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Tuesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time Galatians 1:13–24
Imagine being remembered for the worst thing you have ever done.
Imagine your darkest moment becoming your name.
That was Saint Paul.
Before he preached Christ,
he persecuted the Church.
Before he became an apostle,
he tried to destroy the faith.
Paul does not hide this.
He tells the Galatians the truth about his past.
He had been zealous for the traditions of his ancestors.
He thought he was serving God.
But his zeal became violence.
His religion became persecution.
His righteousness became blindness.
And yet, this past did not have the last word.
Christ did.
On the road to Damascus,
Paul met the risen Lord.
Everything changed.
The persecutor became a preacher.
The enemy of the Church became an apostle.
The man who tried to destroy the Gospel
became one of its greatest witnesses.
This is the power of grace.
No past is too dark for God.
No failure is stronger than Christ.
No sinner is beyond the reach of mercy.
Paul’s honesty is important.
Many of us would prefer to forget our sins.
Paul remembered his past,
not to remain trapped in shame,
but to remember how much Christ loved him.
The same happened to the other apostles.
They misunderstood Jesus.
They were afraid.
When He was arrested, they ran away.
And yet, the risen Lord called them brothers
and sent them to proclaim the Gospel.
This is how God works.
He does not always choose the perfect.
He chooses the weak,
the wounded,
the forgiven,
and makes them witnesses.
After his encounter with Christ,
Paul went away for a time.
He needed silence.
He needed reflection.
He needed to understand his new life.
Then he returned and began to preach the faith he once tried to destroy.
And the churches glorified God because of him.
They said:
The one who once persecuted us
is now preaching the faith.
That is conversion.
That is grace made visible.
We may not have a past as dramatic as Paul’s.
But we all have things we would rather hide.
We all have sins,
failures,
wrong choices,
and plans that were not God’s plans.
So today we can ask:
Do I allow my past to define me?
Or do I allow Christ to transform me?
What part of my life still needs grace?
What mission might God be preparing for me?
Paul teaches us:
we are not prisoners of our past.
God’s grace is stronger than our failures.
And His plan for us is greater than anything we could imagine.
Biblical Reflections on the Gospel of Matthew
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition,
copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council
of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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© 2025 Krakus.
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