation is that they knew something was happening, a sound and a light, but only Saul understood the message and saw the Lord.
Galatians calls James “the Lord's brother”. Did Mary have other children?
No. The Church teaches Mary's perpetual virginity. In the languages of the Bible the word for brother can include close relatives. The Catechism explains that James and Joseph, called brothers of Jesus, are sons of another Mary, and that they are close relations of Jesus (CCC 500). Some Eastern Fathers thought of them as Joseph's children by an earlier marriage. All agree on Mary's virginity.
This reading speaks closely to Malankara Catholics. Syria and Cilicia (Galatians 1:21) are the home ground of Paul's early mission, and at Antioch the disciples were first called Christians (Acts 11:25–26). The West Syriac tradition we inherit traces its roots to that city, and the chief Anaphora of our Holy Qurbono bears the name of Mar Yakob, the James of today's epistle. On 20 September 1930 the bishops Geevarghese Mar Ivanios and Jacob Mar Theophilos entered into full communion with the Bishop of Rome, so our Church has its own reason to treasure this prayer of Jesus. We pray it with love for our sister Churches, and with humility about our own part in the wounds of division. The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity closes today.