examination of the heart 334 FOR THE FEAST OF THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL, APOSTLE Before Holy Communion 1. “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute [M]e?” (Acts 9:4). Consider that it is customary for God to rouse up great sinners by powerful inspirations or words that crush their heart like a hammer. Consider now, whether He does not cry out against you too in the same words: “Why do you persecute [M]e?” Through grace I made you my friend; yet you behave as an enemy by turning away from me to vain things, to frivolous amusements, to the world, and to sensuality? For you I carried the Cross and was hung upon it; and you, embracing your own will, treat the spiritual cross and mortification with abhorrence. “Why do you persecute [M]e?” 2. “Who are you, Lord?” (Acts 9:5). It is proper to a wise man who wants his soul to be converted to look for good inspirations and to embrace and fulfill them. But as for you, are you not indeed neglecting divine inspirations? When a thought inspired by God comes to you, for example this or a similar one: “Wake up from your sleep” (Eph 5:14), will you wake up, you, who are oppressed by the sleep of so many imperfections? Won’t you jump up? Won’t you cry out, sighing: “Truly the Lord has spoken”? “I will rise,” therefore, “and will go about the city: in the streets and the squares; I will seek [H]im whom my soul loves” (Cant 3:2); and the later I start looking for [H]im, the more urgently I will try to find [H]im. 3. “Lord, what do you want me to do?” (Acts 9:6). Behold, how quickly Saul is transformed into Paul: he casts away his own will, and he seeks the divine will. He does not want to persecute Christ anymore, but instead he wants to follow Him.148 O you, most fortunate one! If you would have today such noble intentions of denying yourself! If you would change from a 148 In the Latin there is a play on words that cannot be translated: “non vult amplius Christum persequi, vult sequi.”
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